Since they became self-aware and started looking for meaning in their short lives, humans have deliberately fought against the passage of time. They have devoted all their ingenuity, inventiveness and heart to challenging Death.
Art, this cathartic instrument of our emotions, evokes all that broadens and enriches the spirit. Most of all, however, it purges that which blackens our minds and numbs our hearts: the unknown, the unusual, and the terrifying reminder of the fragility of our existence.
Clearly, this exhibition is not trying to avoid these feelings. If we exorcised our fears, we would simply cloud and impede the evolution of our species. Nor is it trying to achieve senseless entertainment or simple decoration. This project wants to describe, and show the world, the cruel beauty of the duality of our existence, its fragile and less known side: our fascination with death.
There is something hidden and yet attractive about death. It’s a curious call that is always striving to solve the eternal mystery of our purpose in this world. In Mexican culture specifically, mystery and mourning almost become a celebration of life, where the two extremes of existence find a balance, because instead of trying to escape or deny their destiny, Mexicans maintain profound respect for the eventualities of life.
This vision of life and death is unique in the world and, at the same time, it forges Mexican artists’ unique understanding of and affinity with the macabre, an understanding that produces exceptional art that is, however, little known in the rest of the world.
“El Corazón y la Muerte” wants to open a dialogue of cultural and intellectual interchange between Mexican contemporary culture and the rest of the world, with Ireland as a starting point. Twelve well-known emerging artists from Mexico will perform a cathartic representation of unique reflections on the macabre and the unusual, between life and death.
By showcasing traditional techniques like painting and drawing at an exquisite level of craftsmanship, together with transcendental concepts and ideas, “El Corazón y la Muerte” promises to be an exhibition of a calibre rarely found in international art circles nowadays.
This book is the catalogue of an art exhibition held by GalleryX in Dublin, 27 October to 27 November 2016. It features the work of Mexican artists Alejandro Barrón, Rodrigo Cifuentes, Mario Cinquemani, Ricardo Fernandez, Victor Hugo Jácome, José Luis López Galván, Patrick Mallow, Román Miranda, Rafael Rodríguez, Rolando Sosa, Talía Yañez, and Kykyz1313.
