Black Tropicalia @ Museo Experimental El Eco

Black Tropicalia is a collective show of Erick Beltrán, Karmelo Bermejo, Alexander Calder, Vitor Cesar, Lygia Clark, Verónica Gerber Bicecci, Mathias Goeritz, Gabriel de la Mora, Hélio Oiticica, Edgar Orlaineta, Sebastían Romo, Daniel Steegman and Alejandro Vidal.

The exhibition's premise is:
"Art has been raped and it's dead. There are no transcendental artistic problems any more. Nonetheles, there is a philosophical posture. Aesthetics without a strong ethical support can produce interesting results, even beautiful but that, is not art." 

Mathias Goeritz, 1964

Tropicalia (detail), 1967

The idea around Black Tropicalia is simple, take away the color of Oiticica's instalation in 1967 and you get a mourning space made out of hammocks, wood, books, pulverized black rubber, an atomic bomb projection and the Cabinet of Dr.Calgari's playing on T.V. But overall, a very somber space of exhibition. 

Just to name some other pieces, there is a fake painting of Goeritz covered with excrement from the artist (Gabriel de la Mora), an exact copy of the artist's finger made out of black ink (Erick Beltrán) and Karmelo Bermejo's image of himself pouring crude oil into the Spanish Costa da Morte in 2005.

I am writing about this because I somehow agree with this show at least in some parts, for example, I agree there is a luctuous disenchantment in some of the shows I've attended in the past few years.

I appreciate and admire the effort of a space that tries to explore these issues not necessarily by reivindicating the art scene but by pointing them out.

I think the lack of an ethical discourse in art is only a reflection of how we act against the lack of justice and though that is not desirable it is the true state we live in.

I mourn for the art scene too because I wonder if I'm doing something to change that.

Finally, a quick reflection around the concept of "blackness". What is black but the sum of all colors? If Black Tropicalia is an attempt of depicting these and other issues around modern art, I like the fact there was and is a number of artists who are at least, consciously trying to make an awareness of it. Ironically, to me, that shows some light?