XII FEMSA Biennial 2016/17

Opening on October 13, 2016, at Centro de las Artes, Monterrey, Mexico.

XII FEMSA Biennial enhances its curatorial axis by presenting Poetics of Degrowth. How to Live Better with Less?

The Curatorial Program reflects upon the relationship between contemporary art and the recent and recurring issue of economic and ecological politics.

The XII FEMSA Biennial introduces an enhanced curatorial axis by offering a space for residencies and exhibits, along with an editorial program and an exhibition, which includes a public program involving theorists, curators and artists from Mexico and abroad.

FEMSA Biennial aims to expand this axis towards curatorial practices and artistic processes that have reshaped the international art circuit in the past few decades.

Poetics of Degrowth. How to Live Better with Less?
Poetics of Degrowth. How to Live Better with Less? reviews some of the narratives of the object’s dematerialization, from an environmental, economic and social perspective, through commissioned projects and selected works.

The updates on formal reduction legacy, resource based economy, visuality and minimum gestures, art as an intellectual operation or poetic research, are indicators leading to a tendency to introduce some other poetics in which Latin American art can rewrite its ethical postulates through degrowth exercises.

From a historical point of view, Poetics of Degrowth alludes to the narrative of the dematerialization of the work of art that began in the 1960s. Consistent with this legacy, XII FEMSA Biennial analyzes the artistic strategies of the object’s dematerialization and its connection to ecological debate on degrowth. In broad strokes, these perspectives defy the economic model of development that measures social well-being and happiness through Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

By asking "How to Live Better with Less?" this edition of the FEMSA Biennial extends its narrative through the phrase "Poetics of degrowth" to reflect on how to decolonize our imaginaries from the promise of happiness sustained on consumption, accumulation of material goods and economic policies of unlimited growth.

The curatorial axis intends to bring Monterrey’s art community closer to Poetics of Degrowth. How to Live Better with Less? through Lugar Común (Common Place), a house located in downtown Monterrey that has carried out a series of gatherings, residencies, local and international artists’ exhibits, as well as an editorial program in which the audience can approach the commissioned projects and selected artworks that will be presented in the exhibition at the city’s Centro de las Artes on October 13, 2016.

Artists:
Alejandro Cartagena, Mariana Castillo Deball/Sebastián Castillo Rosales, Gabriel de la Mora, José Luis Díaz, Yolanda Ceballos, Rodrigo Hernández, Fritzia Irízar, Alfredo Jaar, Rolando Jacob, Aristeo Jiménez, Saskia Juárez, Daniel Lara Ballesteros, Miriam Medrez, Gerardo Monsiváis, Alberto Navarro, Edgar Orlaineta, Roberto Ortiz, Gabriel Peña Tijerina, Raúl Quintanilla Alvarado, Manuel Raeder, Calixto Ramírez, Sebastián Romo, Rometti Costales, Oswaldo Ruiz, Jorge Satorre, Melanie Smith, Daniel Steegmann, Tercerunquinto, Tin Dirdamal/Covachita, Marco Treviño

FEMSA Collection
Carlos Amorales, Emilio Chapela, Lygia Clark, Jorge de la Garza, Mauricio Gattás, Gertrud Goldschmidt “Gego,” Thomas Glassford, Runo Lagomarsino, Ana Mendieta, Oswaldo Ruiz, Grupo SEMEFO (Arturo Angulo, Carlos López and Teresa Margolles), Mira Schendel, Eduardo Terrazas, Diego Teo

Curatorial team:
Artistic Director: Willy Kautz
Executive Director: Gabriela Correa
Local Curator: Leo Marz
Producer: Ana Cervantes

The exhibition will be open to the public through October 2016 to January 2017

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