Artistes: j

X-Ville praises the city as a space and a place of collective creation. This work explores and its huge supply of possibilities, its fertile nature for synergies and complementary relationships. It looks at its space, which is suitable for the emergence and fruition of ambitious and intimate initiatives that depend on the acceptance of the differences and the reconciliation of opposing interests. The content of the video addresses primitive survival gestures with their individual contradictions, the affectionate exchange and its complicated dimensions, and the meetings and discussions that constitute political life. Its resources and images honor the grace and sensitivity of the poetic texts and drawings of the architect Yona Friedman about the utopian uses…

Much of his work provides documentary evidence of the life of a downtown area of Medellin known as Barbacoas. It is a place related to prostitution, drugs and danger. There are many cities like this around the world. They reflect the government policies, the priorities and mutual understanding of those who have the power. However, Zapata does not go deep into political speeches, he simply captures what he sees every day in bars and hotels in order to exhibit individuals who inhabit the city. We can see what we don’t want to see through a compassionate lens.

Artist collectives are formed as a response to voids that are found in the art system and in order to explore theories and concepts that fall outside of traditional conventions. To a greater or lesser extent collectives assume political positions. Jorge Andrés Marín presents us with evidence about the activities of an artist collective from Medellín called Grupo Centro. It was active between 1981 and 1995. By using different archival materials the artist constructs their history around real political situations and events. The artist shows us that, ultimately, history is a construction of declarations of facts and that reality is based on our belief in the truth of this evidence. With this installation Marín…

This project is related to the Medellín Supreme Court archives covering the first three decades of the twentieth century. Portrait photographs, crime scene sketches, pictures of weapons and descriptions made by legal experts and police officers, are part of these archives. Through different artistic practices they join other elements in order to present what Restrepo has called political anatomy and semiology of political violence in Colombia. Restrepo has used the figure of sacrifice as an inclusive element in previous works. It appears again to integrate heterogeneous narratives from different times and juxtaposed significant facts that exceed the simple collection and…

Salazar reworks with irony some elements belonging to the urban popular culture in Peru. His work includes diverse formats and actions in the public space. It encompasses handmade production of utilitarian objects and manufacture of ready-mades using precarious materials to express sarcastic remarks about social frameworks that are stuck according to his point of view. His work includes an ingenious common narrative that entwines the history of a place and myth in a hilarious way. Salazar has been invited to be part of the MDE15, halfway between a vendor and a popular character, by performing various interventions in spaces such as hairdressers, cafes, squares and streets of Medellín. The results of his interventions will be displayed…

Obando works in cultural, social and political interstices looking for ironies and unexpected relationships that show weaknesses and special features of those systems. This artist uses social phenomena as a raw material in a critical and humorous way. For the MDE15, he intends to show two aspects of our society: In Military trucks, he instinctively investigates the extent to which armed conflict may be assimilated into a culture to the point that symbols of a military presence can become fun for adults. In Museum Mixtape, he explores the gap that normally exists between the community and the world of contemporary…