Germán Venegas: Todo lo otro

The work of Germán Venegas (La Magdalena Tlatlauquitepec, Puebla, 1959) is characterized by the hybridization of traditions and mythology. This exhibition combines drawings with ink on paper, wood carvings, sculptures, tempera, and paintings wood and on canvas, gathered in 15 series that reflect the integration of his Buddhist practice at the heart of his work as an artist, while also including the three main aspects of his artwork: themes and representations of Art History, Zen Buddhism and pre-Hispanic mythology.

Todo lo otro (Everything Else) is showcased on the upper floor of the museum, in Gallery 6, and in Galleries 3 and 4, on the lower floor. These two spaces, which are located on different levels, intertwine in a double-height open space, inhabited by a five-meter-high Buddha carved from a single piece of wood. This sculpture—entitled La forma es vacío y el vacío sólo forma (2000-02)—is the centerpiece of the exhibition, as it creates a vertical connection and a tentative division between Venegas’ mythological work located on the upper floor where the Buddha’s head can be seen, and his more mundane or earthly work on the ground level where Buddha’s feet rest.

This exhibition embraces Venegas work from 1995 to the present, the most recent ones, gathering a set of works that represent the amplitude of mediums, references and explorations that have defined his artistic practice, which is disobedient and obsessively persistent. Even though Venegas has maintained a distant position regarding the contemporary art world and system, the art itself is deeply ingrained with the obsessive analysis and study and of canonic representations of art history and pictorial traditions.