Kunstforum meets Mexico

Article at  Kunstforum Okt-Nov 2011 by Michael Nungesser, Mexico Trifft Berlin at Gallery Emerson in Berlin.
click on the photo

Berlin Explores Violence in Mexico

Berlin Explores Violence in Mexico by Yaotzin Botello, Article at Newspaper Reforma Sec. Cultura, Mexico 29 July 2011 on the exhibition at Gallery Emerson Berlin.

Mexiko trifft Berlin, 6. Sommerfest der Internationalen kunst, Art-in-berlin online magazine

6. Sommerfest der Internationalen kunst, Open PR, das offene pr portal.

Mexico meets Berlin

Iván Abreu

Marisa Polin

Heriberto Quesnel

Mexiko trifft Berlin
A group exhibition of five Mexican artists at EMERSON Gallery in Berlin: 

Iván Abreu, Vanessa Farfán, Lucero Hernández, Marisa Polin, Heriberto Quesnel.

Opening:  22.07.11   7pm
Exhibition:  23.07.2011 - 04. 09.2011
Tuesday -Friday  2 -7 pm.

-Iván Abreu (La Habana Cuba 1967). Video, drawings, performance.
Iván Abreu's work articulates art, design and technology by using multiple media such as electronic devices, software development, sound experimentation, Internet, industrial design, documents, video and photography. For Abreu the use of technology as an artistic strategy allows the coupling of situations that were not designed to operate together to create singular effects. Technology activates these unions in art that in referencing social and political, transforms relations from cause and effect to cause and consequence.
-Vanessa Farfán (Mexico City 1977). Painting, installation.
Using different media as paint, threats, fabric and objects, her works show the result of situations created by intention or by accident. Structured spaces are transgressed by the movement of the elements which live in there. For Farfán, the relation space+time=movement is an important formula in her work.
-Lucero Hernández (Jalisco, México 1980). Installation, performance.
The women's murders in Ciudad Juárez, the role of the women in the Mexican society and the cultural shock are the topics of Lucero's work. In her performances, Hernández takes part of the Mexican everyday life and she places it out of context,making the meaning of this "Mexican situations" stronger.
-Marisa Polin (Mexico City 1965). Painting.
Images from newspapers and publications are reinterpreted in paintings. The work of Polin makes a synthesis of the weak and strong points of contemporary Mexico, always with a critical point of view.
-Heriberto Quesnel (Mexico City 1971). Painting, collage.
Critic of the social behavior through the cultures , Heriberto uses humor to point out the terrifying situations
of the political and social structures nowadays. He uses commercial, social, cultural or political icons to play around the context and the meaning of them.

EMERSON Gallery 
Gartenstr. 1, 10115 Berlin / (030) 24 04 72 95 /
info@emersongallery.de  / http://www.emerson-gallery.de/
Tue-Fr   2 - 7 pm

 

Do you want to see my working studio? Trendbeheer.

Before the big changes

Last photographs before dividing my studio in two (countries):

Gravity doughnuts

Kinke Kooi, Gravity 2010

Marisa Polin, Fruit Bowl 2009

Each Face a World

Article at The Hague Newspaper: 
Den Haag Centraal, Uit Agenda, 3 June 2011 The Hague, Each face a World by Vera de Jonckheer, on the Open Atelier and Marisa Polin's must recent works.
To read it (in Dutch)

From South Africa with Love

Photographs recently taken at Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, South Africa 2011. The last two are at Mzoli's, one of the nicest places I visited.

©Marisa Polin

Invitation to My Open Studio

I hope you can come to my open studio, a kind of good bye to things as they are now.

The last works from the serie Guilty and some of the last portraits will be there either hanging or stapled for you to look at them. Also you could see some of the recent mini sculptures.

The garden will be open too.

On that day 44 other art studios in Benoordenhout will be open (maps available).

See you Sunday 5th of June between 11am and 5 pm at Jozef Israelslaan 36b, Benoordenhout in The Hague. www.marisapolin.com

Ambition

Ambition. (Monica Pretelini, the candidate's wife). 2011©Marisa Polin 

My last painting, based on Mexico State's governor Enrique Peña Nieto's wife who died 4 years ago.

The Hope leaves Mexico

La Esperanza de Praxedis, 2010, Marisa Polin

Marisol Valles García leaves Praxedis G. Guerrero, near Ciudad Juárez after five months as Police Chief asking political asylum in the United States.

Surrealist as Mexico

The kidnappers' photo published one month after El Jefe was released.

Diego Fernandez de Cevallos "El Jefe" by Marisa Polin

One step further in the absurd irony of what happened and not happened to El Jefe Diego Fernandez de Cevallos.

His supposedly captors "Los Misteriosos Desaparecedores" just sent a new letter with this phtotograph to Navegaciones.

Here you see El Jefe already thinner and with a longer beard holding Proceso magazine with my painting based on a previously released click by the kidnappers holding a Proceso magazine with the cover of a free El Jefe as proof of being alive after his disappearance. 

It is so absurd that it is easy to think that it is made with photoshop, I first thought so, but now I know is not.

Via @CiudadanoOscar

Free

The cover of "El Jefe" with Marisa Polin's painting.

The photo sent by the kidnappers.

The cover from Proceso he is holding on the shot in captivity.

Photoshop: The parody.

Photoshop parody Endless El Jefe

Photoshop: Navidad

What is a narco message?

We keep our word (Somos de Palabra), 2011, Marisa Polin

Here two paintings I am working on, still fresh, based on the different messages that drug dealers and criminals leave not only for their enemies but also for the press,  the politicians and the public.

They reflect their mean minds and also a lot about their own background.

Grenade, 2011, Marisa Polin

The first painting of the year

Back to the destiny, 2011, Marisa Polin

Sorry that I can only now post something. I have a good excuse, I was painting and to proof it here is a photo of the very first painting of the year: Back to the destiny. It is based on a poem by K. P. Kavafis. It will be exhibited at the group exhibition Ithaca or Poetry Project IV at World Art Delft in The Netherlands. It opens 29 January 2011.

Ithaca

When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Do not fear the Lestrygonians
and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your body and your spirit.
You will never meet the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not raise them up before you.
Then pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from those who have knowledge.
Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithaca mean.

-K. P. Kavafis (C. P. Cavafy), translation by Rae Dalven

Drugs culture kidnaps the fine arts

El Economista, image El Jefe by M.Polin

This article talks about the influence of the Mexican Drugs War in the arts, days after the "official" release of the ex-presidential candidate and lawyer Diego Fernandez de Cevallos. He was kidnapped for 7 months. This information is in part what the title of the article by Vicente Gutierrez from El Economista is refering to. The image of the article is my painting El Jefe based on the photo made of Fernandez de Cevallos by his kidnappers.

English Excerpt from: 
The narco kidnaps the fine arts
Vicente Gutiérrez / El Economista, Mexico / 22 December 2010

Film, theater, art installations, music, novels, art and television series are inspired by drug trafficking and violence in Mexico to create works of art. But the narco goes beyond the social phenomenon that causes the lifestyles of drug dealers, that many  that many young people copy in their dream to be rich like them. Increasingly, the artists take the drugs world as a theme to create.
"It is impossible to ignore the horror that exists in many cities, borders and roads of the country and this affects all activities or people," said the writer Martin Solares.
"In Mexico's artists have begun to reflect on their creations the increasing daily violence or the presence of drug traffickers. Even in the Mexican poems and novels  occasionally appears a testament to the violence! "He said. After the federal government declared war on drug trafficking, the issue has been more present than ever in the Fine Arts and has become the "tough" face of Mexico in the world.  Just remember that for the 53 Venice Biennale, the artist Teresa Margolles showed an installation of a room soaked with blood and debris of various murders and had jewelry made with scrap from the drugs war.
The art curator Cuauhtémoc Medina explained that "jewelry made from fragments of windshield glass, embroidered in gold on blood and sound recordings of the landscapes of death aphorisms murderers, they all converge to produce a space for reflection, physical threat and anxiety."
Or what the artist Marisa Polin did in The Netherlands, who intervened a picture of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos blindfolded. Although this was the most innocent part of the exhibition where executions, beheaded, tortured and kidnapped were shown in her drawings and paintings that raised a lot of noise.
What about El Infierno / The Hell, Luis Estrada film which grossed 83 million 82 thousand 542 pesos to register as the second highest grossing film in Mexican cinema in 2010 which tells the story of an ordinary man who ends up as a drug trafficker.
etcetera...  
 

Excerpto en Español de: La narcocultura secuestra las bellas artes
Vicente Gutiérrez / El Economista, Mexico / 22 December 2010

Cine, obras de teatro, instalaciones de arte, música, novelas, artes plásticas y series de televisión se inspiran en el narcotráfico y la violencia en México para crear obras artísticas.

Pero la narcocultura va más allá del fenómeno social que provoca el estilo de vida de los narcotraficantes, ése que muchos jóvenes copian en su sueño por ser ricos como ellos.

Cada vez más, los artistas toman el narco como materia para crear.

“Es imposible ignorar el horror que se vive en tantas ciudades, fronteras o carreteras del país y esto afecta a todas las actividades o personas”, explicó el escritor Martín Solares.

“En México los artistas más exquisitos y solipsistas han comenzado a reflejar en sus creaciones el aumento de la violencia cotidiana o la presencia de los narcotraficantes. ¡Hasta en los poemas y en las novelas de ciencia ficción mexicanas aparece de vez en cuando un testimonio de la violencia!”, agregó. Después de que el gobierno federal declaró la guerra al narcotráfico, el tema ha estado más presente que nunca en las Bellas Artes y se ha convertido en el rostro “duro” de México en el mundo. Basta recordar que para la 53 Bienal de Venecia, la artista Teresa Margolles presentó instalaciones sobre el narco con una habitación empapada con sangre, residuos de distintos asesinatos y joyas hechas con desechos de la guerra del narcotráfico.

El curador de arte Cuauhtémoc Medina explicó que “joyas hechas con fragmentos de parabrisas, aforismos asesinos bordados en oro sobre sangre, sonidos grabados en los paisajes de la muerte, todos ellos convergen para producir un espacio de reflexión, amenaza corporal y ansiedad”.

O lo que hizo en Holanda la artista plástica Marisa Polin quien intervino una foto de Diego Fernández de Cevallos con los ojos vendados, aunque es la pieza más inocente de la exposición ante los ejecutados, decapitados, torturados y secuestrados que aparecen en sus dibujos y pinturas que levantaron mucho ruido.

Qué decir de El Infierno, película de Luis Estrada que recaudó 83 millones 82 mil 542 pesos para colocarse como la segunda cinta más taquillera del cine mexicano en el 2010 donde relata la historia de un hombre común que acaba como narcotraficante.

etcetera...
To see more referring press.

We are next at Tupajumi

Finally showing the non Dutch born artistis on the third day of the 'Dutch Treat' exhibition organized by Tupajumi Foundation in Bergen, Norway. 
 To see all the photos.

 

Pierre Courtin

Curator Pierre Courtin from Duplex 10m2 at Sarajevo visiting my studio. An hour talk at high speed. It was a good exchange of ideas.

Thanks to Stroom.
To see more faces in art. 

Photo ©Marisa Polin

Dutch Treat

The Tupajumi Foundation in collaboration with KNIPSU, a popular Artist-Run-Gallery, which is a part of the Flaggfabrikken are organising a groupshow called Dutch Treat in Bergen, Noorwegen, 2-4 December 2010.

This group exhibition will treat the visitors on a good and up to date reference of what is currently happening within the Dutch contemporary Art Scene. The exhibition will show the local, national and international qualities of the current contemporary Dutch Art.

I will be participating together with (the artists, links and some images are):

Atladóttir and d'Ors

Marc Bijl

Jason Coburn

BC Epker
Felix and Mumford
Stefan Gross
Merijn Hos

Maria Ikonomopoulou
Annabel Jeuring,

Joncquil
Jeroen Jongeleen

Filip Jonker
Annegret Kellner

Jolien Kramer

Ben Kruisdijk
Hidenori Mitsue

Marisa Polin

Dennis Roodbol

Jord Schoppink,

Simon Schrikker
Daphne ter Wee

Rozemarijn Westerink

Joris Woertman
Hanneke Quak