South Lands
Curated by Marcela Romer
The exhibition includes a selected group of young Chilean international artists Cristóbal León, Mariela Leal y Yael Rosenblut that have a common language for communicating their feelings through art using a variety of contemporary media and techniques as installations and Video.
THREE ARTISTS OF SOUTHLAND TERRITORIES
Text by Justo Pastor Mellado
A humorous narration of our history states that Chileans would be somewhat like the
English of South America. This has to do with the customs of enclave that the English installed in Valparaiso in the XIX century, in the northern area, where there were great salt mines.But there were two things that attempted against the English version:the opening of the Panama Canal and invention of synthetic salt. The only thing that we kept was an overflowing passion for tea and its consumption. To the point that Neruda wrote in some occasion that if in the north tea were in short supply, for sure there would be a revolution. But never did the tea become scant. A certain myth on Chilean neatness settled into discourses and in painting which was translated into a phobia to> represent the body and in a palette of very few shades.
Based on the previous matter, we can assume that Miami represents the complete opposite of the Chilean scene because it embodies everything we don’t wish to be.
And of course, with the exception of show business.For that reason, what this sample of three Chilean artists have of common is the freezing of narrations that are characterized by referring themselves to situations of high toxicity in the subject of the economy of signs. Yael Rosenblut produces fiction dependent upon a pictorial story, while Cristobel Leon subordinates his audio-visual story to cinematography’s parodic quotes. Mariela Leal installs in a vertical structure composed of scraps of a reparatory object that will never function properly. Nothing is repairable; not the audio-visual stories threaded from the original, nor the destination of symbolic amends….The lack of variety in tones of color translates into artwork which retains energy.
The curating process of Marcela Romer, of Rosario (Argentina) introduces a factor of extreme formal risk because it forces the artists to represent something that does not constitute a platform. Nevertheless, the way it is articulated has a unifying result because the appointment and objective reconstruction of the substitutes of
the body become a part of this coherent and singular proposal.
These three bodies of work fight the phobia to represent the body; creating with the body a partial object which represents desire. Because of that, this title, which uses a physiognomic resource to make the character of the piece as if it were an effect of the configurations of climate.
Mariela Leal
Mariela Leal. (Argentina). Lives and works in Santiago, Chile.Mariela graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where she studied Fine Art. She has been in numerous exhibitions in South America among them the MERCOSUR Biennale and Intercampos at Telefónica Art Center in Buenos Aires. She is part of
the MALBA (Museum of Modern art of Buenos Aires)collection and has collaborated with Carlos Trilnick, an outstanding Argentinean video artist whose work
features in the MOMA collection.
Cristobal Leon
CRISTOBAL LEON (1980)
leondooner@gmail.com
Education
2001-2003 Fine Arts, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
1999-2005 Design, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Group Exhibitions
2007 - South Lands, Hardcore Art Contemporary Space, Miami - USA. (in progress)
- Arteba, Contemporary Art Fair, La Rural, Buenos Aires - Argentina.
- Romance, Galería Animal, Santiago - Chile.
- Chile Channel, Centro Cultural Matucana 100, Santiago - Chile.
2006 - Resistance, Fall and Madness, ACC GALERIE, Weimar - Germany.
- Version Animeé, Centre Pour L’image Contemporaine, Geneva - Switzerland.
- Narraciones, Galería Ojo de Buey, Santiago - Chile
- Si, Po! The New Chilean Art Scene, Mains d’Oeuvres, Paris - France.
2005 - Obra en Construcción, Valparaíso - Chile.
2004 - Trabajos Selectos, Galería Trece, Santiago - Chile.
2003 - Conjunta II, Ex Hospital San José, Santiago - Chile.
Film Festivals
2006 - Valdivia International Film Festival, Valdivia, Chile.
- Festival Internacional de Cortometrajes de Santiago, Chile.
- Sanfic, Santiago Festival Internacional de Cine, Santiago, Chile.
Grants
2007- Fondart, Chilean Founding for the Arts.
Yael Rosenblut
Yael Rosenblut was born in 1978 in Santiago (Chile) where she currently lives and works. She studied Design at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, (Jerusalem) and later graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where she studied Fine Art. Yael has been developing film narrative concepts as art works which, in turn has led her to curate a number of exhibitions, bringing together artists engaged in developing similar themes. These curatorial projects have been shown in Museums and Galleries in South America.
Yael’s work has shown in several exhibitions in Latin America, among them, the Mercosur Biennale, Brazil. She has lived in Israel and for a time in New York, where she worked for Roebling Hall Gallery and in the production of film projects directed by Reynold Reynolds (USA) and Christoph Draeger (Switzwerland).
Yael Rosenblut, Videasta (1978). Vive y trabaja en Santiago de Chile.
Estudió Diseño en Bezalel,( Academy of Arts and Design, Israel) y luego se gradúa en Arte en la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. El trabajo de Rosenblut se caracteriza por la relación que establece entre el cine y el espacio de artes visuales. En los últimos años se ha desempeñado también como curadora, reuniendo artistas que generan obras en torno a la producción cinematográfica.
“Escena Pasional del Arte”
In this video I question the traditional role of the curator by immersing him in a historical conundrum. He is set in the painting of a Peruvian mixed-race artist, Jose Gil de Castro, who was the first republican artist of the 19th century to use art as content in lyrics for his songs.
Here, a Chilean curator sings a Chilean art song in this video as parody, putting a music video in the context of artwork and positioning the (real) curator as a rock star.
The curator’s figure moves within the music video making a criticism of the national art scene with its lyrics. By these means, the curator infiltrates the piece. Reviews are usually not art but here, it is reconfigured as art and as a critic’s work simultaneously. I try to represent the current condition (postmodern) of contemporary hybrid eclecticism by the loss of boundaries (modern) between genres and disciplines.
Yael Rosenblut