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Javier Barrios October, 2022
Javier Barrios October, 2022 Guadalajara, 1989 Lives and works in Mexico City Barrios’ work addresses relationships between the minuscule and the monumental, and the connection between both worlds is understood as a form of political act. In recent work, fantastic, historical and scientific narratives can be observed –as well as formal and technical experiments–, which togeth- er speak of the way in which human beings relate to nature, trying to decipher, contain and control it, constantly endangering sanity and life. Barrios studied visual art and was part of Programa Educativo SOMA in Mexico City. His work has been shown in solo shows at Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro (2022); Art and Culture Center/Hollywood, Florida (2021), and Biquini Wax, Mexico City (2016). At the beginning of 2022, Barrios presented an important series of drawings in the group show Drawing in the Continuous Present, organized by Rosario Güiraldes, at The Drawing Center, New York. He participated at a group show in CLEARING Brussels, titled Les beaux jours (summer 2022). His work has been shown in group shows such as OTRXS MUNDXS, curated by Humberto Moro at Museo Tamayo (2020-2021); and in Aoyama Meguro (2020). He has been resident artist at Fundación Casa Wabi (Oaxaca, 2019) and International Studio & Curatorial Program (New York, 2018). Barrios was granted the FONCA Jóvenes Creadores grant during the 2019 – 2020 period under the category of alternative media. Barrios’ work is part of public and private collections such as Beth Rudin DeWoody collection, NYC; Fundación M and Phillips/Yuyito at Mexico City, among others. For early November 2022, the artist will present his first solo show at the gallery, titled Casa de sombras [House of Shadows].
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 Drawing in the Continuous Present Organised by Rosario Güiraldes, Associate Curator of The Drawing Center Comprising nearly a hundred works on paper by thirteen artists from ten different countries, Drawing in the Continuous Present explores how a new generation of artists is placing drawing at the center of contemporary art discourse. The exhibition brings together works on paper by some of today’s most significant artistic voices, including Michael Armitage, Javier Barrios, Jesse Darling, Maren Karlson, Christine Sun Kim, Helen Marten, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Julien Nguyen, Sanou Oumar, Walter Price, Florencia Rodríguez Giles, Johanna Unzueta, and He Xiangyu. The title of the exhibition, Drawing in the Continuous Present, is borrowed from a 2017 talk given by American artist Amy Sillman in which she speaks, via Gertrude Stein, of drawing’s “continuously present” temporality. The notion of the “continuous present” pertains to the ways in which the featured artists employ drawing’s immediacy to mediate their relationships with the world around them. Guided by The Drawing Center’s long-standing support of contemporary drawing practices and practitioners, Drawing in the Continuous Present rhighlights drawing as a major form of expression for this group of artists, whose works reflect a myriad of experiences and methods. To demonstrate drawing’s possibilities, the exhibition’s five thematic sections highlight different ways that the artists utilize the medium: imagining; spiritualizing; translating; fantasizing; altering language. With its wide-ranging scope, the exhibition underscores drawing as expansive and open-ended, and provides insight into how and why artists from different backgrounds and with different aims have given the practice primary importance in the past two years, the period during which the majority of the works in the exhibition have been made. As society and culture have shifted to confront the devastation wrought by the pandemic and ongoing social and economic inequities, many artists have returned to drawing’s rawness and physicality. Though Drawing in the Continuous Present does not explicitly address these global issues, the works and the context in which they have been made are inseparable. This exhibition marks a moment when the direct experience of drawing makes it a timely tool to navigate our continuously present reality. A drawing is drawing by Rosario Güiraldes The title of the exhibition and publication is borrowed from a 2017 talk given by American artist Amy Sillman in which she speaks, via Gertrude Stein, to drawing’s “continuously present” temporality: “There is no drawing that is not temporal, fragile, instantaneous, in a state of flux. You are looking, acting and reacting while you are thinking and feeling, both analytically and instinctually. The drawing
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 itself is simply the residue of such relations.”1 In other words, drawing is now, and now, and now. In the same talk, Sillman posits that drawing is “a thing in between; a messenger between drawer and world.”2 Taken together, an understanding of drawing’s nowness and in-betweenness suggests a reason for a recent resurgence of contemporary drawing, a phenomenon not seen since the 1990s.3 Fifteen years ago a fascination and engagement with technology emerged in contemporary art discourse as artists explored the aesthetic, cultural, and social impact of the Internet, leaving behind drawing’s rawness and physicality in favor of slick materials that showed no trace of the hand. In the past two years (the period during which the majority of the works in the exhibition have been made), many artists have returned to drawing as society and culture have shifted to confront catastrophic environmental threats and social and economic inequities. Though Drawing in the Continuous Present does not explicitly address these global issues, the works and the context in which they have been made are inseparable. The notable artistic shift towards drawing should be seen as a response to the current conditions that have compromised our very humanity. Comprising nearly a hundred works on paper by thirteen artists from ten different countries, Drawing in the Continuous Present is a look at drawing as a major form of expression for this group of artists, whose works reflect a myriad of experiences and methods. The exhibition juxtaposes highly-executed drawings with those that are intentionally unfinished; descriptive drawings with diagrammatic ones; and representational drawings with abstractions. There is variation in the technique, imagery, materials, and size of the works but as The Drawing Center’s Executive Director Laura Hoptman observed in 2020, what artists have been drawing “is not necessarily as compelling as the fact that so many of them turned to drawing.”4 The drawings included in this presentation demonstrate that it is drawing itself-as an exercise or exorcism, a practice or as practice-not a category or a definition, that matters. Drawing is a space of freedom where one can construct spontaneously without the limitations of a predetermined result. Drawing is a daily ritual, a method for self-healing, or a tool for revolutionary action. Drawing is a platform for contemplation, a place for invention and speculation, and a realm of fantasy. Understanding drawing as expansive and open-ended provides insight into how and why artists from different backgrounds and with different aims have adopted the practice in recent years. As Jesse Darling, one of the exhibiting artists, has observed, drawing is “contingent, physical, and intuitive,” adding warily, “There is not much to be said about drawing. It has a self-evident, self-propelling quality.”5 Drawing is simply what it is, or, as Gertrude Stein could very well have written, a drawing is drawing, is drawing, is drawing. 1 Amy Sillman, “Conversation with Amy Sillman: Drawing in the Continuous Present,” January 13, 2017, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX, 34:52-35:12, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLOgc466nRk. 2 Sillman,36:14-36:19. 3 Laura Hoptman’s 2002 exhibition Drawing Now: Eight Propositions at The Museum of Modern Art identified a resurgence in drawing in the 1990s among many important young artists, including Elizabeth Peyton, Julie Mehretu, Chris Ofili, Kai Althoff, Kara Walker, and others. Borrowing its title from Bernice Rose’s 1976 MoMA exhibition Drawing Now, Hoptman’s show was organized into eight themes that she identified in contemporary art production. 4 Laura Hoptman, “100 Points of Light to Pierce the Darkness,” in 100 Drawings from Now (New York: The Drawing Center, 2020), 10. 5 Jesse Darling, email to the author, January 16, 2022.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 Group drawing exhibitions of the past half century have frequently been either/or propositions, arguing for drawing as either a preliminary or preparatory practice, or conversely, as a resolutely finished object.6 Binaries abound in the debate: verb/noun, primary/ secondary, study/artwork. This phenomenon of taking a stand on drawing began with the need to demonstrate drawing as “a major and independent means of expression,”as curator Bernice Rose did in 1976.7 In 1999, Connie Butler posited drawing as equivalent to process in an exhibition of 1970s Process Art. Hoptman then rebutted this idea with her 2002 exhibition of contemporary drawing, which advocated instead for finished and autonomous drawing that “depict[s] something that has been imagined before it is drawn.”8 She suggested that the understanding of drawing as process should be viewed as “developing from specific moments in time and taste, rather than a given.”9 Pamela Lee observed in her essay for the catalog of Butler’s show that the status of drawing in the history of art is “liminal,” as it has “always occupied an ambivalent role within the historiography of art, regarded as both foundational and peripheral, central and marginal.”10 But ultimately drawing’s sustained indeterminate position may be one of its most vital assets. This characteristic should be recognized as an extremely valuable one that frees drawing and its practitioners from the so-called success mediums’ requirement of triumph, allowing for the creation of artworks that distinctively express feeling, immediacy, and authenticity. As Michael Armitage, another exhibiting artist, has said, “I never have this urge about making a ‘good’ drawing, I just want to make the drawing I need.”11 Sillman’s Continuous Present talk featured an illuminating exercise in which she assigned a unique verb to each drawing in a diverse collection of images. Following this technique, the works in this show and book have been arranged into five different ‘”drawing operations” to demonstrate what drawing can do, and also to trace conceptual, thematic, and formal affinities between the works.12 The artists in Drawing in the Continuous Present utilize the medium in numerous ways: to express individual experiences; to reconfigure objects, images, and the ideas attached to them; to speak unspoken truths; to translate perceptual experiences; and to reflect on cultural and political histories, or create them anew. Whether drawing as a method for preparing or recording ideas, for merging different ways of seeing, or for pushing the medium’s formal and conceptual posibilities, Michael Armitage, Julien Nguyen, and Walter Price are imagining. Jean Katambayi Mukendi’s drawings of light bulbs that combine numinous and political propositions, Sanou Oumar’s self-healing drawings, and Johanna Unzueta’s harmonious geometric compositions made with plant-based dyes show how aspects of drawing are spiritualizing. Christine Sun Kim captures the deep fisures in meaning intrinsic to the act of translation and He Xiangyu records subjective sensorial experiences as visual imagery, both making a case that drawing is translating. Drawing is fantasizing according to Javier Barrios’s wildly imaginative depictions of orchids, Maren Karlson’s metaphysical compositions, and Florencia Rodríguez Giles’s queer utopias. And finally, arriving at the work of two artists who are also accomplished writers, Jesse Darling’s 6 For the purposes of the present discussion, I am focusing on three in this category: Drawing Now: 1955-1975, curated by Bernice Rose, Jan 23-Mar 9, 1976, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Afterimage: Drawing Through Process, curated by Connie Butler, Apr 11-Aug 22, 1999, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, curated by Laura Hoptman, Oct 17, 2002-Jan 6, 2003, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 7 Bernice Rose, “Drawing Now,” in Bernice Rose, Drawing Now, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1976), 9. 8 Laura Hoptman, “Introduction,” in Laura Hoptman, Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002), 11. 9 Hoptman, Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, 12. 10 Pamela M. Lee, “Some Kinds of Duration: The Temporality of Drawing as Process Art,” in Cornelia H. Butler, Afterimage: Drawing through Process, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, and Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), 31. 11 Michael Armitage, in conversation with the author, February 8, 2021. 12 Sillman, 18:52-27:48.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 almost-clumsy but very pointed drawings and Helen Marten’s meticulously constructed compositions are altering language. Such a wide-ranging approach to the medium demonstrates drawing’s fundamental openness and expansiveness. As Walter Price told me, “That’s the beauty of drawing, it doesn’t have to be something.”13 This exhibition marks a moment in time when the direct experience of drawing, and the medium’s essential humanness, make it a timely tool to navigate our continuously present reality. Fantasizing: Javier Barrios “Imagination is an artist’s most valuable and most important tool,” explained Javier Barrios, whose drawings construct supernatural worlds where orchids are the main characters-demonic and monstrous creatures that have humans at their mercy.14 “Inventing something new is an enormous challenge,” Barrios continues, “but transforming a well-known thing into something unexpected is an even greater challenge,” one that Barrios has nevertheless mastered.15 His drawings reinvent the botanical illustration genre, one of the most popular in the history of art. Prior to photography’s invention, botanical illustration was the method par excellence for visualizing and describing the world’s flora. Technically skilled artists and illustrators who possessed horticultural knowledge created highly executed and detailed drawings of plants for the use of physicians, pharmacists, scientists, and gardeners alike. But throughout the twentieth century botanical illustration was largely relegated to a lower status in relation to fine art. Barrios’s work is conversely inscribed with the history of art and politics. He views orchids as “secondary protagonists” in the various political and economic processes of colonization.16 For example, the exotic plants one finds at botanical gardens have been subjected to the same kind of looting and extractivism as the pre-Hispanic objects in encyclopedic museums. Barrios’s most recent series of drawings of orchids, as well as of poppies and peonies, utilize flowers as the inspiration for characters from his own visions and fantasies. In his visions of fiery hells, beautifully rendered flowers depicted as demons and deities occupy a place that has never before been assigned to them. “Orchids are incredibly strange, sexual, subtle, complicated, monstrous, sophisticated,” explains Barrios, “a true evolutionary miracle,” emphasizing his fascination with these flowers whose family includes approximately 25,000 species and that have sparked great passion and desire throughout history.17 Maintaining a daily drawing practice, Barrios usually works with colored pastels, which allow him to develop a clear picture of his compositions at a faster rate. The yellow tone of the manila paper integrates the pastel colors in a soft and harmonious way, while the paper’s affordable nature allows him to work with ease, unburdened by the fear of making mistakes. (Barrios uses the very same paper that his mother used when he was a child to cover the walls of their apartment to prevent Barrios and his brothers from marking the walls 13 Walter Price, in conversation with the author, September 29, 2021. 14 Javier Barrios, in conversation with the author, November 17, 2021. 15 Barrios, 2021. 16 Barrios, 2021. 17 Barrios, 2021.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 with crayon.) Giving his imagination free reign results in exceptional drawings that combine references from Heian period Japanese painting, pre-Hispanic ceramics, and caricature portraits to create realms that, however fictional they may seem, concretely refer to the world in which we live.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Drawing in the Continuous Present,
2022
Exhibition view
The Drawing Center, New York, USA
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Drawing in the Continuous Present,
2022
Exhibition view
The Drawing Center, New York, USA
Photos by Daniel Terna
Courtesy of The Drawing Center
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Cypripedium estallido (from the series
Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
48 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Cypripedium monkey (from the series
Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
48 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Kovachii perro (from the series Buddhist
Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
48 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Soldado medusa II (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
35 x 24 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Cypripedium aparición (from the series
Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
48 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
A donde crees que vas II (from the series
Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
35 x 24 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Cypripedium con costillar (from the se-
ries Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
24 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Brassias vuelan sobre el volcán I (from
the series Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
35 x 48 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 Las rodillas del ciprés Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro Curated by Inbal Miller and Edgar Alejandro Hernández There are obsessions that are very productive because of their ability to overflow their own object of desire. This is the case of the impulse and essence that guides the recent work of Javier Barrios, who for almost five years has focused his work on the study and research of flowers, particularly orchids, in order to develop a heterogeneous body of work that has the capacity to recall discussions between art and science, human being and nature, representation and power structures, politics and historical narrative, dissemination of science and Apocalyptic visions, scenes of intellectualized humor and fantastic nineteenth-century journeys in search of exotic species. The exhibition Las rodillas del ciprés, part of the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro, offers a representative selection of works that were created from the artist’s journey to the Fakahatchee Swamp on the outskirts of Naples, Flori- da, United States, to find a rare and mythical ghost orchid. Following the story generated by Susan Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief (1998) and the movie Adaptation (2002), written by Charlie Kaufman, Barrios dived into the Fakahatchee Swamp to try to find the dendrophylax lindenii (ghost orchid), a species that has no leaves, stem, or bulbs, only one in clusters of roots, since the latter carry out the chlorophylic process. It blooms once a year and its flower has a whiteness so snowy and vibrant that it is unparalleled, and its pronounced and protruding labellum creates the feeling that it remains magically suspended in the air, like a ghost. At least that’s how those who have seen it in nature describe it. The experience of Barrios, which he narrates in first person, is recorded on video, but also in the numerous drawings that unfold in a com- plex rhizome where the representation of nature gives way to the visions and obsessions of the artist. The show has the ghost orchid as its axis, but in reality its presence is not limited to its graphic representation, but its perennial absence is what gives tone and weight to the artist’s work. The important thing for Barrios is not to achieve a reliable portrait of the orchids, but to put in tension the many possibili- ties that as an artist finds when participating in this game of expectations and frustrations. Understanding orchids is not only a process of learning about botanical issues, but spills over into your own understanding of art and the political and social implications of contempo- rary creation. This exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of the Maya Montalvo family.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Las rodillas del ciprés, 2022
Exhibition view
Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro,
Querétaro, MéxicoJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Las rodillas del ciprés, 2022
Exhibition view
Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro,
Querétaro, MéxicoJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Las rodillas del ciprés, 2022
Exhibition view
Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro,
Querétaro, MéxicoJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Las rodillas del ciprés, 2022
Exhibition view
Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro,
Querétaro, MéxicoJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Las rodillas del ciprés, 2022
Exhibition view
Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro,
Querétaro, MéxicoJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Las rodillas del ciprés, 2022
Exhibition view
Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro,
Querétaro, MéxicoJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Las rodillas del ciprés, 2022
Exhibition view
Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro,
Querétaro, MéxicoJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Haunted House I (Florida 2020), 2020
Pencil on paper; wood
105 x 75 x 33 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Haunted House II (Metztitlán 2020),
2020
Pencil on paper; wood
65 x 86 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 OTRXS MUNDXS Museo Tamayo Curated by Humberto Moro and Andrés Valtierra With the assistance of Regina Elías and Verónica Guerrero OTRXS MUNDXS [Spanish gender neutral for “Other Worlds”] is a group exhibition that surveys and articulates the work of an heterogeneous, multicultural group of more than forty artists who work individually and collectively in Mexico City. Throughout four thematic sections (I.Capitalism and Domination, II. Seriality, Identity and Obliteration, III. Entropy, Speculation and Visualization, and IV. Body and Materiality), the exhibition presents recent works and special commissions, which reveal urgent discourses, representative of an artistic community who internalizes the paradigms and failures of late capitalism. OTRXS MUNDXS focuses on highlighting otherness: artist’s presentations constitute artistic microcosms which question the preconceived, hegemonic notions—or else, they solidify alternative visions—of what it means to make art in or from Mexico City. OTRXS MUNDXS presents a majority of younger, or emerging artists—for some of whom this exhibition is their first major museum presentation—as it articulates the narratives in which they are invested with a selected group of more established artists who have been instrumental for defining the Mexican artistic landscape, both nationally and internationally. Even though the exhibition is an exhaustive revision of the current artistic landscape, it is not intended to be an all-encompassing or universal exercise. In that sense, the exhibition has been constructed with an awareness of its own limitations and with the hope of posing one argument, amongst the many that can be made about art in the present. The exhibition is, first and foremost, a platform for art and artists to trace conversations that have been at the forefront of global artistic discourse, presenting the important dialogue between local communities and Mexican artists with artists from Ecuador, República Dominicana, France, Brazil, Peru, and many cities of the United States. It also addresses the lack of institutional representation and attention to local communities, particularly for a younger generation of artists in the city. OTRXS MUNDXS consists of an unprecedented institutional response to the global pandemic; a gesture which, in the best of cases, anticipates a post-pandemic alterity, a world in which equality, social and interspecies justice and the well-being of the inhabitants of this complex city, is not posed as radical idea, but as an attainable reality. Francis Alÿs, ASMA, Zazil Barba, Fernanda Barreto, Javier Barrios, Miguel Calderón, Pia Camil, Marcos Castro, Paloma Contreras Lomas, Chelsea Culprit, Pablo Dávila, ektor garcia, Mario García Torres y Sol Oosel, Yann Gerstberger, Julieta Gil, Daniel Godínez Nivón, Romeo Gómez López, Cristóbal Gracia, Clotilde Jiménez, Madeline Jiménez, Ángela Leyva, Yeni Mao, Noe Martínez, Melanie McLain, Josué Mejía, Berenice Olmedo, Fernando Palma Rodríguez, Tania Pérez Córdova, Rita Ponce de León, Jerónimo Reyes-Retana,
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 Armando Rosales, Marco Rountree, SANGREE, Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, Guillermo Santamarina, Ana Segovia, Tercerunquinto, and Tezontle. The fourth and last section of the show, Body and Materiality,is introduced by a video by Francis Alÿs,a performance documentation of the artist splitting one of his landscape paintings by half with a hand-saw, suggesting the transformative potential of destruction; and a site-specific commission by Marcos Castro,where a constellation of paintings on canvas interact with a mural depicting a post- human, interspecies landscape where references of prehispanic cultural markers are confronted with seemingly apocalyptic scenes. A na Segoviaand Romeo Gómez Lópezoffer a reinterpretation of Mexican and international popular culture that contests heteropatriarchal conceptions disseminated by art and film. Guillermo Santamarinaturns to dada and punk aesthetics to explore the figure and visual languages of those who have been left out of society. The most delirious segment of the exhibition, the work of C lotilde Jimenez, Chelsea Culprit, Javier Barrios,ASMA,Marco Rountreeand Tania Pérez Cordova, organizes a multilayered dialogue between landscape and body, touching upon dreams, materiality, and queer subjectivities. In the last gallery of this section, Yann Gerstbergerpresents an immersive installation made from textiles, drawings and sculptural works—an abandoned garden where nature took over man-made and natural structures, with depictions of vegetal and anthropomorphic figures. Barrios’ group of paintings reveals the intersection between the reminiscences of the whimsical forms of the ghost orchid, and some elements that seem to describe phallic and monstrous entities that simultaneously dialogue with what the artist calls Buddhist Visions of Hell.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Loto de sangre y fuego (from the series
Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2020
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Aparición (Cardón) (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2020
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Horno de tierra (from the series Buddhist
Visions of Hell), 2020
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
A donde crees que vas (from the series
Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2020
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Olla común (from the series Buddhist Vi-
sions of Hell), 2020
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
OTRXS MUNDXS (section IV, Body and
Materiality), 2020-2021
Exhibition view
Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, MexicoJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
OTRXS MUNDXS (section IV, Body and
Materiality), 2020-2021
Exhibition view
Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico
Courtesy of Museo Tamayo, INBAL
Photographs by Gerardo Landa and
Eduardo López for GLR EstudioJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 Buddhist Visions of Hell Series (2019 - ongoing) These drawings present surrealist, mythological-botanical worlds where orchids are the protagonists: demonic monstrous creatures that rule an incredibly diverse infernal landscape. Influenced by Asian art, pre-Columbian ceramics and caricature, Barrios depicts these plants as gods of hell. In a counter-narrative where plants hold humans at their mercy, flowers appear as demons and dark deities occupying a place never before assigned to them. As fictitious as they may seem, situations and problems like these relate specifically to the world in which we live. — Javier Barrios’s visionary drawings of supernatural worlds situate orchids and other exotic flowers as the main protagonists of demonic and monstrous fantasies. “Inventing something new is an enormous challenge,” Barrios says, “but transforming a well-known thing into something unexpected is an even greater challenge.” The artist boldly submits to such a proposition in his own drawing, which reinvents the traditions of botanical illustration. Prior to the invention of photography, this genre was the method par excellence for visualizing and describing the world’s flora. Artists who possessed horticultural knowledge created precisely accurate drawings of plants for the use of physicians, pharmacists, scientists, and gardeners alike. Barrios’s work, on the other hand, brings an element of psychedelia to the field. He abandons a scientific eye for one that renders the relationship between human and plant more imaginatively, recognizing the danger- ous social and political forces that have influenced the tradition. Even today, one can look to orchid markets as but one example of how cultural, economic, and colonial forces intersect in an attempt to control and exploit nature. In Barrios’s drawings it is the human figures who are entrapped, clutched, and disemboweled by treacherous flora—challenging the assumption that humans are the species in con- trol. The bold, chalky, sanguine colors of the orchid’s grimacing smiles evoke violence, but also an exuberant pleasure in wielding power. Text by Rosario Güiraldes, Associate Curator of The Drawing Center
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Phragmipedium Samurai (from the series
Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
35 x 24 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Niños brassias (from the series Buddhist
Visions of Hell), 2021
Pastel on paper
48 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Almond Blossom IV (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Almond Blossom VI (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Almond Blossom VII (from the series
Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Almond Blossom IX (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Almond Blossom X (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2021
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Almond Blossom XI (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2022
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Demonio tripaphio encuentra el cráneo
de un niño y siente fascinación (from the
series Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2020
Pastel on paper
47.5 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Untitled (from the series Buddhist Visions
of Hell), 2020
Oil on canvas
70 x 50 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Paphiopedilum watching herself (from
the series Buddhist Visions of Hell), 2019
Pastel on paper
35 x 24 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Almond blossom (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2019
Pastel on paper
35 x 48 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Brassias dancing (from the series Bud-
dhist Visions of Hell), 2019
Pastel on paper
24 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Raining Blood, 2021-2022
Oil on canvas
78 x 110 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Javier Barrios in Les beaux jours, 2022
Exhibition view
CLEARING, Brussels, Belgium
Courtesy of CLEARINGJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Javier Barrios in Les beaux jours, 2022
Exhibition view
CLEARING, Brussels, Belgium
Courtesy of CLEARINGJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 Orchid Toons Series This series of drawings (2019 - ongoing) are made thinking about the possibilities between cartoon characters, art and scientific dissemi- nation. Barrios started making them to share his passion and enthusiasm for orchids. They became a way to talk about other issues and interests, such as the history of science and the relationships of tension between humans and nature. He likes to include historical details, morphological peculiarities, evolutionary mechanisms and information in general, thinking of humor as a tool to reach wider audiences. At the same time, Barrios reflects on how orchids, animals and insects can teach us other ways to live together and with other living beings.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Symbiotic Evening (from the series Or-
chid toons), 2020
Colored pencil on paper
28 x 21.5 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Epiphytic Relationships (from the series
Orchid toons), 2019
Colored pencil on paper
28 x 21.5 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Myrmecophilas in Love (from the series
Orchid toons), 2019
Colored pencil on paper
28 x 21.5 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Aedeagus Pics (from the series Orchid
toons), 2019
Colored pencil on paper
28 x 21.5 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Euglossinae Teenagers (from the series
Orchid toons), 2020
Colored pencil on paper
28 x 21.5 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
God Save The Queen Huh! (from the se-
ries Orchid toons), 2019
Colored pencil on paper
28 x 21.5 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 Dibujos negros / Black drawings These are by far the most obsessive drawings I’ve ever done. Photocopies are very important in my life. Through these impressions, I experienced for the first time many works of art, fundamental texts and images that marked my life. With the orchids in particular, there was a lot of expectation because I hadn’t been able to see the flowers in person when I made these drawings, I only had black and white images that I copied from books in the library. These pieces speak of the desire and frustrations of wanting to see amazing things, but they also tell of my obsession as an artist to reproduce the reality around me.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Untitled (Laelia Speciosa), 2018
Pastel on paper
50 x 35 cmJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Laelias de Mexico II (detail), 2018
Pastel on paper
56 x 76 cm each oneJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Laelias de Mexico I, 2018
Pastel on paper
56 x 76 cm each oneJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022 Sillas plegables y flores On each chair of the circle, rests a painting of a landscape that has been cut out to be used as a balaclava. The scene depicts a group of people sitting together to talk about themselves and the things around them. Each individual speaks through a landscape, which is some- how their context, the space where they recognize themselves. More than two folding chairs: a crowd To extend a folding chair is to claim a small stretch of territory with the intention of directing our attention toward what is in the periphery of our gaze. If we sit in two folding chairs, face to face and close to each other, let’s say a meter away, the furniture suggests the possibility of a conversation. If we integrate a third person with their respective folding chair, the courtesy of some or the uncomfortable silence may also lead to dialogue. And if no one has taken out their cell phone, the conversation starts. If a fourth person with a fourth chair joins, the possibility of forming a circle becomes evident, and the bodies move away from each other to create it. Chairs open and close as more people and chairs become part of the conversation. The building of a community leads to an unfolding: energy is released through the physical encounter of people. The folding chair is thus an element of the modern human collective. The formation of a group of chairs will reflect the intentions and dynamics of the group of people who sit in them. In a circular formation, hierarchies are eliminated and an open exchange is suggested. In this exhibition, the folding chair is a symbol of dialogue, a physical platform for political resistance that fosters human relationships through encounter and exchange. To organize, we have to sit and talk. Take a third flower and it will be a bouquet Flowers also unite people and are a central element of many of our social rituals. In Mexico, peonies welcome, chrysanthemums honor our dead, roses are for loved ones and lilies are for celebration. When different flowers are gathered, the diversity of smells, colors and shapes reveals the fertility found in difference. In addition, flowers can be understood as a metaphor for capitalistic systems of production: with each blooming or unfolding, seeds are produced. These allow the flowers to reproduce but are also cultivated and exploited for the fruits they generate. Poppy, coffee, marijuana, tobacco, peyote, corn, sugar cane, cocoa, coca, salvia, soybean, cotton, cherry and orchids: flowers that disappear within the shadow of agriculture and whose pollen enriches the economy and, by extension, the underlying political and sociocultural systems that sustain it. The flowers in this exhibition represent biopower and its life-sustaining role. But wilting is inevitable. In the ephemeral, delicate and lucrative existence of a flower, the impending failure of an unsustainable system of production and consumption is made manifest.
Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
To draw flowers sitting on a folding chair
In a moment of heightened social anxiety where the media imagines a discouraging future, Javier Barrios has decided to to draw
chairs and flowers. For a long time, Barrios has found in drawing a space to reflect on the construction, (re)production and distribution
of images in a society mediated by signs and symbols. In Sillas plegables y flores, Barrios presents a series of drawings and paintings
that draw attention to the graphic aspects of social organization, reminding us of the importance of symbolic imagery in revolutionary
movements as a collective identity. His pencil and brush strokes transform the ideas of resistance
and self-organization into symbols
that, presented as folding chairs and flowers, have the capacity to act as a rumor. Unlike the rumor that the State disseminates to control
the masses through fear and falsehoods, the rumor in the work of Barrios represents dissent: a secret language that unfolds to inspire
organization and critical dialogue in the socio-political context in which we find ourselves. In this way, Barrios politicizes the everyday
through two elements that allude to affective relationships; in deploying this symbolism, the artist assures us that as long as we gather
folding chairs with flowers, there will be safe spaces, for resistance and to find the collective force that will help us challenge structures of
power.Javier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Asamblea (boceto), 2017
Oil on canvas and folding chairs
Variable dimensionsJavier Barrios Project selection October, 2022
Asamblea, 2017
Colored pencil on paper
70 x 100 cmJavier Barrios CV October, 2022
Javier Barrios Máquina de vapor, Bikini Wax EPS, Mexico in collaboration with Joaquín Segura, Mu- Here the border is you, curada por Lui-
(Guadalajara, 1989) City, Mexico seo de la Ciudad de Querétaro, Querétaro, za Teixeira de Freitas y Claudia Segura,
Mexico ProyectosLA, Los Ángeles, USA
STUDIES 2014
Programa educativo SOMA, Mexico City, Habitación de oro, Diéresis, Guadalajara, 2020-2021 Tres golpes, en colaboración con Joaquín
Mexico Mexico OTRXS MUNDXS, Museo Tamayo, Mexico Segura, curada por Paulina Ascencio, Fun-
City, Mexico dación CALOSA, Irapuato, Mexico
Bachelor in Arts, Secretaría de Cultura de 2013
Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico Améxica: Ciudad amurallada, Alianza 2020 2016
Francesa de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Delicacy in Filigree, curated by Juan Pablo Segunda Gran Bienal Tropical, Proyecto de
SOLO SHOWS Mexico Cendejas, Aoyama Meguro, Tokyo, Japan Pablo León de la Barra Loíza, Puerto Rico
Upcoming
Casa de sombras, Pequod Co., Mexico GROUP SHOWS 2019 Políticas del polvo, Galería Emma Molina,
City, México 2022 Bodega ACME, Salón ACME 7ma edición, Monterrey, Mexico
I Coul Eat You: Part 2, collaborative group Mexico City, Mexico
2022 show between Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Reconstrucción: Un proyecto de Abraham
Las rodillas del ciprés, Museo de la Ciudad Madragoa, and CLEARING, Casa da Páramo | GNP ArteCareyes Film & Art Fes- Cruzvillegas, curaduría de Viviana Kuri,
de Querétaro, Querétaro, Mexico Cultura Comporta, Comporta, Portugal tival, Careyes, Mexico Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ), Zapo-
pan, Mexico
2021 Bitácoras: Colección Fundación Casa Wabi, 2018
Cloning the ghost, Art and Culture Center/ Fundación Casa Wabi in collaboration with Cómo diluir el territorio, curada por Vivi- 2015
Hollywood, California, USA Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Querétaro, ana Martínez, La No Bienal 2da edición, Under Construction, curada por Meaghan
Querétaro, Mexico San José, Costa Rica Kent, Páramo, Guadalajara, Mexico
2017
Huerta a cuadros indoor, Ladrón Galería, Les beaux jours, CLEARING, Brussels, Bel- 2017 2015-2014
Mexico City, Mexico gium 127, Páramo, New York, USA Testigo del siglo, curada por Viviana Kuri y
Humberto Moro, Museo de Arte de Zapo-
Sillas plegables y flores, Páramo, Guadala- Drawing in the Continuous Present, The Kitchen debate, curada por Paulina Ascen- pan, Zapopan, Mexico
jara, Mexico Drawing Center, New York, USA cio, Regina Rex y Rawson Projects, New
York, USA 2014
2016 Autosuficiencia #2: Ejercicios de balance, Primera Bienal de Arte y Diseño (invitedJavier Barrios CV October, 2022
artist), Universidad Nacional Autónoma Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FON-
de México and Academia de San Carlos, CA), Mexico City, Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico
COLLECTIONS
Maratón de las Américas 89Plus: Autocon- Beth Rudin DeWoody collection, New York,
strucción (invited artist), curated by Hans USA
Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets, Museo Ju-
mex, Mexico City, Mexico Colección Diéresis, Guadalajara, Mexico
2013 Colección GAIA, Mexico
Sin necesidad de profecías, curada por
Humberto Moro, Diéresis, Guadalajara, Colección Isabel y Agustín Coppel, Mexico
Mexico
Fundación M, Mexico
2011
Anatema-Guadalajara, curada por Miriam Phillips/Yuyito, Mexico
Novóa y Samantha Cendejas, Guadalaja-
ra, Mexico WRITTEN TEXTS
De vuelta en Utopía. A, The Style Guide,
RESIDENCIES 2017
2019, Residency program, Casa Wabi,
Oaxaca, Mexico OTHER ACTIVITIES
2018, International Residency Program, The 2015-Currently
International Studio & Curatorial Program, Cofounder of Interior 2.1, artist-run space,
New York, USA Guadalajara, Mexico
2017, Residencia artística, Hotel El Ganzo,
San José del Cabo, Mexico 2012-2014
Founder and writer of independent editorial
GRANT & AWARDS project: Ediciones Barrio Boy’z, Mexico
2019-2020, Jóvenes Creadores grant, al-
ternative media and performance, FondoYou can also read
