THE IBERO-AMERICAN CURATORSHIP AFTER INÉDITOS 2024

The current edition, recently inaugurated at the center, has awarded three young Ibero-American curators for their proposals that have become, as usual, the two exhibitions that materialize their work: “Donde cruzan los humos espero una semilla”, by Maria Anna Zazzarino (Caracas, Venezuela, 1988), and “Inversión Cobra Roll”, by Julia Coelho (Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, 1990) and Renan Araujo (Santa Rita do Passa Quatro, Brazil, 1987).

The first of them does not translate into a change of expectations as anticipated in the title. In the progressive realization of the environment as the axis of exploration of certain dynamics of social exclusion or rhetoric of impact, Zazzarino maintains that essence of denunciation of a certain economic and capitalist colonialism, using a dialectic around fossil fuels as the guiding thread and image of his curatorial proposal. In fact, the name chosen for his proposal comes from the poem “Kerosén”, by Venezuelan poet Valenthina Fuentes Meleán, and serves as a starting point for this critical analysis of the fossil culture, so loved and hated in equal parts.

Through it emerge the works of Adrian Balseca (Quito, Ecuador, 1989), a video focused on his studies of those extractivist actions and their ecological impact and that of development, themes that are also the axis of the proposal of Alba Lorente (Zaragoza, Spain, 1994). Ana Alenso (Caracas, Venezuela, 1983) makes an impact with her mobile structures and assemblies made with waste materials that, before falling into disuse, are unmistakable symbols of that devotion to the vehicle and fuel. Industrial mechanisms of a conceptual nature are the starting point for Christian Lagata (Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, 1986) to show his proposal. Isabel Carralero (Madrid, Spain, 1987), focusing on the materials and their traces, the educational and historical background of the American Monique Michelle Verdin and the exercise of visibilization of the collective Nemestudio provide scenarios and point the way to reach a distant solution, inviting the viewer to imagine both the problem and the way to solve it.

The second winning proposal, “Cobra Roll Inversion”, is based on the concept of architecture and structures as a volatile part of a place, scenario or use, analyzing the criteria of torsion, location and reuse, as well as vertigo and decadence as sensations resulting from these conceptual axes. Julia Coelho and Renan Araujo have also maintained the work in duets or pairs as an indispensable part of their exhibition proposal, also reflecting their work as curators together, and which has resulted in a selection of works and artists that is magnificent for its purpose.

The qualities of the roller coaster that serves as a conceptual pretext translate into works of remembrance rather than of impact. Compiled as a series of stories of stories, the works included in this curatorial action take us back in time through the documentary by Roser Corella and David Bestué that makes us reflect on the ephemeral nature of the structures, or the relationship of the meeting point of the body with the environment, of the physical being with the structure that surrounds it and that leads to generate feelings of vertigo and nostalgia, of fear and dread, both to the physiological reaction and to the passing of time, elements that converge, in one way or another, in the works of Noela Covelo Velasco and Víctor Ruiz Colomer, Luiza Crosman and Maíra Dietrich, Mònica Planes and Àlex Palacin and Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira that are distributed irregularly until they fill the room with some of those sensations that are pursued behind the concept that moves the exhibition.

Inéditos 2024 can be visited until September 15 at La Casa Encendida, Ronda de Valencia, 2, Madrid, Spain.