Artworks by more than 50 national artists, mainly constituted in the 1990s, come together in Los nuevos sensibles. The exhibit, which includes installations, music and video art, is being run by the duo Hoffmann´s House, which builds on and re-reads its 1999 milestone. From March 27th to May 20th at the Visual Arts Gallery of Matucana 100.
Hoffman´s House originated in 1999, when two Chilean artists – Rodrigo Vergara and José Pablo Díaz – used a series of 18 square meter “mediaguas” (prefabricated houses) as art galleries and invited their peers to present their work there. These dwellings, defined together as “social sculpture” and installed in squares in Vitacura, would become iconic when they unveiled the work of young artists, who in the 1990s moved outside the traditional circuits, among them: Camilo Yañez, Magdalena Atria, Mario Navarro and Cristián Silva.
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The new project by Hoffmann´s House (HsH) is called Los nuevos sensibles, a platform that, according to the duo, “is mainly dedicated to the production of graphic pieces that seek the link between contemporary art and literature”.
The exhibition, which opens on March 27th, includes the participation of more than 50 Chilean artists in video, music, sculpture and installation, as well as a selection of Latin American video art. “All the projects are convening, inclusive and free of charge. Each artwork is designed to be occupied by other artists. Our way of operating is through what we call “sensitive curatorship” (a term coined by the architect Claudio Torres), which consists of the mobilization of emotions versus market logic”, they explain.
The exhibition, the first to be exhibited in the Gallery of Visual Arts of Matucana 100 during 2018, seeks to re-read the conundrum that appeared in 1999. “The main interest is to show installations that we have set up in different countries and that we have never presented in Chile. HsH was born as a response to the different precariousnesses, which after 19 years we thought had been overcome.
The medium of art has changed but the precariousness continues in a different way. The mercantile governs, the press slims down as much as local art can be dense and rich, we continue to be governed by the facade of success made of papier-mâché. Hoffmann´s House remains relevant as a critical object in the art system”.
Hoffman´s House, Los nuevos sensibles, reviews the works already exhibited (with works by Camilo Yañez, Mario Navarro and Francisca Sánchez, among others), and integrates new pieces and works made during these two decades, as well as concerts and public interventions. In 2006 the couple produced The Bolivarian Dream, a video art curatorship in which more than nine Latin American curators and over 30 international artists collaboratively participated and which this year will give rise to The Bolivarian Dream 2, with a new selection, this time by Andrés Marroquín (Peru) and Eugenia González (Uruguay – Argentina). Continuing with the audiovisual format, Los nuevos sensibles includes the selection of Chilean video art “Con energía más allá de estos muros” (With energy beyond these walls), which includes around thirty filmmakers, including Juan Downey.
In 2007, in New York for the Roebling Hall Gallery, as part of the Daniel López Show exhibition, they mounted “Si lo puedo hacer aquí, lo haré en cualquier parte” (If I can do it here, I’ll do it anywhere), a work of 144 drawings by 72 Chilean artists, who submitted a carbonless request to obtain a current account at Banco de Chile. The work, which will also be part of this exhibition, alluded to said bank’s responsibility in the transfer of illegal money from Pinochet to Riggs Bank in New York.
In addition, Rodrigo and José Pablo are particularly linked to music and specifically to the label of the artist Iván Navarro, Hueso Records. Along with that label, in 2008, they released “Todos viven lejos” (everyone lives far away), a musical production by Chilean experimental bands – which will also have a second part with “Todos viven lejos 2” (everyone lives far away 2). The album was part of the installation “Las uvas y el viento” (The Grapes and the Wind), made in Barcelona, Spain with videos by Cristobal Leyht, who in this version cedes his place to Marcela Moraga’s work. Las uvas y el viento, would be the precedent of a compilation made in 2009 for the Biennial of Mercosur, where the duo released an album with Brazilian bands, under the musical production of Carlos Cabezas. The result was shown in the sculpture “Músicas Colgantes en Porto Alegre” (Hanging Musics in Porto Alegre), Brazil, a piece that will also be part of the presentation at the Visual Arts Gallery of Matucana 100.
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Gallery of Visual Arts. Tue March 27th to Sun May 20th. Opening Tuesday 27 at 20:00 hrs. Entry free of charge.
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