BEST WISHES TO CLAIRE BREUKEL
ON HER NEW ROLE AS CURATOR
OF DACRA AND THE CRAIG ROBINS COLLECTION
THANK YOU FOR THE AMAZING YEARS WITH Y.ES
AND WELCOME TO THE Y.ES COUNCIL
YES Contemporary Founder Mario Cader-Frech and Claire Breukel in the studio of Antonio Romero during the 2018 YES art trip.
Claire Breukel, Y.ES Contemporary's Executive Director and Curator, leaves to join Dacra and The Craig Robins Collection as Curator. Claire has worked with Mario Cader-Frech and Robert Wennett for more than a decade and in 2014 helped found Y.ES Contemporary. She will continue to be actively involved with Y.ES Contemporary joining the YES council, a role helping to guide the vision and mission of the foundation. Thank you Claire for the amazing work with Y.ES!
Patricio Majano, Y.ES Contemporary's curator, will be assuming the role of interim director. Patricio has been working with YES for more than two years, and curated Borders of Freedom video exhibition shown in San Salvador, Miami, Madrid, and scheduled for Los Angeles and Costa Rica. For more information contact: patricio@yescontemporary.org
APPLY NOW!
2020 YES CONTEMPORARY
ARTIST GRANT
AWARDS $5,000
Deadline June 29, 2020
Y.ES Artist Grants are dedicated to supporting exhibitions, projects and travel opportunities. This year support may be requested for $1,000-$5,000. The grant is open to international artists from, working in, or dealing with themes pertinent to El Salvador.
This year Y.ES Artist Grants will be awarded by a jury of experts including (from left) Pablo León de la Barra, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Teresa Velázquez, Head of Temporary Exhibitions at the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; and Mauricio Kabistan, Salvadoran artist and curator.
Read more about Pablo León de la Barra here.
Read more about Teresa Velázquez here.
Read more about Mauricio Kabistan here.
Guadalupe Maravilla speaks with Daniela Lieja Quintanar
Guadalupe Maravilla is a Salvadoran artist based in the USA. Maravilla creates performances, sculptures, videos and drawings inspired in pre colonial culture and icons, and his personal history in relation to migration, interrogating the parallels between pre-Columbian cultures and current border politics. Maravilla also performs healing therapeutic rituals for the undocumented and immigrant community in the USA.
Guadalupe Maravilla has performed and presented his work extensively in venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, ICA Miami, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, MARTE (El Salvador), Central America Biennial X (Costa Rica), XI Nicaragua Biennial, Performa 11 & 13, Fuse-Box Festival, Exit Art, Smack Mellon, Rubin Foundation and the Drawing Center.
Daniela Lieja Quintanar has been LACE's curator since 2016. She works between Los Angeles and Mexico. She was part of the curatorial team of MexiCali Biennial 2018-19, and was awarded the Warhol Foundation Curatorial Research Fellowship. Daniela Lieja is currently working in “Intergalácticxs: contra el aislamiento”, a project that explores collaborative art practices in Mexico and Central America, that respond to violent migration and border policies in the USA. This exhibition project will be presented at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in the 2020 Fall. Lieja travelled to El Salvador in March 2020 as part of this research.
Founded in 1978 by a group of committed artists, LACE is an internationally recognized pioneer nonprofit that exhibits and advocates for innovations in art-making and public engagement.
See more of Guadalupe Maravilla’s work here.
Read more about Daniela Leija and LACE here.
Y.ES ONLINE STUDIO VISITS
Natalia Domínguez speaks with Raquel Villar-Pérez
This May, Salvadoran artist Natalia Dominguez spoke with Photoworks Assistant Curator Raquel Villar-Pérez. Natalia Dominguez is a Salvadoran artist whose work addresses her personal history as well as Salvadoran history and traditions. She studied visual arts and printmaking at La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Printmaking and Sculpture in Mexico City. Solo exhibitions include “Estigma” at the Museum of Art of El Salvador (2019); “Fue” at the Salarrué National Exhibitions Hall, San Salvador (2015); "Área de los disturbios” at the Area Lugar de Proyectos, Puerto Rico (2010); "La nada Cotidiana" at the Cultural Center of Mexico (2003). She participated in Landings Project (2003-2007); Central America and the Caribbean Art Biennale, Guatemala (2015); “Réunion Performance Fesitval,” Isla del Tigre, Honduras (2018). She is the co founder of the Ensayo y Error artist residency and studio in El Salvador.
Raquel Villar-Pérez is a researcher, art curator and writer. She is interested in decolonial discourses within contemporary art practices, mainly from Africa and Latin America and their diasporas. As a freelance curator and art writer she has collaborated with art institutions in Valencia, Málaga, Girona, Seoul, London, and Stockholm. Curated exhibitions include “Mohau Modisakeng: Beyond the Liminal Space and Regarding Ourselves” at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS-University of London (2017); “Más Morena” by Javier Hirschfeld at the Cambridge African Film Festival (2015); the public program of “Migration: Traces in an Art Collection” at Tensta konsthall in Stockholm (2019) and others. She currently works as Assistant Curator at Photoworks, a platform dedicated to contemporary photography based in Brighton, England.
See more of Natalia Domínguez here.
See more of Raquel Villar-Pérez here.
THIS HAPPENED
Y.ES ART WRITERS FEATURES
THE POSSIBILITIES OF PERFORMATIVITY TO RETHINK CURRENT LOCAL ART MUSEUMS, OR DEVISE NEW ONES, IN EL SALVADOR
By Dalia Chévez
Image: "Mixed Museums" / Digital Art - Dalia Chévez 2020. Digital collage that combines architectural elements from different Salvadoran museums.
Y.ES Contemporary published Dalia Chevez’s article titled “The Possibilities of Performativity to Rethink Current Local Art Museums, or Devise New Ones, in El Salvador.” This article was the result of the 2019 Y.ES Artist Academy dedicated to arts writing. In the article Chévez considers different concepts of “museum,” and highlights performativity as a valuable tool to rethink new possibilities for museums in the Salvadoran context. This is the first of three art writers features to be published from May to July, 2020.
The Y.ES Contemporary Artist Academy dedicated to arts writing aims to contribute to the critical dialogue surrounding contemporary Salvadoran art. Special thanks to Gabriela Poma for her time and dedication to this program.
GUADALUPE MARAVILLA AND BEATRIZ CORTEZ AT FRIEZE ONLINE VIEWING ROOM
Beatriz Cortez presented her work with Commonwealth and Council in the Frieze New York online viewing room. The viewing room featured a selection of Cortez’s sculptures for Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center, which address memory and history in different temporalities. In addition, Guadalupe Maravilla presented new drawings that comprise part of the Tripa Chuca series with PPOW Gallery. The series of drawings are based on a traditional Salvadoran game of the same name, which is played with undocumented immigrants from the U.S., and includes elements from Maravilla’s own mythology and history, as well as reconstructed indigenous manuscripts. Frieze Online Viewing Room featured more than 200 galleries from May 8th-15th.
See more of Beatriz Cortez here. See more of Guadalupe Maravilla here.
Image: Guadalupe Maravilla. Drawing from “Tripa Chuca” series. Courtesy the artist.
BEATRIZ CORTEZ AT THE WATTIS INSTITUTE
Artist Beatriz Cortez is part of the online collective exhibition The Word for World is Forest hosted by the Wattis Institute. The exhibition includes photographs of several installation works by Cortez. An online catalog is also available and includes Cortez’s essay Viral Rhizomes and Steps to Plant Your Own Garden, a series of instructions to plant a garden with indigenous plants from the Americas, made in collaboration between Beatriz Cortez and Elizabeth Pérez Márquez.
Visit the online exhibition and read the catalog here.
See more of Beatriz Cortez here.
Image: Beatriz Cortez, “One Hundred and Four Point Shield”. Courtesy Commonwealth and Council and the artist. Artwork commissioned by Ballroom Marfa.
BEATRIZ CORTEZ PARTICIPATES IN CONFERENCE HOSTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE
Beatriz Cortez participated in Fluid Borders, a virtual conference organized by Visual Studies graduate students at University of California, Irvine. Cortez delivered the keynote address On Generosity, Becoming, and the Construction of the Future on May 1st via Zoom. The conference addressed current global politics in relation to borders and geography.
See more about the conference here.
Image: Beatriz Cortez, "Generosity I", 2019. Courtesy the artist and Commonwealth and Council.
SIMÓN VEGA AT PLATAFORMA CANÍBAL
Simón Vega participated in an Instagram live stream conversation with Plataforma Caníbal on May 1st. During the live stream, Vega talked about his work as well as past and future projects. Plataforma Caníbal is a community art space in Barranquilla, Colombia, dedicated to contemporary art.
See more of Simón Vega here.
Follow Plataforma Caníbal here.
Image: Simón Vega, photograph by Memo Cárcamo.
ALEXIA MIRANDA IN THE “#CONFINAMIENTO” VIDEO PERFORMANCE SERIES
Salvadoran artist Alexia Miranda is participating in “#CONFINAMIENTO,” an online video performance series organized by Perfo-Red MX. Miranda is presenting her work Engullir del tiempo. In the video performance, the artist covers herself with leaves, as a metaphor related to the pass of time and the body. The festival presents works by international artists, featuring a daily video performance from April 25th to June 3rd. See Miranda’s performance here. View “#CONFINAMIENTO” here. See more of Alexia Miranda here.
Image: Alexia Miranda, “Engullir del tiempo”. Courtesy the artist.
CRACK RODRÍGUEZ CONDUCTS “ARTE Y DISIDENCIA” SEMINAR
Salvadoran artivist Crack Rodríguez conducted the seminar “Art and Dissidence in El Salvador: Artivism as Response to State Repressive Politics” via Zoom on May 20th. The talk was hosted by UNICA Central American Union from UCLA. During the conference Rodríguez talked about his work utilizing performance and collaborative practices as a way of protest and to promote social transformation.
BEATRIZ CORTEZ PARTICIPATES IN “QUEER CORRESPONDENCE”
Salvadoran artist based in LA Beatriz Cortez will be participating in “Queer Correspondence,” a mail art initiative by Cell Project Space that will be sharing correspondences between artists and writers from July to December, 2020. In July Cortez will be in correspondence with artist Kang Seung Lee, conversing about current pandemic and its socio-political constructions. Additionally, a limited number of editions of each commission will be distributed by Cell Project Space to recipients subscribed on their website.
See more about Queer Correspondence here.
See more of Beatriz Cortez here.
Image: Beatriz Cortez. Photograph Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times. Courtesy the artist.
SIMÓN VEGA IN CONVERSATION WITH SOL DEL RÍO
Artist Simón Vega participated in a conversation via Zoom with Sol del Río Gallery in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The event took place on May 7th and was published on Facebook live. The interview addressed Vega’s practice and how it has changed during the Covid-19 quarantine.
See the complete interview here.
See more of Simón Vega here.
Image: Simón Vega, "Palm 3 World Station". Coachella Music Festival 2018. Courtesy the artist.
EL SALVADOR NEWS
KBUDA ONLINE PROJECT IS LAUNCHED
Kbuda is an online gallery and creative space that will feature works by Salvadoran artists. The works presented in the gallery are available for purchase and part of the proceeds will be go to support people and communities in El Salvador that are being affected by the Covid-19 crisis. Salvadoran artists are invited to submit their work to the gallery to participate. For more information Contact Kbuda team at: kbuda.elsalvador@gmail.com
See more about Kbuda here.
Follow Kbuda on Instagram here.
“INTERSECCIONES” ONLINE EXHIBITION
The Cultural Center of Spain in El Salvador, is presenting “Intersecciones,” an online exhibition curated by Paula Alvarez. The show presents works addressing the relation between art, culture and development. The exhibition consists of works by Dalia Chévez, Melissa Guevara, Mauricio Kabistan, Los siempre sospechosos de todo, Abigail Reyes, Crack Rodríguez, Antonio Romero, Carmen Elena Trigueros and Danny Zavaleta.
Parallel to the exhibition, the CCESV hosted a Facebook live stream with Mauricio Kabistan in conversation with Antonio Romero on May 15th, 7 pm CST. View “Intersecciones” here.
Image: Crack Rodríguez, “Teorema de la desubicación”. Courtesy the artist.
JAIME IZAGUIRRE AT SIN FRONTERAS
Salvadoran artist Jaime Izaguirre participated in “Sin Fronteras”, a conversation with Panamanian artist Diego Fabrega on Instagram. During the live stream, they talked about the challenges during the Covid-19 crisis and alternatives the artist are using to overcome these difficulties. This interview project is supported by Galería 123, in San Salvador.
Image: Jaime Izaguirre conducting a talk at the Museum of Art of El Salvador. Courtesy the artist.
PRESS
MARIO CADER-FRECH INTERVIEW WITH ARTEINFORMADO
Y.ES Contemporary Founder Mario Cader-Frech was interviewed by ARTEINFORMADO as part of “#PensandoElFuturo,” a collaborative project reflecting about the future in arts and society. In the interview, he shares his perspective on how the current Covid-19 crisis might affect the art world, art market and collecting, as well as discussing the opportunities this situation provides.
Read the interview here.
Image: Mario Cader-Frech. Photograph by Carlos Cader.
BEATRIZ CORTEZ FEATURED IN VOGUE MEXICO, BY CAROLINA ALVAREZ-MATHIES
YES Council member and Deputy Director of Dallas Contemporary Carolina Alvarez-Mathies wrote about the work of Salvadoran, LA based artist Beatriz Cortez for Vogue Mexico. The piece, Soldar el futuro, features Cortez’s works which explore themes of revisiting the past and imagining possible futures.
Read the complete article here.
See more of Beatriz Cortez here.
Image: Beatriz Cortez, “Tzolk’in”, 2018. Courtesy the artist.
SIMÓN VEGA FEATURED IN ARTEINFORMADO
Simón Vega was interviewed at ARTEINFORMADO, as part of “#PensandoElFuturo,” a collaborative project reflecting about the future in arts and society. In the interview, Vega comments on the way he believes the art world will change after the crisis and how this could generate new creative possibilities. Read the complete article here.
Image: Simón Vega." Tropical Space Hostal" (2019). Courtesy the artist.
CAROLINA ALVAREZ-MATHIES FEATURED IN OBSERVER
Y.ES Councilmember Carolina Alvarez-Mathies is featured in the article “Women Leaders Take Over at Texas Art Institutions” by Observer. Alvarez-Mathies, who recently joined Dallas Contemporary as Deputy Director, talks about her role in the institution and the way they have adapted during the Covid-19 crisis. Observer is an online platform dedicated to cover news in business arts and entertainment. Read the complete article here.
See more of Carolina Alvarez-Mathies here.
Image: Carolina Alvarez-Mathies. Photograph by Caroline Lacey.
ABIGAIL REYES FEATURED IN ARTISHOCK
Salvadoran artist Abigail Reyes is featured in an Artishock article covering RÉUNION’s “Second Performance Festival” in Isla del Tigre and its neighboring island Isla Exposición, Honduras. The festival took place from February 10th-15th, 2020 and included the work of 12 other international artists, as well as a public screening with 5 artists’ works. Réunion II was co-curated by Adán Vallecillo, Andreas Wagner and Karon Corrales.
Read the complete article here.
See more of Abigail Reyes here.
Image: Abigail Reyes performing at Réunion II. Photograph by Claudia Sevilla. Courtesy the artist.
GABRIELA NOVOA FEATURED AT THINKPLURAL
Gabriela Novoa is featured in Thinkplural, a blog by Maria José Loa dedicated to promote Salvadoran art and artists. In the interview Novoa talks about her art practice and her use of erotic images and representations to generate conversations about sex education.
Read the complete interview here.
See more of Gabriela Novoa here.
Image/n: Gabriela Novoa, drawing on empiñada (traditional Salvadoran sweet), 2018. Courtesy the artist.
EXHIBITION REVIEW
Corposoberanía Sentida Corposoberanía, curated by Luisa Fuentes Guaza
Cultural Center of Spain in El Salvador from March 6th to April 29th, 2020.
BY PAOLA LORENZANA
#TheUncomfortableOne #AlwaysWrong
The 2020 exhibition of the GENEROS.AS School of the Cultural Centre of Spain in El Salvador stirred up intense feelings for me; there was a compelling voice present throughout the show. The title, Corpsoberanía sentida (Perceived Bodily Soverignity), resonated with me and reflected the exhibitions intent, as curator Luisa Fuentes Guaza stated in the curatorial text, “to show how current practices from Central America demand the incorporation of bodies, our bodies, and the bodies of our female companions in the political sphere.” (Fuentes, 2020). It was an invitation to us all to delve into and denounce our sexual and reproductive rights.
I found strength in the diversity of the visual, audiovisual, and performative aspects of the show. Although we could disagree on the inclusion of a few works, they ultimately force us to confront certain questions, to which the answers aren’t necessarily important.
In the 2019 GENEROS.AS show I asked myself a question about feminist art, and this exhibition is brining me back to it. “Is it feminist art because that is what it is called and that is what it is manifesting? Or is it because it is art created by women? Or art created by feminists?” I still don’t have a defined position at this point, but I know that there are moments in which I find myself between all three. This thinking led me to new criteria with which I could interpret the exhibit and to more questions still, but I will not respond to those today. Today I will stick to three points: the premise of the curator, my experience as the audience, and my feelings as a feminist artist.
The premise is clear. Entering the space is a political blow, a sensation that deepens and reinforces itself with each work. What I appreciated most was the sensation of not having any answers, of the ideas posited by the artworks and artists, and the deep need to understand them, feel them.
In last year’s show there were videos that visually pushed us to our limits, questioning us with crude and explicit imagery. In this show, the political side of feminism is more of a slap in the face, demanding we address what our own roles are in the resistance and fight for the autonomy of our bodies.
This was experienced more potently at the beginning of the show with the photograph by the unknown author, and the video pieces Full Face Make-Up and Siempre Viva which interrogate stereotypes. As a feminist artist I embraced the unexpected musical respite of Siempre Viva in a contemporary art setting and I was left endlessly absorbed by the video piece where the artist covers her entire face with lipstick. It repeated it in my head as I took in the rest of the show. The most heartbreaking work was the performance Cuerpos by the artistic collective Colectiva Amorales which quite literally took my breath away as I was confronted with the absence of so many women, because of femicides. Here we find the backbone of the show and in concert with other works the manifesto of the Coropsoberania sentida is composed.
It is necessary to have artistic experiences that question and don’t direct everything for us, that leave us with challenging questions and allow us to make our own conclusions. The most valuable part of this exhibition is the eclecticism and the unexpected leap from various bodies to a single voice, that is where I found continuity and the embrace of the show.
Images: [1] Romina Memoli Amador. “Full face make-up tutorial” (2016).
[2] Rebeca Lane "Siempre viva" (2019).
[3] Colectiva Amorales "Cuerpos" (2017).
All images courtesy CCESV.
Participating artists: Ana Sofía Camargo, Patricia Belli, Jessica Lagunas, Lucía Madriz, Indhira Hernández, Colectiva Amorales, Rebeca Lane, Romina Memoli Amador, Alexia Miranda and Lía Vallejo.
References: Fuentes, Luisa. (2020). Corposoberanía, recuperar lo que siempre fue nuestro. San Salvador, El Salvador: Centro Cultural de España en El Salvador. Retrived from: https://www.ccesv.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Corposoberanía_recuperarloquesiemprefuenuestro.pdf
