Notes related to Guatemala

 The EFG Latin America Art Award, in association with ArtNexus, announced Marilyn Boror Bor from San Juan Sacatepéquez (Guatemala), represented by Judas Galería from Valparaíso (Chile), as the nominated artist for its annual acquisition award.

Antonio Pichillá (San Pedro de La Laguna, Guatemala) proposes a broad return to the atavistic and ancestral in his recent work, exhibited in the two venues of the Memoria gallery in Madrid under the title Abuela materna (Maternal Grandmother). This return should be understood beyond the mere construction or defense of an original identity, in order to encompass the full meaning the artist conveys through his work.

The section dedicated to abstraction in the Strangers Everywhere / Stranieri Ouvunque exhibition at the Venice Biennale 2024 explores how artists from the Global South -particularly those from Latin America- pursued less rigorous forms, undulating lines and a vibrant color palette stemming from references of their own.

La Panera Art Center of Lleida presents in its exhibition Descolonicemos el mundo(Decolonize the World) a conceptual tour through the production of Regina Jose Galindo (Guatemala City, Guatemala, 1974) in which a decolonizing approach prevails. Although in some cases of her work this process is not so evident, this view can be traced from the geographical experience of the artist's country of origin and its process of colonization and independence.

The exhibition of the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale - Stranieri Ovunque (Foregneirs Everywhere) - curated by Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa, presents 331 artists, significantly more than the usual number. More than a third of those artists come from Latin America.

La Nueva Fábrica (LNF) announced Ru Raxal qa Rayb’äl (The Green of Our Desire), Edgar Calel’s first institutional solo exhibition in Guatemala. Edgar Calel anchors his work in the Mayan Kaqchikel worldviews that stem from family and community life in his hometown of Chi Xot (San Juan Comalapa).

Exhibited for the first time since entering the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, Regina José Galindo’s Tierra (2013) explores connections between the exploitation of labor, resources, and human life in Guatemala.

The Guatemalan Biennale Arte Paiz will open July 13^th, 2023, in Guatemala City and July 15^th, 2023, in Antigua Guatemala.

The exhibition Margarita Azurdia. Margarita Rita Rica Dinamita is the first monographic exhibition in Europe dedicated to Margarita Azurdia (Antigua Guatemala, 1931 - Guatemala City, 1988), one of the most emblematic Central American artists of the 20th century.

PAV (Parco Arte Vivente) is presenting Tierra (Earth), the solo exhibition of guatemaltecan artista Regina José Galino. She has been investigating for over 20 years the subject of social justice through the lens of performative practives.

Proyectos Ultravioleta presents Ríos de Gente (Rivers of People), the second solo show by Regina José Galindo at the gallery, dedicated to Bernardo Caal, defender of the water, the earth, and of the rights of indigenous peoples.

Exhibited at La Galería Rebelde (Guatemala City – Los Ángeles), Distensiones is a story, a metaphor of life, of technology versus nature, of the symbiosis and juxtaposition of the evolution of the human being. Within this series there is also a personal narrative of travels, experiences and connections with past generations and personal visions.

As a novelty this year, the presence of Latin America takes a different role and adjusted to reality. ARCOmadrid incorporates the REMITENTE. Latin American Art section, produced with the complicity of Mariano Mayer. The proposal shows the importance of Latin American art at the Fair and its essence is to facilitate and support the galleries that this time cannot travel to Madrid.

The artista exhibits Pa tu run ché (From the treetop) in Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City.

Alexia Tala is curator of the 22nd Bienal de Arte Paiz that is taking place in Guatemala until June 7. The Biennial of Arte Paiz Guatemala is the most important in the country and the oldest in Latin America.

Probably anyone who is interested in the visual arts within the Latin American scene will be familiar with the work of the Chilean artist Paz Errázuriz. Her impressive work is characterized, above all, in working, through photography, themes linked to oblivion, marginality and exclusion, showing a particular interest in portraying those people that society, for various reasons, has left aside. This year, Errázuriz took a privileged spot at the 22nd Paiz Perdidos Art Biennial Perdidos. en Medio. Juntos. (Lost. In Between. Together) and she presents during the months of May and June a solo exhibition entitled La grandeza del margen (The Greatness of the Margin). From this exhibition, I find especially notable the Trans Guatemala (2020) and Sepur Zarco (2020) series, two unpublished series where problems of great contingency are evident.