That is the name given to the exercise temporally housed at José Luis Benlliure gallery. An open exhibition that relies on the visitor’s experience, and whose tour makes sense through the interaction with it.
Submerging into this place involves a game of stairs and void, although the latter is not obvious, it is only passed through and discovered. The understanding of the curvy surface follows the gallery’s scale and next, another void limited by orthogonal murals. Once inside the curve, visitors are aware of their presence in a compressed space, since that is how its surfaces are evoked.
Two parallel murals are kept inside, which are seemingly alike: Mexico’s territory, naked before the spectator. The country materializes carved in stone, showing an anthropomorphic nature through the rock’s tectonic dimension, being able to reflect on the territory from a geographical point of view, rather than a historical one. The casting of the counterpart on the opposite mural highlights the sections which were devastated by natural and anthropic forces, which make extreme poverty, human errors, and the territory’s natural and catastrophic transformations evident, in a concrete and material way.
Touching the mural means having contact with the complexity of the land, but also becoming familiar with the language of mural art (essential within the history of Mexico) and recovering an identity discourse.
By abandoning this contact with the territory, two more pieces can be found, longitudinal and also carved on stone: the cut of an ocean to another one, originally drawn by naturalist Alexander von Humboldt and divided in two sections, from Veracruz to Mexico City and from the latter to Lázaro Cárdenas.
For further details and connection with these words, the exhibition will be open through August 17th at José Luis Benlliure gallery.
* THE STONE PIECES AND THE ILLUSTRATED SECTION THAT MAKE UP THIS EXHIBITION WERE PART OF THE ECHOES OF A LAND MEXICAN PAVILION DURING THE 16TH EDITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION, AT LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA 2018.
- WHERE: Galería José Luis Benlliure. Facultad de Arquitectura, UNAM, Ciudad de México
- WHEN: JUNE 8TH THROUGH AUGUST 17TH, 2019
- EXHIBITION BY AMBROSI ETCHEGARAY In colLaboraTION WITH Grupo Arca
PHOTOS BY SERGIO LÓPEZ