22nd Biennial de Arte Paiz Guatemala: Lost. In Between. Together

Naomi Rincón Gallardo, Resiliencia Tlacuache [Tlacuache Resilience], 2019. Courtesy the artist.

The artist list and concept for the 22nd Biennial de Arte Paiz, which will take place in Guatemala City and Antigua Guatemala, have been announced. Curated by Alexia Tala, chief curator, and Gabriel Rodríguez, adjunct curator, the Biennial will feature 40 artists in its central exhibition and two special individual exhibitions on Guatemalan artist Aníbal López and Chilean artist Paz Errázuriz.

Titled Lost. In Between. Together, the Bienal invites visitors to reflect on the situation of perpetual crisis that affects the Global South. With Guatemala as a point of departure to investigate the cultural and geographical diversity of Latin America and beyond in the Global South, the approximation of the 22 Bienal de Arte Paiz towards issues around contemporary and ancestral history, interculturality, forms of knowledge and violence aims to establish points of encounter between art and the current context. Lost. In Between. Together seeks to focus on the ability of the Global South to tell its own story, with an observant look at both its roots and its present, reuniting artistic expressions marked by activism, awareness of human rights and the power of certain geographies, or artistic expressions linked to traditions and ancestral knowledge where art often encroaches in the territory of the sacred. These artistic expressions will be encountered across the three thematic axis of the central exhibition:

Pasts. Eternal. Futures puts the focus on presentism as an error of analysis. It is a thematic axis addressing artistic processes that highlight events, stories, micro-histories and identities related to the contemporary history of the Global South. The two special exhibitions of work by Aníbal López and Paz Errázuriz, offer an opportunity via these two key figures, to understand the contemporary art scene in Latin America and develop a series of reflections on the sense of “no way out” at which Lost. In Between. Together hints, as well as potential forms of catharsis. Aníbal López’s survey is the very first retrospective of the Guatemalan artist, who passed away in 2014. Alongside over 80 works from private and public collections, the biennial curators ongoing project “Oral Archive” will be publicly launched. Paz Errázuriz’s solo exhibition covers over 40 years of the Chilean photographer’s work, including new pieces created in Guatemala, which represent the first works produced by Errázuriz outside of Chile.

Universes of Matter explores artistic practices that speak to the knowledge that has survived thanks to the power of matter. These are artists who focus on the ancestry of matter as a way of seeing and interpreting the world, whether it is via objects or elements of landscape.

Perverse Geography / Cursed Geographies: This concept addresses the visions of artists who speak of the social and cultural consequences of the transformations and inequalities due to the processes of colonization and the powers of today.

Participants: Francisca Aninat (Chile), Hellen Ascoli (Guatemala), Ana Teresa Barboza (Peru), Marilyn Boror (Guatemala), Edgar Calel (Guatemala), Sebastián Calfuqueo (Chile), Benvenuto Chavajay (Guatemala), Manuel Chavajay (Guatemala), Jonathas de Andrade (Brazil), Emo De Medeiros (Benin/France), Detánico & Lain (Brazil), Elimo Eliseo (co-author, Guatemala), Paz Errázuriz (Chile), Forensic Architecture  & Forensic Oceanography (United Kingdom), Rafael Freyre (co-author, Peru), Wingston González (co-author, Guatemala), Antonio José Guzmán (Panama/Netherlands), Yasmin Hage (Guatemala), Ayrson Heráclito (Brazil), Diego Isaías Hernández (Guatemala), Jessica Kairé (Guatemala), Vanderlei Lopes (Brazil), Aníbal López (Guatemala), Oswaldo Maciá (Colombia), Nelson Makengo (Congo), Andrea Monroy (Guatemala), Uriel Orlow (Switzerland), Alejandro Paz (Guatemala), Oscar Eduardo Perén (Guatemala), Antonio Pichillá (Guatemala), Ángel Poyón (Guatemala), Fernando Poyón (Guatemala), Naufus Ramírez Figueroa (Guatemala), Naomi Rincón Gallardo (Mexico), Óscar Santillán (Ecuador/Netherlands), Maya Saravia (Guatemala), Angélica Serech (Guatemala), Jonas Staal (Netherlands), Pablo Vargas Lugo (Mexico), Heba Y. Amin (Egypt)

As part of the opening, the online symposium “Perverse Geography / Cursed Geographies” will take place online on Saturday, May 8, 2021 from 10am to 5pm (EST).