The works that constitute the show Somos Tiernos -the first solo exhibition in Mexico of the Colombian artist-, are built with the ideological history of Argote, and his sharp view of the immediate reality that mixes humour and absurd. Theses deconstruct process of memory and understanding of what ‘we are’, taking as starting point things affectively close to us, or banal to develop a critical thinking.
Ivan Argote grew up in a extremely tense period of conflict in Colombia. From Bogota his parents participated actively in the revolutionary movement. We can see in Argote’s work that political activism functions as a space of awareness and critic analyse, from where he questions the supremacy of the logic-scientific knowledge. In some of the works shown in the exhibition, Argote reinterprets public monuments, by making interventions that sometimes seem humorous or naive, and through these gestures he annulates the monument’s symbolism of power and identity. His creative method uses strategies as the disobedience and playfulness, with which he place us in a sort of discomfort that push us to make switch our way to see and conceive political activism.
The works in “Somos Tiernos” reflect this binomial set up by Ivan Argote, that he denominated himself as “contestatarian tenderness”, showing us the possibility of combine engagement and sensibility.
Iván Argote, Somos Tiernos, Museo del Chopo. On view 2017 - 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Museo del Chopo.
Iván Argote, Somos Tiernos, Museo del Chopo. On view 2017 - 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Museo del Chopo.
