Opening
Saturday 23 July 2022
3pm – 7pm

23 July – 28 August 2022
Friday – Sunday
3pm – 7pm
By appointment, please contact [email protected]

Or, feel free to ring the bell

Bröl 61
7546 Ardez
Switzerland

proyectoamil is pleased to invite you to the exhibitions Fruit, Flowers & Boys by Martin Gustavsson and Dark Room / Dark Chocolate by Jaime Prada that will be presented simultaneously as inaugural shows of proyectoamil Ardez, Switzerland.

Founded in 2010, proyectoamil is a mobile and fluid contemporary art platform, operating both in Lima and Ardez, that aims to act as a bridge between the Peruvian and international art scenes. In its twelve years of sustained activity, proyectoamil has hosted exhibitions, commissioned artistic interventions, edited publications, art records, and facilitated a rich arrange of public programs, events, and residencies. Its mission is to allow both internationally renowned as well as emerging artists to find a way to materialize their projects, creating a space open for young and alternative artistic production.

The current exhibition program at proyectoamil Ardez includes two simultaneous exhibitions of artists from different generations. Despite their diverse backgrounds, they share the rare quality of looking at the world with unconventional, and often challenging perspectives, moving away from the established social norms.

Martin Gustavsson
Fruit, Flowers & Boys

Martin Gustavsson’s artistic practice deals with the pleasure of observing and our bodily response to perception and visibility. Taking his cue from history painting, many of his works revisit or rework painted possibilities. In the exhibition Fruit, Flowers & Boys, his latest show at proyectoamil Ardez, Gustavsson exhibits a series of colorful paintings that explore questions regarding painted representation and documentation. Departing from the reappropriation and later intervention of earlier work such as the Ipomeia paintings from 2005, the artist creates new images halfway between figuration and abstraction. In the form of a visual palimpsest, two images, one on top of the other, stand for two painterly processes that actually connect two time periods. The resulting work shows a segment of real-time charged with experiences, attitudes, and feelings that reflects both the artist and his surroundings. This new series titled The Aesthetics of Fruit is part of a larger research project undertaken by Gustavsson entitled The Problem with Homoeroticism, which continues the artist’s sustained interest in homoerotic works, questioning, and confronting representation as painterly preoccupations.

Jaime Prada
Dark Room / Dark Chocolate

Dark Room / Dark Chocolate, Peruvian artist Jaime Prada’s first exhibition in Switzerland, looks into the dynamics established between Switzerland and Peru, through an investigation into the symbolic and political role of the chocolate industry in the historic process of slavery. Crossing his concern and ongoing research into the relationship between gender, race, and society, Prada develops paintings and sculptures covered with dark chocolate in which he explores different aspects of sexuality from the experience of BDSM pointing at the possibilities of empowerment from a position of submission.

For more information go to proyectoamil.org

About the artists

Martin Gustavsson (Uddevalla, b.1964) lives and works between London and Stockholm. Gustavsson attended The Royal Institute of Fine Art in Stockholm, Sweden, and Middlesex University, UK. His work has been exhibited in Scandinavia, UK, Japan, USA, and the Middle East. He is a Senior Lecturer of painting at Konstfack in Stockholm and has participated in the IASPIS residencies in New York (1999-2000) and Stockholm (2007).

Recent solo exhibitions include Un Chant Ecarlate (2019) Konstakademien, Stockholm; El Mirage (2015), Participant Inc., New York, USA; Indentations (2013), Maria Stenfors, London, UK; In No Particular Order (2010), Maria Stenfors, London, UK, and Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden; Wrath of God (2007-2008), Oslo Kunstforening, Norway and Brändström & Stene, Stockholm, Sweden. In 2018, he participated in the collective exhibition L’Heure Rouge at the Dakar Biennial.

His recent project The Aesthetics of Fruit also forms the basis for a new major research project called The Problem with Homoeroticism which will be presented in both, the form of exhibitions at Kalmar Museum and Ronneby Konsthall, in Sweden during 2023-24, as well as lectures and a book.

Jaime Prada (Lima, b.1998) is a visual artist who graduated from the University of Lima with a degree in Visual Arts and studied in the Art and Design program of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Prada has exhibited at several international events in Europe and Latin America, including the Visible Film Festival, earning awards for the video On what day do I go out? His work seeks a reinterpretation of society, from a postcolonial perspective that claims ethnopolitical issues and promotes sexual liberation. As a reflection of his diverse influences, Prada’s work focuses on LGBTQ+ experiences and everyday life.