Politics & celebrity exhibition season
July 24–September 29, 2015
Centro Cultural Matucana 100
CP 9170023 Santiago
Chile
Centro Cultural Matucana 100 is a respected institution in Santiago de Chile with an interdisciplinary focus connecting music, theater, dance, film, and visual arts.
Under the guidance of Paco Barragán, our recently appointed curator, Matucana 100 will showcase an international program in which Chilean and international artists will engage in a fruitful dialogue.
The first six exhibitions are articulated around the topic politics & celebrity, rethinking the obsolete notion of art and politics:
Alfredo Jaar: May 1, 2011
July 24–September 29
Alfredo Jaar: May 1, 2011 presents for first time in Chile Alfredo Jaar’s iconic installation in which, departing from the famous White House Situation Room photograph, the spectator sees Obama, Hillary Clinton and Biden while they watch the supposed killing of Osama bin Laden. Alfredo Jaar delivers a critical vision of not only politics but also an assassination turned into a media spectacle.
Intimate Strangers: Politics as Celebrity, Celebrity as Politics
July 24–September 29
Artists: Shepard Fairey, Andy Warhol, Arturo Duclos, Kepa Garraza, Marina Abramovic, Nicola Verlato, Mariana Najmanovich, Noah Becker, Ronald Ophuis, Federico Solmi, Prem Sarjo, Susan Silton, Santiago Sierra /Jorge Galindo, Muñoz de Marco, Judas Arrieta, Jim Fitzpatrick, Enrique Marty, Marc Bijl, Antonio Cortés Rolón, Miguel Aguirre, Ai Weiwei, Ismael Frigerio, Sami Lukkarinen, German Tagle, Marta Minujín, Alexis Esquivel, Flavia Contreras, Eugenio Merino, Walter Bortolossi, Patricio Rueda, Martín Sastre, Josie McCoy, Alfonso Fernández, Melvin Martínez, Ramón Tormes, Carlos T-Mori, Cristian Zabalaga
Intimate Strangers: Politics as Celebrity, Celebrity as Politics is a group show featuring works from 38 Chilean and international artists revolving around the idea of how politics and its content is dictated by those with media power and media skills, and how celebrities use their media credibility to influence politics (the so-called celebrity transnational activism.) Divided conceptually into three sections—Heroes and Prophets, Politicians and Dictators, Celebrities and Activists—the show poses the question whether today’s citizen is only interested in politics as spectacle and entertainment and no longer in parliamentary debates and electoral programs, and what is the real motivation behind those celebrities-turned-activists?
Political Dali: Communism, Falangism, and Francoism in Salvador Dali’s Life
July 10–September 29
Political Dali: Communism, Falangism, and Francoism in Salvador Dali’s Life presents a documentary exhibition consisting of a series of photographs, articles, manuscripts, books, and letters in which Salvador Dali’s lesser known political life is analyzed. Dali’s political life is still a big taboo in most retrospectives—think of Centre Pompidou and Museo Reina Sofia recently or the actual Spanish Pavilion in Venice—avoiding this highly polemic side of one of the precursors in the use of mass media. The thesis of this research is that Dali’s political ideas find a firm resonance in his respective’s pictorial styles and artistic progress and allow exciting connections between the two.
Wir sind Utopia:The Artist as Activist
July 24–August 22
Artists: Christian Jankowski, Cecilia Vicuña, Cristina Lucas, Gianfranco Foschino
Wir sind Utopia: The Artist as Activist gathers the work of German Christian Jankowski, Spanish Cristina Lucas (both works proceeding from the MUSAC Collection in Leon, Spain) and Chilean artists Cecilia Vicuña and Gianfranco Foschino, whose work tackles from different perspectives the ability of art to challenge society and not only prefigure but even configure social change. The artist thus acts as enabler of new and utopian ways of rethinking society.
Federico Solmi: A Song of Celebrities, Politicians, and Dictators
August 25–September 23
Federico Solmi: A Song of Celebrities, Politicians, and Dictators presents Solmi’s iconic video trilogy consisting of A Song of Tyranny (2012), Chinese Democracy and the Last Day on Earth (2012), and The Return of the Prodigal Son (2014) in which politicians, celebrities and dictators stage a challenging and mesmerizing dystopia of politics, show business, and tyranny.
Antonio Cortés Rolón: An Actor at the White House
July 24–September 29
Antonio Cortés Rolón: An Actor at the White House presents a solo show of Puerto Rican artist Antonio Cortés Rolón in which through a series of paintings the complex admiration, relationship, and mutual dependency between the White House and Hollywood is analyzed.
Press contact: prensa [at] m100.cl
More info and images here.