Entre Irse y Quedarse at Galeria Merida

Opening December 2, 2017 7PM-2AM(public intervention by Crack Rodriguez)

Exhibition On View December 2 - January 2018

“The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.”

-Octavio Paz

Merida, Mexico -- Atomic Culture and Galeria Merida present, Entre Irse y Quedarse (Between Coming and Going), multi series exhibition focusing on the dialogue between artists living along border, specifically those in the “Americas”. In observing cross sections of the vibrant visual legacy of the global south, the exhibition seeks to mediate the complex tensions that arise when imagined lines are made real. through public intervention and installation, each of the artists in the exhibition -- Crack Rodriguez, Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0, Cristobal Martinez, Sandra Monterosso, and Delilah Montoya -- Activate the observer to address their experiences with cultural erasure in relation to border issues with public intervention and experiential installation.

As the Nobel prize winning poet Octavio Paz often alludes to in his writings about self reflection, the exhibition speaks to the mass reflection society needs to participate in, considering the legacy of colonial imperialism within the Americas. Entre Irse y Quedarse reflects on immigration, the disregard toward earth’s resources, and the hypocrisy of the human condition. Over the course of the last year, the conversations surrounding immigration reform has becoming increasingly central to the public discourse internationally, with the global refugee crisis and waves of economically motivated immigration headlining international news and often posed as a societal threat. Yet, these conversations and the issues raised in the media are not new nor consequential.

The artists in Entre Irse y Quedarse illustrate the movement of ideas and people as drivers of our innovation, and bolsters of economic industry. Cristobal Martinez’s Con Frascos Embrujados Me Ensangrente las Manos. Escucha Cuando Me Chingé Solo con Tierra y Viento, invites participants to interact individually or in tandem by picking up and twisting hanging jars that when activated immerse the space with the evocative reverberation of standing in the desert. Martinez aims for the participants to experience the unleashing of “ a death curanderismo that arises from the artist’s perception of the irradiated borderlands.” Sandra Monterroso confronts dialogue around identity and its conditioning, looking at both ancestral memory and contemporaneity, focused in particular on Guatemalan context. Crack Rodriguez’s public intervention is a catalyst for social change by focusing on the abuse of power upon socially and economically disadvantaged populations. And the seminal works of the Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0 and Delilah Montoya focus attention on the basic human needs of those caught in the intersection of flux and political feud.Each artist explores borders as a physical reality and as a site for possibility, encompassing multiple disciplines, reflecting the ways in which contemporary artists themselves cross disciplinary borders, bringing nuanced perspectives to international concerns. As Octavio Paz wrote, “All is visible and all elusive, all is near and cannot be touched."