Leandro Katz. Seagull´s Footprint

Leandro Katz “Seagull’s Footprint”. Image courtesy Bureau Phi Art Projects.

Opening reception: February 16, 7.30 PM
Hours: Tuesday-Friday 12 – 8PM
Weekends and holidays: 11AM – 8PM
Free and open to the public.
http://www.promociondelarte.com/tabacalera/

Coinciding with ARCO, Madrid’s international art fair, which this year celebrates Argentina, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport  and Bureau Phi Art present Seagull’s Footprint Leandro Katz’s first solo exhibition in Spain, based on the artist’s connections to both Latin American history and the New York cultural world, the two sites and sets of his artistic and personal universe.

Leandro Katz (1938) was born in Buenos Aires, where he currently lives, having spent more than 40 years in New York. Rather than following a chronological order, the exhibition is arranged around conceptual clusters. Organized by Berta Sichel, it features eight photographic series, totaling 60 prints; 13 films and videos and screenings and installations, and covers four decades of his artistic career. His films as well as his photographic installations are long-term projects which for the most part deal with Latin American themes, its history, anthropology and visual arts. Highlights among them include the historical investigation Catherwood Project, 1985-1995, a photographic reconstruction of the archeological expeditions of Stephens and Catherwood to the territories of the Mayan culture in Mexico and Central America during the 19th century.

Perhaps the most visible and emblematic impulse behind his work is its focus on Mayan culture. Nevertheless, his approaches goes far beyond any archeological impulse. There are few subjects better suited to a discourse on colonialism and domination. Cumulatively, such themes provoke questions, although not all will find ready answers. The principal tendency of this body of work, focused on the pre-Columbian Mayan civilization, is not to highlight the past, but rather to emphasize its current relevance – the fact that it is still present and still open to a range of personal meanings and interpretations with global implications, evoking a plethora of parallels found throughout the contemporary work.