Chromosome Comic or the modern prometheans
February 4 - April 4, 2023
Biquini Wax EPS, Pedro de alba 232, Iztlacihuatl, CDMX
Featuring the work of: Absurdismus(Esmeralda Barrón Padilla), Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, Apolo Cacho, Diana Cantarey, Paloma Contreras Lomas, Gerardo Contreras, Berke Gold, Mili Herrera, Irak Morales, Josué Mejía, Elsa Louise Manceaux, PEGASO, Rita Ponce de León, Inari Resendiz, Isabel Rivera Torres, Valentina Skellington, Erik Tlaseca, Israel Urmeer
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iNTRODUCTION:
Chromosome Comic or the modern prometheans explores the work of eighteen artists who integrate into their work the narrative languages of comics, cartoons, animations, virtual universes and cosplay to reveal socio-cultural aspects of today's world.
Using the metaphor of the creation of a monster in the manner of Dr Frankenstein, the exhibition proposes to the visitor the elements of a body, through whose veins runs the essence of the Mexican graphic industries.
Comic strips have fascinated readers and artists, fans and critics since their emergence at the end of the 19th century. However, and in contrast to previous eras in which the pollination was mainly from comics to art in a disadvantageous relationship for the artists of the former, the exhibition presents a snapshot of a moment of paradigm shift, in which the distinctions between artistic disciplines, and what was known as low and high art, have never been more blurred. Playing with graphic languages as elements of their own genetic code, but also inverting their methods of distribution and consumption, the artists in the show nally overcome the obstacles to establish dialogues back and forth between different artistic circles.
Intervening the entire ground oor of the artist-run space Biquini Wax, artists will present works in different media, exploring the suicidal extractivist narratives implicit in one of the world's most popular video games in Diana Cantarey's video work; the history of the Mexican comic strip, from its golden age to its decadence through extreme acrylic nail sculptures by Valentina Skellington; the deconstruction of the heteronormative paradigm of the cowboy in the sculptural work of Berke Gold; the creation of a new type of heroine, more human and superhuman than ever, in the work on paper by Rita Ponce de León; or the critique of labour relations based on submissive admiration in the ceramic sculptures and drawings of Inari Resendiz. Other works of a less discursive but no less powerful character will highlight the cathartic power of drawing and painting to portray the invisible, the unrepresentable, the unfathomable of human experience, as in the work on paper and canvas by Apolo Cacho or that of the artist duo (former artists of what was the most widely read comic book in Mexico for 38 years, El Libro Vaquero) Rodolfo Perez García and Olivia Peña Soto (PEGASO).
Chromosome Comic is an exhibition informed by the genealogy of institutional exhibitions held over the last 55 years on the relationship between comics and art. It thus seeks to propose a contemporary and decentralised reading of a creative phenomenon that has interested art historians for decades. Above all, however, the exhibition seeks to inspire artists and visitors of all generations to re ect and break free from the last barriers still preventing interdisciplinary dialogues, free of obsolete distinctions.
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