Hi everybody,
Some time ago I read a contention that Modernism in Latinamerica was a replica of their European & North American counterparts.
Brazilian artist of the 1920′s came up with an idea that settled any further debate on what this old dilemma. They founded a movement called Anthropofagia (Cannibalism). In order to be Brazilian, you must eat and digest all foreign influences. That’s fun.
Life in tropics and outside the centers of power, has given way to many contradictions and paradoxes in the global environment. And, indeed, reality over there surpasses imagination. Take for instance, these two pictures that were brought to my attention by my good old buddy, the artists and performer Cesar Martinez. On the right you see the work of world famous Italian artist on the left, the result of a night partying in Mexico City.
Maurizio Cattelan stirred up controversy with this sculpture of Pope John Paul II struck by a meteorite, the piece gave his career a boost in 1999. Drunk driver in Mexico killed a man before raming his RSV onto a sculpture dedicated to the memory of Pope J.P.II, on March, 2009. (see full article on: http://www.replica21.com/archivo/articulos/m_n/570_martinez_cattelan.html).
You have to marvel at the way that reality surpasses fiction and chance becomes the one and only way of relating life and art.
When it comes to finding the discarded object or creating a new one, do you wonder about these thoughts. What does an artist need to create or recreate, recycle or rebound.
