DEMOCRACY – INAUGURAL EXHIBITION OF ART FOCUS, A LATINAMERICAN GALLERIES COLLECTIVE

The galleries are Pabellón 4 Arte Contemporáneo (Arg) - Rofa Projects (USA) - Zipper Gallery (BR) - Policroma (CO) - Archivo Colectivo (MX) - Km0. 2 (PR) - Del Paseo (UY). Their main objective is to promote the development of the art of the Americas in a joint, fully collaborative and global level as well as to disseminate, promote and commercialize the works of the artists that we represent through curatorial practices and exhibitions carried out with recognized curators and references from America, in collaboration with art collectors.

Art Focus is a pioneer as a project for the integration of galleries in the Americas and was created as an ​​opportunity to improve practices and the desire to expand actions beyond the territory where each of the galleries operates.

Art Focus Latin America chooses democracy as its thematic axis for its first collective exhibition and it is not in vain, given the alarming number of political and social outbreaks worldwide. Latent questions appear: is democracy in danger? Can civil society improve current democracies? According to Juan Canela's text, “from Latin America to Asia, passing through Europe and Africa, citizen concentrations alternate. Protests with disparate roots, totally different contexts, but with some common features that the virus crisis has only accentuated in many aspects."

The title of this exhibition is given by Eduardo Galeano's The Book of Embraces: “In these lands, the head of the god Eleggúa wears death on his neck and life on his face. Every promise is a threat; each loss, an encounter. Courage is born from fears; and of the doubts, the certainties. Dreams announce another possible reality and delusions, another reason. At the end of the day, we are what we do to change who we are. Identity is not a museum piece, quiet in the window, but the always amazing synthesis of our daily contradictions."

Art is political and art is what unites this group to point out, denounce and protest about so many events that continue to happen, no matter the many years of history and misfortunes that seem to have not taught us anything: “The drama of the Mediterranean. The fence in the desert. The madness of the walls that separate. Nationalisms of different kinds, reactionary movements and the rise of the extreme right remind us of past times that many believed had been overcome.”, Juan Canela affirms.

With this exhibition, seven galleries and twelve artists eliminate borders of a geographical nature, to find themselves speaking the same language, that of ART, to “understand that humans are not the center of anything, but part of a whole with which we must build a tomorrow made of collective contradictions.”, as Juan Canela ends in his text.