LA CHOLA POBLETE IN MILÁN – THE EXHIBITION “GUAYMALLÉN” ARRIVES AT MUDEC
MUDEC in Milan presented the exhibition Guaymallén, by Argentinian artist La Chola Poblete, winner in 2023 of the prestigious international “Artist of the Year” award dedicated by the Deutsche Bank to contemporary art, and who was recently celebrated with a special mention for her contribution to the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. The exhibition is curated by Britta Färber, Global Head of Art & Culture at the Bank.
After opening at PalaisPopulaire in Berlin, the “Artist of the Year” exhibition travels to MUDEC in Milan. Instead of awarding a cash prize, Deutsche Bank supports its Artists of the Year by making them known to the general public, preparing solo exhibitions and catalogues, and acquiring some of their works for the Deutsche Bank Collection, which was established in 1980 and is now one of the most important corporate collections worldwide. The choice has been to traditionally open the “Artist of the Year” solo exhibition at PalaisPopulaire, Deutsche Bank's space in Berlin dedicate to art and culture, and then to display it in other international institutions.
With the Guaymallén project, La Chola Poblete pays homage to her indigenous origins and queer identity. The exhibition, which takes its name from her hometown in northern Argentina, Mendoza, at the foothills of the Andes, combines the artist's life, roots, experience and vision into a deeply personal and forthright narrative, rich in beauty, cruelty and rebellion.
For Guaymallén, the artist designed a space that recalls the Andean Baroque architectural style, redefining Mudec Photo's spaces as an extraordinary contemporary “church of design”, a place populated by religious, political, erotic, pop-cultural and indigenous motifs and symbols overlapping each other, thus creating an immersive environment where stories of salvation, virgins, martyrs and ancient goddesses are filtered through the lenses of self-emancipation, healing and subversive claims.
-
La Chola Poblete, 2023 Foto: Tomas Wurschmidt / © La Chola Poblete
-
La Chola Poblete: Barroco Andino, 2023 Watercolor on paper, 200 x 152 cm © La Chola Poblete
-
La Chola Poblete: Sin título, 2023 Watercolor, acrylic, ink, and Colors on paper, 65 x 50 cm © La Chola Poblete
-
La Chola Poblete: Virgen de la Carrodilla, 2023 Watercolor, acrylic, and ink colors on paper, 200 x 152 cm © La Chola Poblete
-
La Chola Poblete: Virgen del Carmen de Cuyo, 2023 Watercolor, acrylic, and ink colors on paper, 200 x 152 cm © La Chola Poblete
-
La Chola Poblete: Virgen de la leche, 2023 Photograph, 152 x 160 cm © La Chola Poblete
In particular, the exhibition presents a series of new works created with the use of a very special technique, which involves baking sculptures made with bread dough, a material that has a life of its own and is transformed into something new, beyond the artist's control.
This peculiarity led to the collaboration with Panificio Davide Longoni for the Italian stage of Guaymallén, a historic Milanese bakery where La Chola baked some life size anthropomorphic sculptures, thus establishing a parallelism between the ritual of bread-making and that of artistic creation.
In addition to a series of large-scale watercolours, the exhibition will also present a new series of three photographic works where La Chola interprets the main character, drawing inspiration from mythological figures such as the Capitoline she-wolf in the work La Loba (The She-Wolf), as well as from Christian iconography in La Virgen de la leche (Madonna Lactans), where the artist feeds with her milk into the mouth of Mormon - a religious group - thus making a clear reference to the exploitation brought about by colonialism. The third work, printed on a T-shirt, shows an extreme situation involving La Chola herself being skinned.
May interest you
TOMÁS SARACENO’S PROJECT ARRIVES AT SEOUL
The Leeum Museum of Art, operated by the Samsung Foundation of Culture, is hosting Aerocene Seoul, a three-month-long public project that connects Aerocene communities in and around Seoul as part of its public programme “Idea Museum.”
THE UNFINISHED STORIES OF LILIANA PORTER
Liliana Porter (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1941) has a long history shared with Espacio Minimo. The Madrid gallery pampers every move and celebrates the extensive relationship with the Argentinean artist, always offering her the possibility of receiving her work and witnessing its evolution. For the opening of the space's season, the landing is called Otros cuentos inconclusos, a new proposal that deals with representation and two dimensional axes —space and time— that bear witness to many of the questions raised about human relations.
MARTA MINUJIN’S FIRST RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION IN EUROPE
Intensity Life is Marta Minujín’s first retrospective exhibition in Europe, to be held at the Copenhagen Contemporary Museum.
FIVE LATIN AMERICAN ARTISTS EXHIBITING FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
The voices of Latin American artists emerge strongly in this 2024 edition of the Venice Biennale. Claudia Alarcón, Julia Isídrez and Juana Marta Rodas, Ana Segovia, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger and Claudia Andújar lead viewers on a profound journey through their cultural heritage and unique artistic practices.
POSSIBLE FUTURES AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
The Venice Biennale 2024 offers an exceptional platform for examining the challenges and opportunities facing the future. The pavilions of Japan, Germany, Switzerland and Hungary trace different forms of looking at and thinking about the world to come, projecting visions of the environment, equilibrium, adaptation, world order and, of course, collective memory.
SANTIAGO YAHUARCANI ENTERS THE MoMA COLLECTION
Crisis Galería announced the recent acquisition of the painting Cosmovisión Huitoto (2022) by the outstanding indigenous artist Santiago Yahuarcani by the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA). This extraordinary large format work, made with natural dyes and acrylic paint on llanchama, is one of the largest produced by the artist with more than two meters high and four meters wide.
WATER, CYCLES AND TRANSFORMATION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
The 2024 Venice Biennale has taken a profound interest on cyclical themes, with water emerging as a dominant motif across exhibitions. In resonance to Pedrosa’s title for this year ‘Stranieri Ovunque’, we see water as a dominant locus for the subjects of travel, shared heritage and fluctuation. On itself, water is seen (as both a vital resource and a destructive force) at the heart of the pavilions representing Greece, France, and in Otero Torres’ Arsenale installation, Aguacero. These exhibitions delve into water’s duality: as a life-giver and a potential destroyer, as a symbol of both division and connection.
THE OTHER FORMS OF ABSTRACTION IN LATIN AMERICA
The section dedicated to abstraction in the Strangers Everywhere / Stranieri Ouvunque exhibition at the Venice Biennale 2024 explores how artists from the Global South -particularly those from Latin America- pursued less rigorous forms, undulating lines and a vibrant color palette stemming from references of their own.
