The exhibition presented at Zoème comes from a visual archive created by the artist Celeste Rojas Mugica and entitled Inventario Iconoclasta de la Insurrección Chilena. This online archive documents the diversity of iconoclastic gestures perpetrated by protesters on public statuary since October 2019, which saw the birth of one of the largest social movements in the history of Chile. The artist created this online archive by reworking hundreds of photographs collected on social networks and taken by protesters. The profusion of images and the form of the archive reflect the extent of the revolt and show the variety of interventions on public statuary. Destruction, mutilation, decapitation, cross-dressing, are all expressions of a rejection of the nationalist, colonial and patriarchal identity discourse conveyed by public statuary. But iconoclasm in turn appropriates, transforms, renames and subverts monuments to pluralize the imaginations of the nation and project into the disputed public space the transformations desired by the demonstrators.
Mathieu Corp is a lecturer in visual arts at the University of Aix-Marseille and a member of the Center in Aix of Romance studies. He works on the relationship between art and history in photography and the contemporary visual arts in Latin America, and analyses the conditions of the meaning of images according to the discourses and devices that mediate them. He teaches in the Department of Hispanic and Latin American Studies.
Celeste Rojas Mugica (born in 1987, Santiago – Chile) is a visual artist, photographer and filmmaker. In her work, she investigates the relationship between memory, violence and territorial imaginaries. She works with images and archive as materials and supports for experimentation around its social uses and its political power, inscribing her practice in relation to the boundaries between fiction and documentaries. She has exhibited and published her work in Latin America, Europe and Asia. Her work has been awarded the “Rodrigo Rojas de Negri” National Prize for Young Photography (Chile, 2017), the Buenos Aires Youth Art Biennial Prize (Argentina, 2017) and the Latino-Creation Prize. American Biennial of the Moving Image (Argentina). , 2018), among others. She has recently exhibited her work in exhibitions and festivals such as BIENALSUR (Argentina; Chile), Ars Electronica (Austria), Les Rencontres d’Arles (France), Biennale Image & Mouvement (Argentina), San Sebastian Film Festival ( Spain) and UNSEEN Festival (Netherlands), among others. She lives and works between Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. She is represented by Rolf Art Gallery
This exhibition takes place within the framework of the colloquium “Archivo vital de la revuelta. Estéticas disidentes del octubre chileno”, organized by the University of Aix-Marseille.
The exhibition proposed by Mathieu Corp will be inaugurated in the presence of the artist Celeste Rojas Mugica and accompanied by the presentation of the book Gestes iconoclastes. Reflections from the Inventario Iconoclasta de la Insurrección Chilena by Celeste Rojas Mugica, Zoème editions, 2023. Text by Mathieu Corp.(5€)
Soraya Amrane
Celeste Rojas Mugica : Inventario Iconoclasta de la Insurrección Chilena
On a proposal by Mathieu Corp
from January 19 to February 04, 2023
Opening Thursday January 19 from 6 p.m.
Zoème
gallery-bookstore and publishing house
8 rue Vian
13006 Marseilles, France
www.zoeme.net
