07.14 — 11.13.2017
Curator: Lucrecia Palacios
Opening: Thursday, July 13 7:00 p.m.
Gallery 1. Level -1
This is the first solo exhibition by artist Ximena Garrido-Lecca (Lima, 1980) in Buenos Aires. Curated by Lucrecia Palacios, the exhibition is a project designed specifically for the museum's Gallery 1; it records the process whereby industrialized copper recovers its original form as "native copper," i.e. the form in which the mineral may be found in its natural state before it is extracted.
Estados Nativos extends Ximena Garrido-Lecca's experience using copper, a material she has been working with since 2013 in sculpture in which the metal takes on the shape of a fabric. Trained in London and with monographic projects in such central spaces in that city as Frieze Art and Saatchi Gallery, Garrido-Lecca confronts the powerful relation existing between mining, industry, the process of rationalizing nature and the progressive disappearance of the artisanal traditions they imply.
The first space of this exhibition presents a large spool of electric cable from which were extracted the copper filaments inside it. These threads were, in turn, melted down, obtaining copper in liquid state. Through lost wax technique, the liquid will shape the pieces displayed in the last room. In the course of a visit the viewer will see the traces of activity carried out, as well as a series of tools and smelting utensils used in the process. In a third room, the just processed forms of "native copper" will be presented in a museum-style exhibition arranged in glass cabinets and with various media used in geological displays.
In the words of the curator: "Although Estados nativos insists on the artist's concern in the face of the destructiveness of the ideology of progress, in reversing the extracting processes and industrialization of copper, the exhibition seems to question the possibilities for thinking anew about the relation we establish with nature and, ultimately, the possibility of ceasing to take as second nature the history of modernity: how to take apart the narrative postulating the manifest destiny of nature as resource and the geopolitical division of nations in relation to the resources each of them has."
Through the “renaturalization” of copper, Estados nativos is an invitation to reflect on what is lost in the passage from natural copper to industrialized copper, and what other forms and possible values (social, cultural, economic) the unexploited mineral contains. Like other works by Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Estados nativos also is a sample case of artisanal traditions destined to fade away but which are still preserved.
With the support of Embajada de Perú en Argentina and British Council.
Download the press release
Ximena Garrido-Lecca
Lima, Perú, 1980.
She studied at the Universidad Católica del Perú and after completing a specialization course earned a Master's in Arts at the Shaw Byam School of Art in London. Her solo exhibitions include: Insurgencias botánicas [Botanic Insurgencies]: Phaseolus lunatus, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros [Siqueiros Public Art Room], Mexico City (2016); Arquitectura de humo [Architecture of Smoke], 80m2 Livia Benavides, Lima (2015); Paisaje antrópico [Anthropic Landscape], Max Wigram Gallery, London (2012), a monographic project at MIMA (Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art) (2012), El Porvenir [The Future], Mimmo Scognamiglio, Milan, Italy (2011), a monographic project at the Frieze Art Fair, London; at Revólver Gallery, Peru (2011) and at the Civic Room, London (2010). Her most recent group shows include: Arte Latinoamericano de Roaming, Arte Carolina del Norte, Bogotá (2013), Remesas: flujos simbólicos / movilidades de capital [Remittances: Symbolic Flows/ Mobilities of Capital], Centro Fundación Telefónica, Lima (2012), The Curator’s Altera Pars, Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London (2012), What?, Mimmo Scognamiglio, Milan (2011), No Color in Your Cheeks Unless the Wind Lashes Your Face, curated by Timothée Chaillou (2011), Newspeak: British Art Now, The Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2011), Newspeak: British Art Now, Saatchi Gallery, London (2010) and Identity Theft, Mimmo Scognamiglio, Milan (2010).
Guided tour with the artist and curator
Friday, July 14, 12:00 p.m.
Journalists can confirm their attendance at prensa@malba.org.ar. Limited space available.
Public Programs
Accompanying the exhibition Native States by Ximena Garrido-Lecca, MALBA's public programs focus on the connections the exhibition draws with alchemy as secret knowledge of the transformation of matter and the links it establishes with criticism of the modern project of economic rationalization of nature, reviewing the history of mining in Latin America and relating it to past and present colonial policies.
The program surrounds and expands the exhibition through platforms for theoretical reflection (lectures and courses), platforms for activating the exhibition for different audiences (tours of the exhibition and educational programs for teenagers), and platforms for surveying contexts and dissemination (film series, seminars on literature, workshops) organized by the museum's education, literature, film, and art & thought departments.
Encounter
Excedente infecundo
By Bruno Fornillo
Wednesday, July 19 at 7:00 p.m. Gallery 1, Level -1
+ INFO: http://www.malba.org.ar/evento/encuentro-excedente-infecundo/
Encounter
Los mineros del diablo
La naturaleza de la minería: extracción en América Latina
Participants: Maristella Svampa, Enrique Viale y Bruno Fornillo
Wednesday, August 2 at 7:00 p.m. Gallery 1, Level -1
+ INFO: http://www.malba.org.ar/evento/encuentro-los-mineros-del-diablo/
Class
La alquimia
Transmutación de los metales y esencias espirituales
By Leandro Pinkler
Wednesday, August 9, 16, 23, 30, and September 6, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Library.
+ INFO: http://www.malba.org.ar/evento/curso-la-alquimia-transmutacion-de-los-metales-y-esencias-espirituales/
Film Cycle
Paralelo y convergente
During October and November.
+ INFO: Coming soon.
Press Images
Permission to reproduce the images is granted solely for publication alongside press releases, reports, and reviews of the exhibition Ximena Garrido-Lecca. Native States, which will be on display at MALBA from July 14, 2017, to October 23, 2017. Request a username and password to download the images, along with an explanation of the medium in which they will be published, at sacampos@malba.org.ar.
