Gonzalo FuenmayorTropicalypse

Dot Fiftyone Gallery is pleased to announce “Tropicalypse”, an exhibition of new work by Miami-based artist Gonzalo Fuenmayor. Born in

Colombia, resident of the United States for over 20 years, Fuenmayor’s precise charcoal drawings continually explore themes of cultural

hybridity, exoticism and identity politics.

 

In “Tropicalypse” - a playful -yet macabre- word combination of “Tropical” and “Apocalypse”- Fuenmayor presents a challenging new body of

work.  His recurrent opulent and decadent charcoal drawings have grown dramatically in scale and complexity with two monumental multi-

panel charcoal drawings such as “Tropicalypse” and “The Seeds of Decadence”.   These massive works portray two seemingly disparate

scenarios:  While the drawing “Tropicalypse” portrays an imaginary apocalyptic landscape of burning palmtrees; a gesture alluding to the palm

tree as an archetype of “tropical culture” in America,   “The Seeds of Decadence” depicts a lavish and opulent Victorian room with inverted

values.

 

Several oval shaped charcoal drawings complement these two massive works.  Among these, “The Taste of Omnipotence” which portrays a

Toucan fossil petrified in a charcoal background, foreshadowing the demise of the bird as an exotic signifier.  Also, “Semantic Innocence”, a

direct reference to Josephine Baker, which depicts the cropped body of the actress wearing a skirt made with bananas.   Fuenmayor is

interested in translating pop culture imagery together with his own, and is constantly displacing their meaning through the act of drawing.  He

is constantly questioning his role as a performer and spectator in the never ending dynamics of belonging.  One last example is the drawing

“How would you like me to exoticize myself for you? Where the discourteous question rests in the surface of the drawing, juxtaposed with a

decorative Dutch still life scene in the background.

 

Accompanying the drawings, Frenesí, a video installation will be also shown.  The three-minute long video depicts a ballroom dancer - cropped

to the knees- attempting to gracefully dance to Charleston and tap dance rhythms using pineapples as shoes. The result is an eerie and

nostalgic commentary to transculturation dynamics.

  

  

TropicalypseBy Ximena CaminosArtist Director & Chair. FAENA ART

 Fascinated by the idea of how the exotic is created or established as a “trade mark” and of how, during this process, it ends up by being standardized, Fuenmayor presents, through these pieces, spaces for reflection, wherein the viewer is the conscious link that connects these monumental drawings. Eclipsed by an apocalyptic paradise, the viewer becomes the center towards which the juxtaposition of messages, image and landscape converge, as opposed to tedious order, opulence, and elegance. A political, permanent, cyclic tropic – the central theme in these series is the image of a woman becoming exotic through her wearing a skirt made out of bananas (facing a European/white audience): it’s Josephine Baker – Exotic Tropics. Assertively and endowed with an infinite tropical imagination, Gonzalo Fuenmayor creates post-earthly spaces, entropic tropics that burst in and permeate these enormous, dreamlike, subliminal images that allude to the fragility of the balance that rules over all things, perpetuating in this manner a new icon of the exotic/tropical concept in our subconscious.

Gonzalo Fuenmayor

Gonzalo Fuenmayor was born in Barranquilla, Colombia in 1977. He received an MFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA in 2004, and a BFA in Fine Arts and Art Education from School of Visual Arts in 2000, where he was awarded a full tuition scholarship from the Keith Haring Foundation. He has been awarded numerous awards including a 2015 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists, Traveling Fellowship by the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2014, first prize at the 6th Bidimensional Salon at Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation in Bogotá, Colombia, 2013, and a Silas Rhodes Family Award in 2000. Fuenmayor has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in USA, Latin America and Europe; his work was recently showcased in a solo exhibition “Tropical Mythologies” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2015, at the "Caribbean Crossroads" Exhibition at the Queens Museum, NY, "Florida Contemporary 2011" at the Naples Museum, among others. Recently, in 2016, he had two solo shows at Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco, CA and at El Museo Gallery in Bogota, Colombia. Among his projects for 2017 is a solo show at Dot Fiftyone Gallery in Miami.  He currently lives and works in Miami, FL.

 

The seeds of decadence (2017)84 x 157.5 inches . Charcoal on paper

Tropicalypse (2017)84 x 180 inches . Charcoal on paper

!!! How would you like me to exoticize myself for you? (2017)24 x 18 in .Charcoal on arches hot pressed oval panel

El Calor de lo conocido (2017)24 x 18 in. Charcoal on arches hot pressed oval panel

Semantic Innocence (2017)18 x 24 in. Charcoal on arches hot pressed oval panel

Varieties of Truth (2017)18 x 24 in. Charcoal on arches hot pressed oval panel

Tropical Glow (2017)18 x 24 in. Charcoal on arches hot pressed oval panel

The Taste of omnipotence (2017)18 x 24 in. Charcoal on arches hot pressed oval panel

Video

Frenesí (2017)Single channel. Running Time: 3:12

Photography  

Frenzy (2017) 26 x 40”. Archival print on cotton paper. Edition of 5 +1 AP

Political Contorsions (2017) 26 x 40”. Archival print on cotton paper. Edition of 5 +1 AP

All the things you are 1 (2017) 26 x 40”. Archival print on cotton paper. Edition of 5 +1 AP

All the things you are 2 (2017) 26 x 40”. Archival print on cotton paper. Edition of 5 +1 AP

 All the things you are 3 (2017) 26 x 40”. Archival print on cotton paper. Edition of 5 +1 AP

 All the things you are 4 (2017) 26 x 40”. Archival print on cotton paper. Edition of 5 +1 AP

All the things you are (2017) 18 x 24” each. Archival print on cotton paper. Edition of 5 +1 AP

Gonzalo Fuenmayor

EDUCATION•  MFA 2004 School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in affiliation with Tufts University, Medford, MA•  BFA 2000 Fine Art Major with Art Education Minor, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS•  2017 Tropicalypse, Dot Fifty One Gallery, Miami, •  2016 Picturesque, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA     Galeria El Museo, Bogota, Colombia•  2015 Tropical Mythologies, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA•  2013 They Say I Came Back Americanized, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA•  2011 Tropicalia, Dot Fifty One Gallery, Miami, FL•  2010 Splendor, Galeria Mundo, Bogota, Colombia•  2009 Pornorama, Dot Fifty One Gallery Project Room, Miami, FL, USA•  2006 Imaginary Displacements, Galeria Pluma, Bogota, Colombia•  2004 Silencios Maduros, Galeria Pluma, Bogota, Colombia•  Ballet, The Artist Foundation, Boston, USA•  2003  The Aftertaste of Nothingness, Colombian Center Gallery, New York, USA Calores Mansos, Galeria La Pared, Bogota, Colombia•  2001 Trabalenguas para Tartamudos, Galeria France, Barranquilla, Colombia•  2000 Lineas Tacitas, Museo Institucional, Barranquilla, Colombia 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

•  2016 Papered Stories; 14 Artists Dealing with Paper, LMAK Gallery, New York, NY ConTexto; palabra, escritura y narración en el Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia

At Home in the World, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A. Displacement, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, U.S.A. Another Better World March, The Bascom: Center for the Visual Arts, Highlands, NC

•  2015 100 Degrees in the Shade; A Survey of South Florida Art, Miami, FL New Art: South Florida Cultural Consortium Artists Fellowship Exhibition, Schmidt Center Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL Masa Critica; Practicas Artísticas Emergentes en el Caribe, Galeria La Escuela, Barranquilla, Colombia Lenguajes de Papel, Galeria El Museo, Bogota, Colombia ArteBA Feria, Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina La Boca BA, Foundation, Buenos Aires, Argentina

•  2014 Pinta Art Fair, Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Miami, FL•  2013 Bidimensional Salon, Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation, Bogota, Colombia

Parc Peru Fair, Individual Project, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lima, PeruUtopia of Illusions, Nube Gallery, Santa Cruz, Bolivia

•  2012 Caribbean Crossroads of the World, Queens Museum of Art, Flushing Meadows, NYLeitmotiv, Dot Fifty One Gallery, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaAbout Change, The World Bank, Washington, D.CArte BA, Dot Fifty One Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina

•  2011 BLACK AND WHITE, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CAFlorida Contemporary: Paintings, Photography and Sculpture Exhibition, Naples Museum, FL, April 23-June 5All Media Juried Biennial, Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, FL, April 30 –June 5Arte BA, Dot Fifty One Gallery, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaAccumulations, Art Solar Gallery, East Hampton, NY, June 25th.

•  2011 All Media Juried Biennial, Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, FL, April 30 –June 5Arte BA, Dot Fifty One Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina

•  2010 10 x 10 + 1 , Museo de Arte del Tolima, Ibague, Colombia

HONORS + AWARDS

•  2015 Tropical Mythologies, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MASouth Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists

•  2014 Artist Residency at Bemis Center, Omaha NE, June 2014•  2013 1st Place- 6th Bidimensional Salon, Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation, Bogota, Colombia

New American Paintings Ed. 106, Juror, Miranda Lash, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, New Orleans•  2012 SMFA Traveling Fellowship Award, Boston, MA•  Artist Residency at Bemis Center, Omaha, NE , June 2014•  2011 Third Place, 2011 All Media Juried Biennial, Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, FL•  2010 New American Paintings Ed. 88. Editor’s Pick. Juror, Barbara O’Brien, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO•  2009 Second Prize, II Concurso Arte Joven Colsanitas, Galería La Cometa, Bogotá, Colombia•  2007 Vermont Studio Center Residency Program, August 2007,Johnson, Vermont, USA •  2007 Honorable Mention, Premio Botero, Fundación Jóvenes Artistas Colombianos, Bogota, Colombia•  2006 Art-Omi Artist Residency,Ghent, NY, July 2006•  2005 Second Place, 13th Concurso Nacional de Pintura BBVA 2005, Casa de Moneda, Banco de la Republica, Bogota, Colombia•  2005 Included in Slide Registry of The Drawing Center, New York, NY •  2001 First Honorable Mention, Concurso Alejandro Obregon, Biblioteca Departamental, Barranquilla, Colombia •  2000 Finalist Nuevos Artistas Costeños promoted by Chamber of Commerce, Barranquilla, Colombia •  2000 Keith Haring Full Tuition Scholarship Recipient granted by the Visual Arts Foundation and the Keith Haring Foundation, New York, NY •  2000 Silas Rhodes Family Award granted by School of Visual Arts, New York, NY •  2000 Stacey Sussman Travelling Award granted by School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

•  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, U.S.A.•  The Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Winter Park, U.S.A.•  Gilberto Alzate Avedaño Foundation, Bogota, Colombia.•  Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota, Bogota, Colombia•  Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Minute de Dios, Bogota, Colombia

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND REVIEWS

•  2015 McQuaid, Cate. "Bananas ripe with symbolism for Gonzalo Fuenmayor at the MFA." The Boston Globe, June 23.     Birbragher, Francine. "El Exotismo Híbrido de Gonzalo Fuenmayor," Periódico Arteria, Ed. #49, June-July         Arias, Andres. "Las Obsesiones de Gonzalo Fuenmayor," Esquire Magazine Colombia, April 2015.         Arias, Andres. "Europa contra Macon, en la obra del artista Gonzalo Fuenmayor." El Tiempo, April 17, 2015         Metzger, Morgan. "Art for Rollins: The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Volume II," Ed. by Abigail Ross, Cornell Fine Arts

Museum. Pg. 45.•  2013 New American Paintings Ed. 106, Juror, Miranda Lash, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, New Orleans         Cheng, De Witt, Review: "They Say I Came back Americanized," art ltd. magazine, September 2013•  2012 "Caribbean Crossroads of the World," Debora Cullen & Elvis Fuentes, Yale University Press, Nov. 2012. Article by Alvaro Medina•  2011 La Nación, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dec.18, 2011

Herrera, Adriana. “Gonzalo Fuenmayor: Canibalizar el Trópico”. El Nuevo Herald, Sept 18, 2011, Miami, USACatalog 13 Salones Regionales de Artistas de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia

•  2010 New American Paintings Ed. 88, Southern Edition, Open Studios Press,•  2010 Esplendor, Revista Mundo, April 2010•  2009 Herrera, Adriana. “Hernan Cedola y Gonzalo Fuenmayor. Arte al Dia, Ed. November

Herrera, Adriana. “Cedola y Fuenmayor: Nuevos Horizontes del Arte Emergente”, El Nuevo Herald, Jul. 6, 2009, Miami, USA Fiorillo, Heriberto, El Hombre que Murio en el Bar, (front cover and illustrations), Editorial Norma, 2009

•  2008 Mayfield, Dan. “Show Portrayis Modern Relevance por Collage” Albuquerque Journal, April 6th, 2008•  2007 Rogers, Pat. "Artists Explore "Brave New World"". The East Hampton Press, Dec. 19 •  2007 McQuaid, Cate, Drawing Show Works Around the Edges, Boston Globe, Dec.21, 2007 •  2007 Franco, Maria Angelica, "Platanos como Propuesta Pictorica", Revista noventaynueve, Dec. 21, 2007 •  2007 Landes, Jennifer, Scary New World, The East Hampton Star, Nov. 8, 2007

Gonzalo Fuenmayor: The Impeccable Draftsman

A master of sublime charcoal technique, patiently laborious in his drawings as well as in his researching processes, he executes large-format works that hardly go unnoticed,

A native of Barranquilla, Colombia, Gonzalo Fuenmayor (1977) has been producing art for more than a decade, using bananas as a theme with various techniques. He has depicted them in paintings, charcoal drawings, and photographs, and he has placed them, as they are found in nature, in his own installations. Fuenmayor is a master of the charcoal drawing, to the point that his works could be easily confused with black-and-white photographs, except that in the images he creates there appear objects that are not usually seen together, like palm trees inside a theater, swans in Cochabamba (Bolivia), or Victorian chandeliers hanging from clusters of bananas.

Devotion to his craft is what defines him since he can focus on a single drawing for up to three months: “I was very much interested in exploring the act of drawing where patience, magnitude, gesture, and light come together,” he said. Fuenmayor explained that he initially became interested in this fruit because he wanted to make “an act of ‘self-exotization’ when I was living in Boston (MA).” He started painting them on a large scale, in a state of decomposition, and eventually, and as he continued creating more works, his ideas about it developed and changed.

Initially, he worked on it as a reference to Andy Warhol’s Pop Art; then, as an allusion to Freud’s ideas through the exploration of the sexual potential of the image; and, later, he included narratives that alluded to the political and historical relationship of the United Fruit Company with Colombia. “It was an anchor I used to explore several issues that were relevant to me or that I was interested in,” he said. Fuenmayor was trained as an artist at The School of Visual Arts in New York City (Class of 2000) and, subsequently, in 2004, he graduated from the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston with a Master’s degree.

Right off from the start, he focused his efforts on nationality and memory. The origin of the powerful images this artist has constructed from bananas and Victorian motifs can be traced back to the show he had in Miami, in 2009, entitled “Pornorama.” In it, he built an installation at Dot Fiftyone Gallery, in which he laid out bananas with Victorian engravings which, eventually, would oxidize while the reliefs began to darken. Although the exhibit placed more emphasis on the banana’s sexual symbolism, the mixture of radiance, ornamentation, decadence, and memory was already present.

The following year, in the exhibition “Radiance,” he showed a series of charcoal drawings in which he coupled bunches of bananas with furniture and Victorian chandeliers, symbolizing the relationship between the ornamental, as a deception, and the tragic, alluding to the controversial past surrounding the farming and trade of bananas in Colombia, in particular to the so-called Massacre of the Banana Plantations, which occurred on December 6, 1928, in Ciénaga (Colombia). The show opened in April 2010 at Galería Mundo in Bogotá.

In the years that followed, Fuenmayor continued his work that revolved around hybridization, exoticism, and identity in large-format charcoal drawings, which he included in the exhibitions “Tropicalia” in Miami in 2011, as well as in “They Say I Came Back Americanized” in San Francisco in 2013.

The most recent pieces by Fuenmayor in connection with these concepts are being currently shown at The Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, in the exhibition “Tropical Mythologies.” This exhibition came to be as a result of his traveling to Leticia and Ciénaga (both in Colombia) with the support of the Traveling Fellowship granted to him by MFA. “It is a grant provided by the museum to go to any place in the world that an artist may consider to be important to his work,” elaborated Fuenmayor, who was selected in 2012. Undoubtedly, patience is one of his attributes, because he consistently applied for the grant time after time for nine years, until he was finally chosen by the judges. Originally, he had proposed to travel to different European cities with great artistic traditions; however, his application was rejected time and again. However, he who persists wins out in the end. “When the last and final chance I had to apply came, I thought about the Amazon jungle as the most exotic place in Colombia and in a plantation of bananas in Ciénaga.” And at last the Traveling Fellowship was granted to him.

In March 2013, he spent a week with the native community “Siete de Agosto.” The artist considered it important for his work, which focused on identity and hybridization, to visit the borderline of three countries.

The Amazon region is “a very porous border,” referring to the fact that the locals don’t care that much if they happen to be in Brazil, in Colombia, or in Peru. They all see themselves as residents of the same place. “It was very interesting to see these people, after we had gone fishing and hunting, returning home to their huts to watch a Real Madrid team soccer match on Direct TV.”

From Leticia he traveled to a banana plantation in Santa Cruz de Papare in Ciénaga. This was a significant and edifying experience for his work: “I had been aware of the entire history of the banana through books and films; however, I had never been in direct contact with the source,” he said.

During his stay at the plantation, Fuenmayor hung chandeliers from bunches of bananas and, with the help of a gas-powered electricity generator, he turned on the lights, bringing to life those exotic images he had given shape to in his charcoal drawings. He took pictures of them for what he called the “Papare Project,” and he’s currently showing them within the framework of the “Tropical Mythologies” exhibition. During the Art Basel Fair in Miami in 2014, he had already brought those chandeliers to life. There, he arranged them hanging from clusters of bananas in a dining room at the Faena Hotel, in an installation he titled “Eden,” which had a great impact on the art fair visitors.

Dot Fiftyone Gallery 7275 NE 4th Ave – Miami – FL 33138

dot@dotfiftyone.com / 3055739994 / dotfiftyone.com