Proyecto AMIL in collaboration with Museo de Arte de Lima – MALI
Wednesday, 1 June
7 pm
Speakers:
Diego Lama
Alice Vega
This event will be held in the MALI Auditorio AFP Integra
Free Entrance
In the context of Iván Argote’s exhibition Sírvete de mi, sírveme de ti, Proyecto AMIL in collaboration with Museo de Arte de Lima – MALI are pleased to present two of the most recent films by the Colombian artist, Fructose (2015) and The Messengers (2014). Comments and analysis by the video-artist Diego Lama and the artist and teacher Alice Vega will follow the screening.
Fructose (2015. Video. 21′ 27”) shows how in the deep English countryside, the government has preserved an apple tree from which Isaac Newton’s apple was supposed to have fallen. Although this anecdote was first narrated by Newton’s biographer 30 years after his death, the image of the apple being central to the theorization of the law of universal gravitation has been reproduced, vulgarised and commercialised. Fructose takes this as a starting point to generate a poetic and surrealist documentary about the images that science produces and their impact on our own understanding of the world.
The Messengers (2014. Video. 30′) follows Gaby and Blaine, two young North Americans with a strong political and intellectual interest, wandering around two small historical towns during Easter: Mompox in Colombia and Arcos de la Frontera in Spain. History, architecture, folklore, landscapes and religious traditions create a complex atmosphere for this conversation that balances in between philosophical and personal statements. The traffic of signs that the narrative establishes makes evident the friction between colonisation and post-colonisation, tradition and contemporary culture, creating an oneiric narrative in which Gaby and Blaine seem to be lost and become an image of our own fragility as political and ethical entities in the contemporary world.
About the artist
Iván Argote (Colombia, 1983) lives and works in Paris. In his work, the artist deals with the way that man relates to the myriad of changes that take place daily in the historical, economic, political and moral realms. His aim is to question the role of subjectivity in the revision of these concepts. Argote involves the body and emotions in the construction of his thinking, and develops methods to generate reflections on the way we construct certainty in relation with politics and history. By creating interventions and performances for the public space, which are sometimes further developed in the format of films and installations, the artist explores the city as a space of transformation. His work has been shown around the world.
