TRANS/CIS - Jorge Eielson e Emilio Rodriguez-Larrain
dal 19 aprile al 23 giugno 2018
In the concert of contemporary Peruvian art, Jorge Eielson (1924-2006) and Emilio Rodríguez-Larraín (1928-2015) have gone on from key places in a panorama to take positions where they are looked upon as founding fathers in a historical line. The consideration of the change in the critical fortune of both artists in the Peruvian scene from 1979 until today, reveals a transformation in taste and a re-centering of current art practices towards the definition of the contemporary in art for Peru. This is so clearly the case that today’s contemporary art scene could not be imaguned without them: they are figures with dazzling creative processes and paths. In the world of instant consecrations that are the mark of today, they stand as creative individualities representing integrìty and committment, audacity and wisdom and, in this way, appear as truly exemplary among those who have been accorded recognition, and act as beacons for aspiring artists.
Revolver presents a unique dialogue between the works of these two creators in the new space of the gallery in San Isidro. Not since the 1964 Venice Biennale, in which a limited area was destined to the works of the artists that conformed the Peruvian representation, has a combination of works by Eielson and Rodríguez-Larraín, been presented within the same exhibition space. Not even in the III Biennale of Trujillo in 1987 works by both have been shown at such close quarters. Their clearly differentiated creative processes, however, can be taken as proof of the richness inherent to the birth of contemporary in art, in Peru. Eielson and Rodríguez-Larraín became essential Peruvian figures during the long period of their residence in Europe, which is where their understanding of the different threads of an aesthetic national heritage was refined, while in contact with the most radical European art of the time, too, through their friendships and their status as almost fellow-travellers along the routes of the inconformist European artists of their time.
If the idea of reuniting the work of both artists seems bold it is because it seeks to use their remarkable differences as the main axis on which to build an awareness of a necessary and complementary coexistence, a cornestone of Peruvian contemporary art. There is no intention to portray a binary origin of things. Far from that, the show celebrates what is protean and different between two artists of irrepressible, daring sensibilities, and between the now hard-to-believe creative processes each one engaged in. Eielson as well as Rodríguez-Larraín belong to the lineage of unclassifiable creators that produce a plural and inexhaustible work, as —we could say— a manifestation of the ways of Nature ittself.
Curator Jorge Villacorta states: “in their artistic practice there was a place for material and objectual creation, as well as for conceptual-projectual proposals and ephemeral and labile material presences. But, whilst chance, excess and geometric precision, met paradoxicallyly in the visionary sensibility of Rodríguez-Larraín, with Eielson, materiality and color, are tautened and amalgamated in a sexed body, and generate an effluvium that joyfully aludes to uncertainty as a principle of science”.
Rodríguez-Larraín and Eielson found a raison d’ être in the arts, beyond the conventions of their time and through their works, they prove themselves to be innovative in the depths of the spirit, tireless workers for a cultural renewal that is yet to come.
Jorge Villacorta
Revolver presents a unique dialogue between the works of these two creators in the new space of the gallery in San Isidro. Not since the 1964 Venice Biennale, in which a limited area was destined to the works of the artists that conformed the Peruvian representation, has a combination of works by Eielson and Rodríguez-Larraín, been presented within the same exhibition space. Not even in the III Biennale of Trujillo in 1987 works by both have been shown at such close quarters. Their clearly differentiated creative processes, however, can be taken as proof of the richness inherent to the birth of contemporary in art, in Peru. Eielson and Rodríguez-Larraín became essential Peruvian figures during the long period of their residence in Europe, which is where their understanding of the different threads of an aesthetic national heritage was refined, while in contact with the most radical European art of the time, too, through their friendships and their status as almost fellow-travellers along the routes of the inconformist European artists of their time.
If the idea of reuniting the work of both artists seems bold it is because it seeks to use their remarkable differences as the main axis on which to build an awareness of a necessary and complementary coexistence, a cornestone of Peruvian contemporary art. There is no intention to portray a binary origin of things. Far from that, the show celebrates what is protean and different between two artists of irrepressible, daring sensibilities, and between the now hard-to-believe creative processes each one engaged in. Eielson as well as Rodríguez-Larraín belong to the lineage of unclassifiable creators that produce a plural and inexhaustible work, as —we could say— a manifestation of the ways of Nature ittself.
Curator Jorge Villacorta states: “in their artistic practice there was a place for material and objectual creation, as well as for conceptual-projectual proposals and ephemeral and labile material presences. But, whilst chance, excess and geometric precision, met paradoxicallyly in the visionary sensibility of Rodríguez-Larraín, with Eielson, materiality and color, are tautened and amalgamated in a sexed body, and generate an effluvium that joyfully aludes to uncertainty as a principle of science”.
Rodríguez-Larraín and Eielson found a raison d’ être in the arts, beyond the conventions of their time and through their works, they prove themselves to be innovative in the depths of the spirit, tireless workers for a cultural renewal that is yet to come.
Jorge Villacorta