Noticias
Until January 13, 2019
Casa Luis Barragán is reviewed as a laboratory in constant construction.
November 01, 2018The exhibition, Garden with Pigeons in Flight, by Danish artist of Vietnamese origin, Danh Vo, will soon open to the public. Through a large and at the same time subtle intervention in the emblematic building, he gives an account of a living space, revealing the invisible systems behind the scenes to ensure its functioning and the tasks of conservation over the years, seeing the house as a museum in constant transformation.
Presented by Estancia FEMSA and Casa Luis Barragán, this exhibition takes on special relevance by exploring the architecture and life of the objects and people who inhabited one of the most important contemporary architectural works in the international context, revealing the temporal layers that accumulate in space and the multiple transformations it has undergone since its construction, thus noting the impermanence of its museographic speech and understanding the architecture of Luis Barragán (1902-1988) as a living archive and an active laboratory of ideas.
During the media tour, held on Wednesday morning, the artistic director of Estancia FEMSA, Eugenia Braniff, and the curator, Natalia Valencia, took part in this installation, working hand in hand with Danh Vo who is recognized worldwide for works that address historical and political events, as well as for the questioning of construction and the legacy of conflicts, values and cultural traumas.
In this regard, Braniff stressed the importance of revaluing and revisiting the Casa Luis Barragán, as a laboratory in constant construction, refering to how the architect changed it throughout his life, modifying it from walls and windows to the garden; acts that are the artist's inspiration. "What Danh does through gestures, closing spaces and opening many others, exaggerating some floral arrangements made with the housekeeper," he explained.
Through very non-invasive elements, Vo reveals an ever-changing building, "the artist made movements in the furniture of the house and opened new spaces never before accessible to the public ... he shows Barragan’s emblematic pieces in the studio, placed to show them entirely," said the historian, who recalled that next November 10 will take the formal opening of the show in a free event from 11:00 to 15:00.
For her part, Natalia Valencia emphasized the interest and special care that was taken to highlight "objects that are loaded with history and also with spaces that have a very strong history as the architecture of Luis Barragán," said the curator in charge of the project, which was commissioned from scratch for the house.
The series of light and silent gestures run through the whole house and its garden, making known for the first time, through very subtle alterations, many aspects and stages in the life of the place for the common eye inadvertent, emphasizing light, with the installation of about 500 candles, which work at times when place is not open to the public. "The majority of visitors have not seen at night all these games of light that Barragán created and that is also increased with the candles, which illuminate the east side of the house, which regularly remains in darkness," said Valencia.
The candles, made in Oaxaca through an almost extinct handcrafted process and dyed with carmine cochineal, have a very Mexican connotation, connected with the architect's interests in popular and traditional forms, representing a pre-Hispanic element that had great economic importance during the Viceroyalty. The red of the carmine cochineal also connects with Catholicism, seen by the artist as a weapon of colonialism.
Danh Vo, who left Vietnam at a very early age fleeing the war to settle in Denmark, clarifies the relationship between the inseparable elements that make up our identity, through both collective history and personal experiences. The presentation of objects based on the ready-made principle is a characteristic strategy of Danh Vo's artistic practice.
Through objects loaded with a symbolism that retains and sublimates the desire and sadness of entire individuals and cultures, Vo examines how context alters meaning. Danh Vo's work, enigmatic and poetic, skillfully dodges the didactic by exploring the power games underlying liberal societies and the fragility of our nation-state concept.
He has presented solo exhibitions in museums such as the Guggenheim in New York, the SMK in Copenhagen and the National Gallery in Singapore, he has also participated in the international art exhibition of the 55th Venice Biennale (2012) and represented Denmark in the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) with the exhibition Mothertongue.
Garden with Pigeons in Flight, can be visited by appointment from November 10 to January 13 2019, Monday to Sunday, at Casa Luis Barragán, located at General Francisco Ramírez No. 14, Col. Daniel Garza in Mexico City.
For further information please visit, http://www.casaluisbarragan.org
Mexico
