Mateo López
31 Jan - 29 Mar 2009
MATEO LÓPEZ
"Deriva" (Adrift)
January 31 – March 29, 2009
Colombian artist Mateo López holds first solo exhibition in Spain at MUSAC's Laboratorio 987
Artist: Mateo López (Bogotá, 1978)
Title: Deriva (Adrift)
Curator: Tania Pardo
Coordination: Luisa Fraile
Venue: Laboratorio 987, MUSAC
Dates: January 31 – March 29, 2009
Colombian artist Mateo López (Bogotá, 1978), a leading figure in his generation, is to hold his first solo exhibition in Spain at MUSAC’s Laboratorio 987. Under the title of Deriva, the artist will showcase a complex installation combining drawings, sculpture, photographs, found objects, models... Deriva follows up on one of his major works to date, Diario de Motocicleta (Motorcycle Diary), where he crossed Colombia on a motorbike, later compiling an installation of drawings, diaries, survey maps, photographs and sculptures that draw the viewer into his journey as an active witness. For Deriva, Mateo López will again draw up an installation out of the body of material used in his publishing project by the same name, which shall also be on display. Thus, the exhibition aims to capture the artists’ thinking regarding his own creative process.
In September 2008, Mateo López began work on Deriva, a book for the Trienal Poligráfica de
Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Polygraphic Triennial). The installation on display at MUSAC, by the same name, draws on and documents the entire process involved in developing the book, including the full range of materials used: models, objects, reading lists, quotes, photographs, etc. Thus, the artist’s installations are ultimately the outcome of a research and working process that gradually connects one idea to the next. Indeed, this is not Mateo López’s first experience in temporising space – he had carried out a similar exercise in Diario de Motocicleta, where he transferred all the mementoes of his trip into a gallery space, decontextualising his own physical experience.
Likewise, Deriva reflects the artist’s thoughts regarding his own creative process. The show brings together different ideas that, once interrelated, take shape in certain objects, from drawings to sculpture, photographs, etc. It is precisely this network of ideas materialised as works of art that echoes Guattari and Deleuze’s idea of the Rhizome, and ties in with the artist’s own literary references: Cortázar, Borges or Paul Auster.
The world of Mateo López is a universe of anecdotes and experiences for which the exhibition provides a logbook or scrap folder open to be shared by the viewer. Most of the drawings and sculptures on display reveal the manual gesture that establishes the connection between the image and its representation. In other words, his objects are often representations of reality, as Jaime Cerón explains, “When we discover the fact that a dollar bill is actually a drawing, we are struck by a sense of bewilderment that tends to affect not only our relationship with the work, but also our understanding and experience of the object it refers to (...) The target that his work pursues is the very instrument that sustains the representation, both in art and in the world, generating a paradox whereby what is true is revealed as false and what is false as true”.
The exhibition is therefore a 3-D display of the theme and contents of the book Deriva. Likewise, building on the idea behind his Taller Portátil No. 25 (Portable Workshop #25), the artist will not only recreate all the material related to the book Deriva at Laboratorio 987, but will also set up a bookbinder’s workshop, leaving the objects “adrift” in the workshop, thus playing on the exhibition title.
Mateo López, biography
Mateo López holds a degree in Visual Arts by the Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá) and in Architecture by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, also in Bogotá. He has held major solo exhibitions in both galleries and institutions throughout Latin America, the most relevant being: Adentro y en medio (Galería Casas Riegner, Bogotá, 2006) or El ideal de lo práctico (Centro Cultural de la Universidad de Salamanca, Bogotá, 2006). He has also taken part in a number of international group exhibitions, including Doméstico’08 (Madrid, 2008); Viajes, at the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid (July 2008); the 9th Cuenca International Biennial (Cuenca, Ecuador, 2007); and Procesos de Intercambio y Conversión at the Academy of Fine Arts, Bogotá (2006). He has also developed curatorial projects for including Cuadernos Azules or Ideografismos, both with the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá. In 2003 he received the 4th University Visual Arts Exhibition Award granted by the Bogotá District Culture and Tourism Centre.
"Deriva" (Adrift)
January 31 – March 29, 2009
Colombian artist Mateo López holds first solo exhibition in Spain at MUSAC's Laboratorio 987
Artist: Mateo López (Bogotá, 1978)
Title: Deriva (Adrift)
Curator: Tania Pardo
Coordination: Luisa Fraile
Venue: Laboratorio 987, MUSAC
Dates: January 31 – March 29, 2009
Colombian artist Mateo López (Bogotá, 1978), a leading figure in his generation, is to hold his first solo exhibition in Spain at MUSAC’s Laboratorio 987. Under the title of Deriva, the artist will showcase a complex installation combining drawings, sculpture, photographs, found objects, models... Deriva follows up on one of his major works to date, Diario de Motocicleta (Motorcycle Diary), where he crossed Colombia on a motorbike, later compiling an installation of drawings, diaries, survey maps, photographs and sculptures that draw the viewer into his journey as an active witness. For Deriva, Mateo López will again draw up an installation out of the body of material used in his publishing project by the same name, which shall also be on display. Thus, the exhibition aims to capture the artists’ thinking regarding his own creative process.
In September 2008, Mateo López began work on Deriva, a book for the Trienal Poligráfica de
Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Polygraphic Triennial). The installation on display at MUSAC, by the same name, draws on and documents the entire process involved in developing the book, including the full range of materials used: models, objects, reading lists, quotes, photographs, etc. Thus, the artist’s installations are ultimately the outcome of a research and working process that gradually connects one idea to the next. Indeed, this is not Mateo López’s first experience in temporising space – he had carried out a similar exercise in Diario de Motocicleta, where he transferred all the mementoes of his trip into a gallery space, decontextualising his own physical experience.
Likewise, Deriva reflects the artist’s thoughts regarding his own creative process. The show brings together different ideas that, once interrelated, take shape in certain objects, from drawings to sculpture, photographs, etc. It is precisely this network of ideas materialised as works of art that echoes Guattari and Deleuze’s idea of the Rhizome, and ties in with the artist’s own literary references: Cortázar, Borges or Paul Auster.
The world of Mateo López is a universe of anecdotes and experiences for which the exhibition provides a logbook or scrap folder open to be shared by the viewer. Most of the drawings and sculptures on display reveal the manual gesture that establishes the connection between the image and its representation. In other words, his objects are often representations of reality, as Jaime Cerón explains, “When we discover the fact that a dollar bill is actually a drawing, we are struck by a sense of bewilderment that tends to affect not only our relationship with the work, but also our understanding and experience of the object it refers to (...) The target that his work pursues is the very instrument that sustains the representation, both in art and in the world, generating a paradox whereby what is true is revealed as false and what is false as true”.
The exhibition is therefore a 3-D display of the theme and contents of the book Deriva. Likewise, building on the idea behind his Taller Portátil No. 25 (Portable Workshop #25), the artist will not only recreate all the material related to the book Deriva at Laboratorio 987, but will also set up a bookbinder’s workshop, leaving the objects “adrift” in the workshop, thus playing on the exhibition title.
Mateo López, biography
Mateo López holds a degree in Visual Arts by the Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá) and in Architecture by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, also in Bogotá. He has held major solo exhibitions in both galleries and institutions throughout Latin America, the most relevant being: Adentro y en medio (Galería Casas Riegner, Bogotá, 2006) or El ideal de lo práctico (Centro Cultural de la Universidad de Salamanca, Bogotá, 2006). He has also taken part in a number of international group exhibitions, including Doméstico’08 (Madrid, 2008); Viajes, at the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid (July 2008); the 9th Cuenca International Biennial (Cuenca, Ecuador, 2007); and Procesos de Intercambio y Conversión at the Academy of Fine Arts, Bogotá (2006). He has also developed curatorial projects for including Cuadernos Azules or Ideografismos, both with the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá. In 2003 he received the 4th University Visual Arts Exhibition Award granted by the Bogotá District Culture and Tourism Centre.