Liquid Sensibilities

Fluids easily move, slip, overflow, filter, and even dissolve solids. Its mobility explains the association between liquidity, changeability, lightness, transience, and volatility. The title of the exhibition, which gathers the works of the 2016 Grants and Commissions Program, makes an explicit allusion to the reflections of the contemporary world Zygmunt Bauman introduced in Liquid Modernity, his renowned book. The Polish-born sociologist states that we live in an era of instantaneity. In contrast to the old order, which showed greater attachment to the idea of durability, Bauman uses the metaphor of "liquidity" to refer to the nature of this new phase in the history of modernity.

In that "fluid" environment, the economy, politics, media, and social fabric adopt other rules (or lack of pre-fixed rules.) The "game" seems to be ruled by randomness, significantly impacting sociocultural behavior systems. Planned obsolescence, dispensability, instability, and fleeting are –according to Bauman – some of the features of our time; something convenient to a new nomadic and extraterritorial elite, which avoids attachment and "long terms."

The perception of the individual has changed because the individual's relationship with space and time has also changed. It is clearly impossible for us to consider such a relationship without taking into account contemporary technology and scientific contributions. This scenario makes us face the oldest questions in philosophy, just as today, submerging ourselves in the aesthetic experience reminds us of the waters in Heraclitus' river. In the age of "liquid modernity," we experience a different kind of sensitivity.

Each edition of the Grants and Commissions Program also works as a diagnostic study of various topics that occupy and preoccupy the Latin American scene. It reveals interesting indicators about the context of their artistic production and their thoughts. Based on the indicators, it is possible to make a connection between the ideas and concerns of the artists. We can then detect the interrelation between certain core problems or discern conceptual similarities and understandings of a visuality that is not just apparent. Considering this perspective, the artwork in the exhibition provokes deep and varied implications.

Liquid Sensibilities intends to emphasize the laboratory component, highlighting research and creation that identifies this program. Moreover, it focuses on a kind of corrosive visuality, or "counter visuality," which reacts to the elusive nature of our days. An exhibition of this sort can break free from curatorial apriorism, as it is built upon hypotheses arising from the personal inquiries of each artist. Conceptually, Liquid Sensibilities is inspired by the ductility of the works and by the direct intervention of the artists in the exhibition space. As site-specific, the artwork can permeate the space, flow, and contaminate. However, these works unmask complex traces to dissolve: the effects of a war not yet over, unsolved territorial border problems, unsettled gender issues, and alternative forms to evade systems of control. At the peak of its tension, between the end of one world and the beginning of another, we are left with the "almost."

Artists:

Jorge Julián Aristizabál (Colombia), Carlos Castro, (Colombia), Laidy Chávez y Fernando Parela (Colombia), Elena Damiani (Peru), Fidel García (Cuba), Felipe Meres (Brazil), Sandra Nakamura (Peru), Fabián Peña (Cuba), Oscar Farfán (Mexico), María Evélia Marmolejo (Colombia)