In Praise of Magic
Opening Reception
August 7, 2021
4-8pm
at Local Project Art Space
The coronavirus pandemic is a symptom of a crisis of priorities and of excesses: in short, a crisis of knowledge. If globalization is a process from which we cannot come back, our interconnectedness is excessive on one hand and lacking on the other. In this sense, all artistic activity becomes a counter-current and an essential exercise in search for other modes of knowledge.
The exhibition In Praise of Magic presents the work of six Latin American artists scattered across the Americas: Eneida Sanches (Brazil), Jimena Schlaepfer (Mexico), Julie Brasil (Brazil/Guatemala), María de los Vientos (Colombia/Brazil), María Yolanda Liebana (United States), Mônica Lóss (Brazil/USA), Sandra Lapage (Brazil) and Vanessa Feitag (Brazil/Mexico). The exhibition consists of photography, free standing sculpture, hanging sculpture, wall sculpture, woven paper, and video projection.
This group of artists is interested in the contemplation of cosmogonies, incorporations, ornamentation, tactile sensuality, and involvement in wearable sculptures. All get engulfed, in a way, in the materiality of their creations to access different spheres, exemplifying the creative process as shamanic, in an attempt to diminish the separation between mind and universe, individual and nature.
Some artists strive for a state of trance while in process. It is an attenuated trance, if we consider religious practices such as candomblé and vodu as extreme cases of trance and shamanic possession, and if we consider attenuated states of possession when one reaches exaltation, poetic moments, esthetic wonderment, drunkenness and other intoxications.
These bodies of work present art process as shamanic practice and trance as a source of knowledge, considering diversified epistemologies and ancestralities without falling into superstition, resisting dogmas which seem to be taking humanity to a disillusioned path.
“We are machines, but non-trivial machines. Non-trivial machines: because the unforeseen, the unexpected, madness, invention can come from us.” Edgar Morin
For press queries, please contact:
Maria Yolanda Liebana
myliebana@gmail.com