THE CITY, THE MYTH AND THE DESERT

La Balsa Arte proposes three artists for SP-Arte: Diego Arango, Radenko Milak, and Iván Rickenmann. The set of selected works establish a dialogue with the viewer, by staging three views at different scales and techniques, opposite and at the same time complementary, that interpret the problems of the contemporary world. In philosophical terms, inhabiting the world, thinking about it and processing it, are the central concerns of the exhibition.

In recent years, Milak has explored the concept of the Anthropocene, as the 'age of man', creating images that reflect on the loss of biodiversity, deforestation and pollution of bodies of water and seas. In particular, the purely urban condition of contemporary society is analyzed in images of urban areas and megacities such as São Paulo, Havana and Tokyo. The magnificence of civilization, the milestones of architecture, the museums themselves as works of art speak of the paradox of a destructive model of civilization. While each urban environment is characterized by its architectural qualities, together these works weigh the effects of human activity on the globe, highlighting the destruction of ecosystems and landscapes, at a time when cities concentrate more than 50% of the global population. His refined large-scale watercolors in black and white, show the replacement of green nature by infinite concrete skyscrapers, the supremacy of the inert over the living.

Arango, a Colombian-Spanish artist based in Mallorca, has spent 40 years painting the mythical world of the Mediterranean. There, the sun, the sea, the starry skies and the ships that have skirted the coasts of the cradle of civilization, in an ancient human journey, are a matter of contemplation. His work, attentive to myth, also considers, from a distance, the mystery of the jungle, the world of malocas and shamans, reminding us that America will always be part of his spiritual heritage. Diego Arango's painting, carried out in a broad, synthetic and universal way, has managed to preserve its fidelities and constancies between two cultures.

Rickenmann, in his realistic and careful drawings, considers the terroir, the delimitation of space, the deep meaning that the soil has where the home is made. Plant enclosures, pieces of landscapes, nests and other constructions are represented in drawings and illuminated boxes. As part of his recent series titled 'Cerca', these are the elements of the landscape that the artist brings to tell us about the care of the land that we have forgotten. They also refer to a way of delineating the territory, of marking differences in the vast monotonous landscape where the Wayuu culture is established, a vast territory that extends in the Guajiro desert between Colombia and Venezuela. The local and intimate becomes a way of inhabiting the land.

When selecting these works, we have sought to bring together three artists characterized by the depth of their reflections, mastery of technique and acute perception of the current era. These works offer an exploration of our contemporary realities, from the global to the most intimate and particular, inviting the viewer to critically engage with the world we have created and with the nature to which we belong, today critically threatened.

Ana Patricia Gómez - Director