University Gallery, University of Essex, Colchester Campus
23 February 1998 - 30 November 1998
Incidental Music features works produced by Jorge Macchi during his residencies in Rotterdam and London. This exhibition was the first collaboration between UECLAA and Macchi.
The installation Incidental Music was produced during nine months in London at Delfina Studios, and the other works, Parallel lives and Accident in Rotterdam were made at the Duene Artists Initiative in Rotterdam. Part of the meaning of these works can be found in Macchi’s personal biography, in a series of events which led him to these places, but rather than trying to ‘decode’ the works into a single reading, the work gains from an understanding of the multiple possibilities for reading which are produced in the spectator.
In his various residencies, Macchi has managed to project some of his internal world onto his surroundings rather than trying to uncover some external truth about the place he is at. Macchi places himself, as a spectator, observing the passage of life around him, before finally making a small intervention which results in the work. In Incidental Music the background of everyday violence filtered through the British press is registered and transposed into visual and aural form.
Gabriel Pérez Barreiro
Image: Jorge Macchi Vidas paralelas (1998) ESCALA 11-1998
University Gallery, University of Essex, Colchester Campus
6 July 1998 - 10 July 1998
Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991) remains one of Mexico’s most eminent and internationally celebrated artists and UECLAA is pleased to exhibit his series Figuras prehispánicas donated by the Fundación Olga y Rufino Tamayo.
This exhibition, Figuras Prehispánicas (Prehispanic Figures), includes twelve lithographs. These works offer insight into the lesser-known, but highly experimental facet of Tamayo’s indefatigable artistic production.
Directly inspired by Tamayo’s significant collection of prehispanic art, the twelve lithograph exbited here each depict a single prehipanic figure from various cultures of western Mexico and the Gulf Coast. In subject matter and the purity of the reds, mauves and blues of Mexico’s popular art, the Figuras Prehispánicas unites two fundamental aspects of Tamayo’s work.
As ever, though Tamayo transgresses from reality in his rendering of prehispanic forms fusing or removing elements as necessary. He thus retains their essential ‘Mexicaness,’ while ensuring that they endure as symbols of a past that has similarly undergone transformation, but is in many ways still very much alive.
Joanne Harwood, 1998
Image: Rufino Tamayo Figura prehispánica: Vaso zoomorfo, Colima 1976 ESCALA 61:1-1997
University Gallery, University of Essex, Colchester Campus
5 October 1998 - 13 November 1998
This exhibition showcases the work of Chilean born artist Arturo Duclos. It is one of the first exhibitions in the UK of the artist's work.
Arturo Duclos' paintings and constructions are fully integrated in the international arena, but at the same time there may be distinctive aspects of his work which invite a quite specific placing within his environment. Coded or secret visual languages play an important role in his work, and it is legitimate to ask, whether this constitutes a response to the long dictatorships in Chile following the overthrow of Allende's democratic government, a dictatorship under which Duclos spent his formative years, when "concealment and silence were the only languages once was allowed to speak."
The University of Essex provides a unique context for this exhibition, which will be an exciting and rare opportunity to make direct contact with Duclos' work.
Professor Dawn Ades
Image: Arturo Duclos Bodegón (1990) ESCALA 37-1995