ALLAN VILLAVICENCIO ALLAN VILLAVICENCIO Allan Villavicencio was awarded the Honorary Distinction for the XVIII Rufino (Mexico City, Mexico, 1987) Tamayo Painting Biennial (Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, 2018) and was re- Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico. cipient of FONCA fellowships in the Young Artists Category standing out with three iterations (2010-2011, 2013-2014 and 2017-2018). Allan Villavicencio thinks of the pictorial process as a metabolism in constant transformation. His practice considers the production of spatia- He has been a resident of Casa Wabi (Puerto Escondido, MX, 2020); Cité des Arts (Paris, FR, 2019); and Espacio Tomado (Lima, PE, 2018). lity in and around paintings, in situ interventions and sculptures; building a “residual landscape”. The latter generates tension between a sense of His work has received international attention with exhibitions such as La re- wholeness and a fragmented nature within different plastic processes of cherche du rayon vert, curated by Anaïs Lepage at Maëlle Galerie (Paris, 2019); excavation and aggregation. Pétalos del asfalto, IK Projects (Lima, 2019); Tropismes, curated by heiwata at Cité des Arts (Paris, 2016); or Capital flight, Chalton Gallery (London, 2016). Villavicencio observes how the fragments in his daily environment have the capacity to delimit and extract themselves, this contextualizes the Allan Villavicencio has been part of solo and group shows in several institu- pretext to seek the visible in unfolded perspectives as well as in the vir- tions, such as Museo Tamayo (Mexico City, 2019); Museo de Arte Contem- tuality of the changing state of matter. His work highlights the desire to poráneo de Oaxaca (Oaxaca, 2018); Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (Mexico City, see through color as a visual interruption as well as a corporeal activity; 2018); Centro Roberto Garza Sada (CRGS-UDEM, Monterrey, 2018); Celda configuring a phantasmagoria within a symbolic narrative of the space Contemporánea - Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana (Mexico City, perception. 2016); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Sonora (Hermosillo, 2017); Cité des Arts (Paris, 2016); and Parque Fundidora (Monterrey, 2015). His works are part of numerous important collections such as Museo MATE (Lima, PE); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Aguascalientes (Aguascalientes, MX); Colección Arena (Madrid, SP); or JM SR Collection (Querétaro, MX). In 2020 he inaugurated TRANSCAPES, a large-scale fresco mural inside a XVII century building in Mexico City. After several collaborations, he will pre- sent his first solo show at Galería Karen Huber (Mexico City) in April 2021. Allan Villavicencio is co-director of Fuego, a Mexico City based space dedicated to the promotion and exhibition of contemporary painting practices. SELECTED PROJECTS 2016 - 2021 Pieles ciegas (Blind skin), solo show, 2021, upcoming*, Galería Karen Huber, Mexico City. This exhibition consists of a series of mostly small-format paintings and sculp- tures arranged around a large-dimension landscape, El cortejo [Courtship]. Painted as a triptych, this work is wagered on the contradiction between visual illusions on the canvas and how one of its panels plays out in tension with the physical space of the gallery. This new body of work continues my exploration of perception in painting. With a visual language that connects tangible and virtual realities, I animate diverse visions in which the materiality of color acts both as visual interruption and bodily activity. The works that make up Pieles ciegas generate an oscillation between surfaces and volumes, as an “invitation to explore a ‘residual landscape’ (landscape-fragment) created out of reminiscences of my everyday surroundings.” Here, both shapes and motifs appear and disappear in successive mutations and gradations over the course of a process of pictorial composition that has extended its residues into the gallery. In this sense, my spatial imaginary refers to the changing state of material during an image’s construction, both visually and physically. By juxtaposing accumulation and excavation – and making use of multiple layers of paint and textiles – my work reveal the hidden, the impalpable, and the phantas- magoric side of things. Pieles ciegas thus plays with a material eroticism that reveals metaphors for the formed and the formless; of the inanimate and the living. Pliegues I 2020-211 * Exhibitions views and register of El cortejo painting missing. oil and acrylic on linen A short selection of pieces that are part of the exhibition follows. 35 x 30 cm El pretendiente 2021 oil, acrylic, spray painting, recycled fabric on sewed linen 180 x 150 cm Cortina 2020-21 oil on linen 110 x 80 cm Cripsis 2020 oil, acrylic, recycled fabric on sewed linen 45 x 40 cm Todos éramos animales, éramos tierra (We all were animals, we were soil), Project in collaboration with Casa Wabi, November 2020, San José Manialtepec, Oaxaca, MX. This community project is a herbarium thought in the manner of a mural book that takes as a reference the endemic plants and trees of San José Manialtepec. Starting with the collection of drawings (created by stu- dents of the Filomeno Mata Elementary School) and helped by the oral tradition of the region; a mural with clay bas-reliefs inspired in endemic plants’s drawings with their names was presented at the school. Then the project can last in extreme weather conditions and can be consulted by students. One of the purposes was to cause a pictorial approach and a sensitive look to develop the contemplation of the environment. In this way, the landscape not only conforms an idea about “the natural”, it is also revealed itself as a community-built reality. Todos éramos animales, éramos tierra, installation view, 2020, San José Manialtepec, Oaxaca, MX, mural painting and clay bas-reliefs, 3 x 15 m. TRANSCAPES, solo show, 2020, Mexico City. * […] Allan Villavicencio created a pictorial experience that goes through a chro- nicle of an interior landscape, felt from the sight and the body. TRANSCAPES plays with elements from his recent practice, this time in a permanent intervention. The features of the space were addressed from the tension between the two main walls–united by the side tears and the chromatic echoes of the beams that connect them. This is not an immersive tour1; it is the experience of living between two worlds that project each other, two worlds escaping towards opposite cardinal points. The symbols used do not follow a religious order or an ideology. Rather they pick up on the shamanic –not in its intentions, but its ways. The same happens with color. Both things have been activated intuitively, distanced from rational knowledge or color theories. The use of fast-wearing pigments (fluorescence) should be noted as well as the tension it creates with the concept of durability in a medium that aspires towar- ds stability. To tackle it, Villavicencio left instructions to periodically repaint specific strokes. This way, the concept of permanence can be understood as the acceptance of transitions and renovation. This is how the project connects to the house (more so than through the appropriation of its surfaces), which is a restoration project2. […] Andrea Bustillos Duhart & Alvaro Castillo, February 2020. *Excerpt ot the exhibition text. 1 As in the case of his recent solo show La recherche du rayon vert (In Search of the Green Ray) at Maëlle Galerie, Paris, 2019. 2 The house was restored by architect Juan Urquiaga. TRANSCAPES, installation view, 2020, Mexico City, 2 murals of 4 x 5 m each. Images: Octavio Rivadeynera. Pétalos del Asfalto (Asphalt petals), solo show, 2019, IK Projects, Lima. * […] The color-matter structures the pictorial skins that constitute Villavicencio's work. We can conceive pictorial skin as the conjunc- tion of the matter-color, of the time and the space in each layer of his paintings. But it is not only about the qualities of each skin, rather about what happens between one and the other. One layer simultaneously denies and supports the other, and even many times they are contradictory. The skin is a surface that conceal, but at the same time it points to something else. Othiana Roffiel *Excerpt ot the exhibition text. Pétalos en azul 2019 oil, oil stick, acrylic, spray on canvas 200 x 170 cm Pétalos del asfalto, exhibition view, 2019, IK Projects, Lima. Smoothie, 2019, oil, oil stick, spray on canvas, 170 x 420 cm. Images : Pablo Cruz Pétalos del asfalto, exhibition view, 2019, IK Projects, Lima. Ebullición, group show, 2019, Kunstraum am Schauplatz, Vienna. Allan Villavicencio, Sofia Cruz, Christian Camacho, Lucia Vidales, Juan Calo- ca, Madeline Jimenez Santil, Jose Eduardo Barajas, Prras! Collective, Sangree, Karla Kaplun, Matias Solar, Victoire Barbot, Maximiliano León, Ana Sego- via, NAAFI, Lilly Pfalzer, Andrew Birk, Alma Saladin & Marco Rountree, Pablo Cendejas, Daniel Hüttler, Andy Medina, Angelika Loderer, Isreal Urmeer, Palo- ma Contreras Lomas, Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba. That which is composed of constituents to form a unified whole, not in the manner of a heap, but as a syllable, is evidently more than the sum of its constituents. A syllable is not the sum of their sounds; ba is not the same as b plus a [...] So the syllable is something for itself; it’s not just her lute, but so- mething else. Aristotle: Metaphysics 1 In the last few years Mexico City has experienced an internationally acclai- med boom as a result of a multi-faceted net of factors. Balancing a delicate equilibrium of safety for outsiders, and a violently corrupt reality, the mega city is on its way of becoming a world capital for culture and tourism, mir- roring successful capitalist models but – literally – built on shaky ground. Integrating the affluence and influence of internationalism through the waves of artists and young professionals floating in and out of Mexico as one very specific type of global tourism, the creative sce- ne in the city looks very different now than it did in the 90s.