From October 15, 2023, to January 14, 2024, THE BARK, a group exhibition with June Crespo, Mathilde Rosier and Ana Vaz, curated by Elfi Turpin.
Welcome to the farm. THE BARK was developed in an agricultural atmosphere. It’s rural, it’s brutal. It’s soft like a stable waking up at dawn, warm breath of horses still asleep, smell of hay and straw, calm domestic cohabitation, muscular communication outside of language. It also leaves a harsh metallic taste in the mouth like that after crossing fields of wheat, canola, corn as far as the eye can see, a chemical taste made of fertilizers and pesticides, of a land that has been made distant, without any shadow or relief, silent and toxic.
THE BARK brings together artists whose works try to reinstate connections with an environment that’s been violently transformed by the effects of its massive exploitation, which originates from modernity’s separation of humans from the rest of nature. THE BARK gathers artworks carried by other visions, works that carry other stories and bodily experiences; works that carry gestures of resistance which forge alliances and social relations with the living worlds. Looking closely at the mountains, bringing earth back, sleeping in the earth, keeping a profound memory of this, turning dreams into an institution, dancing. Welcome.
—E.T., September 2023.
* The image above is a photograph of the painting The Guardian of the Red Bark [El dueño de la corteza roja] by Lastenia Canayo García (Pecón Quena), a Shipibo-Conibo artist and healer who, through her embroidery, drawings, paintings and ceramics, conveys visions of Amazonian worlds according to which nature in all its forms is made up of guardian beings with whom humans interact socially. The guardian spirits of plants, animals and other—than—humans grant them their benefits in exchange for social behaviors based on reciprocity, avoiding depredation. The painting reproduced here is part of a vast body of work in which Lastenia Canayo depicts the guardian spirits of healing plants. The guardian spirit is portrayed alongside the red bark. Its morphology communicates the ailment to be cured. This painting accompanies us in the conception of the exhibition.
Opening On Sunday, October 15, 2023 at 11.30 am. On this occasion, a free shuttle will leave from Basel. Departure at 11am from Meret Oppenheim Strasse, in front of the skatepark, perpendicular to Solothurnerstrasse. Return to Basel at 2.30 pm. For reservations, please contact Maria Gamboa: m.gamboa@cracalsace.com.
Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) supports the exhibition through the Programm for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE), in the framework of the Mobility grants.
