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Los Padres Ausentes (2021)

In recent years, social demonstrations have put on everyone's lips a discussion that some believed secondary or settled: what do monuments represent in the public space? Should they be removed, destroyed, or kept in their original location? Why and for what purposes have these stone and bronze behemoths been arranged in public plazas? In the existence of some monuments, are there political reasons behind what, for some, seem mere decisions of decoration and urban planning?

Carlos Castro Arias intends to stir up this discussion through the exhibition Los Padres Ausentes (The Absent Parents). For two decades, Castro has been an observer of the mechanisms on how history is constructed. Through parody, sarcasm, appropriation of the strategies of the so-called "cult art" and the subversion of popular traditions and historical images, Castro reviews those episodes marginalized by official history and points out how that past that we thought was overcome survives strongly in the present.

The exhibition includes installations, videos, sculptures, and paintings that the artist has produced over the last 12 years and that help uncover the ideological charge that hides behind the statues of the public space: Simon Bolivar or Christopher Columbus are some of the characters in discussion and that serve Castro to talk about notions on "country", "home" and "political symbols". In the sculpture Pueblo, Castro “disrupts” the figure of Simon Bolivar, which he literally sets on fire, and in the video Who Doesn't Suffer Doesn't Live, some cannibalistic pigeons swallow the statue of Bolivar in Bogota’s main plaza.

Halim Badawi

Curator

Tio (2021)Fragment of a Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada sculpture, intervened with beads using symbols of the Inga culture from Putumayo, Colombia.

Tio (2021)Fragment of a Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada sculpture, intervened with beads using symbols of the Inga culture from Putumayo, Colombia.

Tio (2021)Fragment of a Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada sculpture, intervened with beads using symbols of the Inga culture from Putumayo, Colombia. (Detail)

Madre 2021Bust of Queen Isabella of Castile, intervened with beads using symbols of the Inga culture from Putumayo, Colombia.

Padre (2021) Bust of Christopher Columbus, intervened with beads using symbols of the Inga culture from Putumayo, Colombia.

Padre (2021) Bust of Christopher Columbus, intervened with beads using symbols of the Inga culture from Putumayo, Colombia. (Detail)

Los Padres Ausentes (Partial view of the exhibition) Photo: David Estrada Larrañeta

Catholic Monarchs (2021) 1950's relief featuring the Catholic Monarchs intervened with beads using symbols of the Inga culture from Putumayo, Colombia.

Sticking Deep Inside (2022) Bronze and beads featuring symbols from the Inga culture from Colombia. The hand mold was taken from a Columbus statue that was removed from a plaza in Bogota in 2021

Padre (2022) Bronze and beads featuring symbols from the Inga culture from Colombia. The image resembles the Columbus statue that was removed from a plaza in Bogota in 2021

Pueblo (2021) Bronze sculpture, stone and propane. The piece is based on a Bolivar sculpture that was set on fire during protests in Bogota in May 2021.

That Who Does Not Suffer Does Not Live (2009 - 2021)Video projection and paintings on board.

Public trial (2017 - 2021) Frontal view. Wall constructed with second hand and discarded plywood

Public trial (2017 - 2021) Reverse. Oil on wood

Public trial (2017 - 2021) ReverseMixed media on wood

Hogar (2021)Crystal lamp and propane system

Dialogue (2021)Human teeth, bronze knuckle

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