Eric del Castillo
EQUATORIAL LANDSCAPES
Curator: Ivana Meštrov

PM Gallery
October 13-23, 2016

Exhibition opening: Thursday, October 13 at 7pm

Equatorial landscape. A sort of demarcation line between me and the world. An agreed-upon equator – the view of and on. The geopolitics of division, the testimony of geographies of inequality. Pure ratio.

Collage. The combining of compatible and incompatible fragments and elements. Digital collage. Easily accessible compendium of ideas and images. Free circulation, appropriation, assemblage and a new life. Survival in the image and beyond.

Line. The basic element of the form. An imagined barrier between two volumes, two surfaces. Curved, straight, dotted, depending on the viewing angle. It defines the dynamics of representation, in this case stable and independent, holder of the motives and content.

Circle. The context of acceptance. Gallery. Supports frequent repetition, reprising and countless, new visual combinatorics. It suits the collage as an element, and merges well with mural-like manner of representation.

Mural, in contact with a circular surface. Attracting views in its comprehensiveness; psychological, social, sensory. It is characterized by the clarity of communicating information, an immediately recognizable scene. It can be formed in the interior, but it also fits the exterior. For a long time it has been turning the museum into our street, and the street into our museum. Marxist by belief, political and engaged by nature, it maintains (mirrors) the society/ies through hot social topics, daily statements and scenes beyond hierarchy, domination. It is often associated with the Mexican school of Muralism, an art movement in Mexico between 1920s and 1960s, which visibly influenced modern mural painting.

For Eric del Castillo, all these conceptual elements are constructive paragraphs of his long-time practice, which primarily revolves around collages, social changes, but also the eternal methodological principle of “its own“ linearity; biographical, poetic, as well as social. Using current media iconography and realistic transfer as a representational base, this contemporary and artistic seismograph builds representations, which can be a kind of déjà-vu for the viewers. Because we have already seen some of it somewhere, be it in the newspapers, on Internet portals or TV news. Visibly shaken and angry, del Castillo goes a step further, by pointing to the iconographic environment of a visual incubation of the present day. And for as long as we keep moving (turning) around the exhibition set up of Equatorial Landscapes, pictorial phantoms of parallel realities of social inequalities and geopolitical cruelty will hang over and scream above us in a manifest manner. Landscape, the model of one’s own distance and eternal opposition, a motive for compassion, and maybe even some future civil courage?

Ivana Meštrov

About the artist:

Eric del Castillo was born in Mexico City in 1962. After studying film and painting, in 1986 he began his artistic career using the techniques of collage, appropriation and remix. Although his work in the 80s was dedicated to performance, objects, interventions and installations, collage extends throughout his artistic work not only as the most important artistic technique, but as a way of thinking and acting in general. In 1995, he received fellowship from the National Fund for Arts and Culture (FONCA), Mexico, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), USA. In 1996, he was resident artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Since 1987, he had 15 solo shows, among others: Riot! Salon Galić, HULU Split, Croatia 2016, Scherzo Vol. 2. Institute for Contemporary Art. Zagreb, Croatia 2014, Scherzo. Galerija Meštrović. Split, Croatia 2013, Abductions, Instituto Cultural Mexicano, San Antonio, USA 1998. He participated in more than 100 group exhibitions. The most important are: Anthologie der Kunst. Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, 2005 and Zentrum fur Medienkunst. Karlsruhe, Germany 2004,  Open House. Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA 1996, Telling Stories/Telling Tales, The Banff Centre for the Arts. Alberta, Canada 1995, Small Worlds. Galería del Progreso. Madrid, Spain 1993, Collage of the 20th Century. Museo Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo A.C. Mexico City 1993. He lives and works in Split.

www.ericdelcastillo.eu

The realization of the exhibition was financially supported by the City Office for Education, Culture and Sports of Zagreb and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.

WORKING HOURS

Wednesday to Friday 11am – 7pm
Saturday and Sunday 10am – 6pm
Mondays, tuesdays and holidays – closed

Dom HDLU
Trg žrtava fašizma 16
10000 Zagreb