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Buró de Intervenciones Públicas, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa,
Alberto Rodríguez Collía, Jesús “Bubu” Negrón,
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Stefan Benchoam

BOTH ENDS

A show by Proyectos Ultravioleta (Guatemala)
for Edel Assanti (London)

Edel Assanti, London, UK

BOTH ENDS** is not a show about Latin America. It’s not a show about London, or the UK, or Europe for that matter. It’s rather, something in between; a reading of contemporary culture in the Old Continent by not-so-new artists from the New Continent. It’s a study about cultural diffusion and interpretation and the relationships between countries and people. It’s not really a postcolonial analysis although it’s well aware of the history of the world.

The exhibition includes some of the most active artists from Latin America working in the trans-national art world today. Despite most of them being born in a Latin-American country and generally identified with the regional art scene, they deal with world-pertinent subjects and ideas without loosing the characteristically nonchalance of the American sub-continent: that uncanny ability of making things happen, even gracefully, with the least possible effort. It’s not lack of interest or attention; it’s an efficient approach to problem solving and art production. In this particular case, it applies to the study of cultural production from Europe in general, and the UK in particular. The works in this show look to establish a dialogue, one that is informal yet incisive, between these two sides of the world.

As part of what we intend as an on-going collaboration, this exhibition puts forward some of our intentions: placing in relation Latin and British contemporary art production as well as generating synergies, group projects and partnerships. As a second step of this bridge-building mid-term project, we’re thinking of a show that can elaborate on Latin subjects form the European point of view.

BOTH ENDS** is an exercise in mutual understanding, an alliance of sorts that will allow us to understand ourselves better by studying the Other. Some of the works that make up the show refer to British ideas and institutions as understood by Latin-American artists while other look to generate symbolic equivalencies between analogous phenomena. In either case, we hope the link between the two kingdoms strengthens, as we get ready for a new era of diplomatic British-Latin rapports.

Other exhibitions by these artists at Proyectos Ultravioleta: