BY MARIA GALLUCCI
Special to The News
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The OMR art group in Mexico City is presenting its artists to the public in a two-month, two-gallery celebration of the artists' most recent works. The exhibitions, "5 solos" and "This is not an invitation, it's a presentation," both kicked off last week and will run through late June.
"5 solos" is exhibiting at the OMR gallery, situated along the Plaza Río de Janeiro in the city's Roma Norte neighborhood.
"This is not an invitation" will be held in the 1940s-era house next door, which after two years of renovations opened last week as the Plaza Río de Janeiro 52 gallery, an independent showroom run by OMR owners Patricia Ortiz Monasterio and Jaime Riestra.
"These artists are quite well known internationally, but this is to show everybody their work," Miranda Ibáñez Quijano, coordinator for OMR, said of the two exhibitions.
She said while the Plaza gallery will play host to new concepts and artists, the OMR gallery will continue representing and exhibiting the works of a select group of 20 or so artists, as it has done for the past quarter of a century.
Both art presentations invite the curious and the "coleccionista" alike to stroll from room to room in the early-20th-century homes and sample the latest in conceptual art and design.
`5 SOLOS'
The "5 solos" exhibition represents the latest projects by artists Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Rubén Ortiz-Torres, Pablo Vargas Lugo, Melanie Smith and Raúl Cárdenas Torolab.
Lozano-Hemmer's piece is a documentary projected onto a blank wall.
The film follows the inauguration of his "Voz-Alta, Arquitectura relacional 15," an audio piece presented last year in Tlatelolco to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1968 student massacre that took place there.
The video features aerial shots of the city at night as megaphones project the voices of witnesses and survivors, while flashing strobe lights slice into the darkness. Fuzzy black-and-white film clips from 1968 are interspersed with still photographs showing the carnage from the massacre.
Ortiz-Torres' latest work explores Chicano identity and aesthetics in Los Angeles, experimenting with the airbrush paint used to embellish low-rider cars. Four pieces glimmer with the tiny specks of pigment; one piece, a nearly 6-foot rectangle, boasts brilliant shades of orange that descend into fiery reds, deep maroons and then into black. A second rectangle appears simply silver until bright lights transform the board into a shimmering spectrum of colors.
Vargas Lugo brings to the gallery three cardboard collages from his series "Sombras para estrellas" ("Shadows for Stars") and "Algunos eclipses" ("Some Eclipses"). Constellations are created from discarded objects, including ripped box pieces adorned with bits of torn, coarse black paper and drastically straight rays of silver and white.
Smith's exhibit includes a collection of various paintings that highlight her use of encaustic (pigments mixed with wax), airbrush and acrylic techniques. Torolab's display includes framed photographs of the group's "Mesa de Conversación" ("Conversation table"), a piece constructed from international trade materials, including wood shipping containers and recycled rubber from car tires, meant to facilitate the exchange of ideas.
`THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION'
"This is not an invitation, it's a presentation" combines conceptual artwork with pieces related to the Plaza gallery's renovation. Featured artists include Aldo Chaparro, José Dávila, Pía Camil, Julieta Aranda, Stefan Bruggemann and José Arnaud Bello.
Enormously tall windows on the gallery's first floor open up to the park's tree-filled oasis. Stacks of square posters designed by Chaparro line the intricately patterned wood floor. The posters boast bold colors and thick block letters detailing famous movie quotations, bits of conversations and song lyrics.
Dávila's piece makes art from the plastic sheeting used to protect the floor during renovations. The large rectangular shield is speckled with splotches and drops of paint, with crinkles and tears throughout.
Up the winding staircase to the second floor, Camil's "Más o menos" piece takes wood floor pieces extracted from the remodeling and forms a zigzag with the glossy black slats.
Camil, who heads the project, conceived the gallery's presentation with Bruggemann as both discussed ideas for a show that could question the legacy of conceptual art and "abandon individualistic practices in favor of collective ones," according to a gallery press release.
Down the hall, Aranda's "Untitled (Coloring Book II)" fills the wall with 48 squares and instructions to "Fill in the squares with the indicated color." Beneath each square read phrases such as "champagne toast," "rain drop" and "fond farewell."
Bruggemann's piece, vinyl block letters painted up in the third-floor loft, read "Looks Conceptual." Dávila's second piece covers the wall across the room and outlines the borders with hot pink spray paint. A bucket, jug and trash bag from the gallery's remodeling sit in the middle, the pink tracing their shapes.
Arnaud Bello's "Un montón de carbón cribado" ("A pile of sifted coal") presents three piles of charcoal dust, the first spelling the title with clearly defined letters as the last two progress with increasingly high stacks of the powder.
His piece on the walls of the first floor reads "La Mitad de La Luz Reflejada Por un Muro" ("Half of the Light Reflected By a Wall") in humongous black acrylic letters.
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