Placid Salvadoran woman (2016)
by JULIO HERNANDEZ ALEMAN
A sort of strange temporality in which different moments of history and geography coexist in the same time and space. “One foot here and one there”, as Miguel Huezo Mixco called his essay on migrants and the Salvadoran identity crisis in 2009, in which he noted the characteristic of Salvadorans living abroad as “re-territorialised in the diaspora”.
Paradoxing (2016)
by JORGE CORDON
Today it is difficult to define the identity of Salvadorans, due to a sort of cultural and economic post- colonisation, especially of countries such as the United States, which
are home to completely structured Salvadoran communities.
Whale (2016) by BORIS CIUDAD REAL
El Salvador is the second dollarized country in the world, after Ecuador. It is a country with serious social problems linked to violence that, in turn, are the result of the migrations that took place before, during and after the civil war (1979-1992), and its gaze is firmly focused abroad. Gangs control the society through fear. The alternative is to emigrate and become a citizen of the diaspora, where Salvadorans live in a sort of non-place, where the social relations of nostalgia and belonging are expressed mainly by sending money home.
Indifference (2016) by GIOVANNI GIL
This is the context in which we have undertaken the mission of collecting a point of view from each one of the artists invited to take part in this collection. Therefore we have decided to include artistic practices that start from the eighties and are linked to international avant-garde movements such as expressionism (like Antonio Bonilla or Óscar Soles, with the help of Voluntarios por el Arte, led by Salvador Llort Choussy and the Art Museum of El Salvador MARTE).
In eternity (2016)
by ALVARO PEREZ
Binding (2016) by KEVIN BALTAZAR
We managed to contact many artists of these generations and contemporary artists like Licry Bicard, who trained in academies such as the school of Valero Lecha (a Spanish painter who moved to El Salvador in the thirties and is considered one of the founding fathers of Salvadoran painting). We consider them important for this collection because we wanted to create a sort of non-stylistic chronology: it is based on the fact that we have included artists that are still active, from those born in the ’50 and ’60, moving onto those born at the end of the ’60 and the ’70, to those whose work I am particularly interested in, those from the nineties.
Even though it’s a border I promise you I won’t stop (2016)
by ERNESTO BAUTISTA
Pocket skies (2016)
by JAIME IZAGUIRRE
Such as the Adobe collective, that today includes some of the most important contemporary artists, whose work is appreciated in international art circuits, such as, for example, Simón Vega, Ronald Morán or Walterio Iraheta, just to mention a few. We must also mention the importance of the project of the El Laberinto Gallery, managed at the time by Janine Janowski (1977-2001), who hosted artistic experiments and criticism in her spaces during the war.
Wallmapu (2016)
by MALU
Her legacy and memory have today become a life project for Muriel Hasbún, her daughter and an artist in her own right, who currently lives in Washington
D.C.
Hope (2016) by TITI ESCALANTE
We then move onto the generation of artists born at the end of the ’70, whose work has returned under the spotlight and gained significance in the last 15 years. This period includes collectives such as Hétero, with artists like Luis Cornejo, Antonio Romero, Eduardo Chang, Alex Cuchilla, Danny Zavaleta, Ludwig Lemus and Ricardo Torres (most of which are still active). In their joint work they seem interested in exploring issues linked to consumerism (Eduardo Chang or Antonio Romero) and today are inspired by social practices linked to violence, such as Antonio Romero.
Heart (2016) by GUILLERMO EDUARDO ARAUJO LOZANO
The collectives have been a constant in the Salvadoran artistic production: for example the members of the Colectivo Artificio and of The Fire Theory today work both individually or together. These artists, born mainly at the beginning of the ’80, respond to social issues such as violence and emigration, from an historical perspective. This selection also includes artists born in the nineties, most of which curiously around 25 years of age (the same amount of years since the signing of the peace agreement), and even if their works are in some way linked to these themes, they are more intimist and powerful in forcing the formal limits and are independent of spaces of artistic legitimisation.
Wounded (2016)
by LIZA ALAS
Untitled (2016)
by JESUS ROMEO GALDAMEZ
Therefore we have decided to include drawers and illustrators, whose works seem relevant for the impact that the have had on current creative methods.
Stampede – Adrenalin (2016)
by VIRGINIA CORTEZ
At the same time, we have decided to include in this collection a selected group of writers published by the magazine Punto de partida (issue 195, January-February 2016), because we consider literature as a bridge between the visual and mental imagination. At the same time literature puts us in contact with El Salvador’s recent history.
Tlaloc raining (2017)
by OSCAR HUMBERTO CORNEJO
