The Proa Foundation opened “El dorado. A territory”the first of a series of exhibitions that connect three territories and three institutions, which worked on the implications ofthe myth of Eldorado for almost two years. Described by Graciela Sarti in 1990 as a “region of incalculable riches, whose image arises from the distorted account of the ceremonies of the Chibchas, in the lagoon of King Guatavita, which later unfolds in the imaginary of the mythical city of Manoa”, that utopia who pushed the conquest of america, was consolidated as a starting point to inquire about the survival of the myth, throughout the centuries. Directors of the three institutions involved: Americas Society, Museo Amparo and Fundación Proa, at the request of an idea from Adriana Rosenberg (Proa), they focused on deepening a reflection that materialized in this first project, noting that the strength of the myth remains intact, although other more valued assets such as lithium are also treated today.
The genesis of El Dorado It began with a seminar coordinated by Edward Sullivan that covered topics such as dreams, trade, greed, travel, heaven and hell, and where some invited experts addressed the dimensions of gold as a metal, support or relic, and attire; while others focused on the artists’ productions, as contemporary resonances of the myth. “The Golden. A Territory” is not an itinerant exhibition, but encompasses relationships between images, texts and works that begin in La Boca at Fundación Proa Argentina and will continue in Mexico at the Museo Amparo in Puebla and then at the headquarters of the Americas Society in New York. Although the three institutions will be working on the same theme, the conclusions and the artists will be a flexible material, proposed in each case as new fronts open to the interpretation of a polysemic and timeless theme.
The sample tour
In the different rooms of Fundación Proa, more than twenty artists map a universe that focuses on raw materials and the territorial, adding a profuse list of Latin American artists. Among them there are not only different trajectories and generations, but also particular approaches, according to the way in which each artist combines their relationships with that materiality and symbology. Gold, but also the diversity of valuable substances found on the continent ‒tomato, potato, cocoa, copper, etc.‒, give a sample of some metaphors linked to the phenomena of searches – utopian, commercial, etc.– but Above all, work with very specific and current materials at the regional level.
A first argumentative group begins the journey from the raft, the trip and the river associated with mirage and fantasy, as a theme, with emblematic works by Victor Grippo and Clorindo Testa. Carolina Caicedo fills the room with an immersive video that reports on the findings of gold nuggets in the Cauca River; that joins the promise of a trip in “Turismo/ El dorado”, based on the deployment of the ink drawing by Fernando Bryce from Lima.
The adjoining room is charged with a very special intimacy where the brightness is attenuated by a lighting work that allows the golden monochromes of Matías Goeritz to dazzle. There are also stelae by the Colombian Olga de Amaral, made of linen, plaster, gold acrylic paint and gold leaf that hang from the ceiling. On another wall is the assembly of remains of everyday pieces that Leda Catunda, from São Paulo, organizes to later color them with golden glitter. These works coexist with notable pieces from the Fernández Blanco Museum, where a rain cape marvelously embroidered with gold threads stands out, which highlights the symbolic value that this color has for the church, giving a frame to everything that exudes light and protection.
The table installation with earths of all the colors of the American continent occupies a powerful space in the work of Teresa Pereda. This gives way to other materials based on other commodities in our territory. There is rubber, present in two very suggestive pieces by the Mexican Betsabeé Romero, who works with real truck tires that she carves with pre-Hispanic motifs and then gilds on the leaf. Coca leaves cover an inverted map of South America, in the work of the Bolivian Gastón Ugalde. The cacao used by Santiago Montoya comes from his experience on the family plantation in the Quindío region of Colombia. He uses chocolate and 24-carat gold leaf to build “Pirámide en chocolate”, 2023. There are also the 750 flies by Andrés Bedoya that are scattered on the wall, describing his love for handmade silverware and cochineal that Tania Candiani uses, to highlight the use of that red parasite that transformed the way of producing the dye. The copper used delicately by Ximena Garrido-Lecca from Lima in her assemblies unites wood with metal in “Transmutaciones-Ensamblaje híbrido I”, from 2018.
The faces that look at the viewer in a gigantography by the historic Peruvian photographer Martín Chambí, are from a family of harvesters (“Ezequiel Arce and his potato harvest”, 1922-28). In the same room, the spectators come across a singular piece that navigates between two cultural traditions: the elaborate refinement of a table silver piece, with the use of coca leaf to chew in the “Caja coquera (Alto Perú)” , late eighteenth century.
Corn also has its display in the sample. Like vegetable gold, in the recreation of the performance of Marta Minujín “Payment of the Argentine foreign debt to Andy Warhol”, from 1985, which can be viewed on video or updated by using the staged scene for selfies. Also in the corn or corn made of bullets by the Guatemalan Benvenuto Chavajay Ixtetela that alludes to the violence in Colombia, Venezuela and Guatemala. And in the piece woven essentially with dried husks, assembled as a curtain by Evi Tártari from Tucuman, which is used to protect habitats.
The exhibition closes with an installation that levitates from the ceiling at the end of the tour. These are embossed pieces by Estela Pereda that take the shape of ammonites, that subclass of cephalopod molluscs that existed in the seas from 400 million years ago until their extinction 66 million years ago. A powerful metaphor about the eternity of its permanence as opposed to the ephemeral value that humans give to material things.
by Pilar Altilio
Image gallery
