savage modern / moderno salvaje

Alexander Apóstol, between the modern and the savage.

May 13 - June 18, 2006

The main focus of the exhibition Savage Modern by Alexander Apóstol revolves around the concept of exposing the contradictions and complexities inherent to the existence of modernism and modernity in a Third World country such as Venezuela. Savage Modern is both the title of the exhibition and of a video included in the show. The piece refers to one of the greatest icons of Venezuelan modernity in Caracas: the Villa Planchart, designed in the 50s by the Italian architect Gio Ponti. For this house, Ponti designed a special exhibition area so the Plancharts’ hunting trophies could be placed on show or hidden from view at will. The idea of the modern savage in this context, reflects the utopian attempt to encapsulate in an ordered and neutral sphere—like the modernist space—the vitality, changeability and wildness of the untamed animal world, or allegorically the “nature” of the Venezuelan and his culture. Venezuelan modernity, as depicted by Apóstol’s photographs and videos, though neither barbaric nor unsophisticated, is savage due to its being a sui generis modernism in the throes of a constant process of implosion, flux and contradiction.

Cecilia Fajardo-Hill
Director/Chief Curator, cifo

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