“Scale”. This is the name of the exhibition that since this month has been exhibited on the walls that connect the Miguel Urrutia Museum of Modern Art (Mamu), the Botero Museum and the Casa de Moneda, in downtown Bogotá, as part of the art collection of the Bank of the Republic.
Its author is Alejandro Sánchez, a man from Bogotá characterized by his work with prominent containers that he embeds in different spaces, mainly national and international museums and galleries.
Thus, from the walls that connect the Casa de Moneda Museum, currently being renovated, with the Mamu rooms and the permanent exhibition of the Art collection, two prominent structures emerge that dominate traffic: they are cargo containers that seem to emerge of architecture.
How did they get there? Alejandro Sánchez spoke about this impeccable intersection between objects and surfaces that are displayed in the center of Bogotá.
THE NEW CENTURY: What is the exhibition about?
ALEJANDRO SANCHEZ: “Incrustations” is part of a project in which I am interested in exploring the colors used in capitalism, the ways in which the global economy is governed. It is a project in which, through materials and paints, I emphasize the current global economies. I constantly make use of the cargo container image; pieces that are in Banco la República and other interventions such as in the Movistar Arena in Bogotá.
ENS: And how did the idea of making inlays come about?
AS: To make a link between two very distant and very different economies; for example, that of the popular neighborhoods and that of the cargo containers. So the way I link them is by using materials that are used in the slums, in those low-income places, elements like wood and zinc tiles and that I use to make the sculptures in the shape of a cargo container, which are alluding to a container. With all that I wanted to raise the fragility of those houses and the instability of capitalism. What I want to demonstrate is the weakness of the popular neighborhoods, their cultures and also the inconsistency of the predominant economies; that’s why I made use of the container image. It is like a trigger for reflections on the relationship between economy, institutions and culture.
ENS: What type of paint did you use so that it does not deteriorate in the sun and rain?
AS: Here, in these types of exhibitions, paint is very important, both for color and for durability. It is what guarantees that a container is reflected, because without it the pieces would only be tiles. In addition, the tones used are those of the shipping companies, which gives the containers greater realism.
ENS: How long ago did you start creating this type of work?
AS: The first public intervention was in La Cometa gallery, in 2015, and I did it through an annual call. There I had the opportunity to show this project that is very impossible in terms of the complex installation, which requires technical resources. Then, in 2018, it was exhibited again at an invitation from Banco la República, like every three years it brings together young artists. Before the pandemic, the pieces had to be taken down for maintenance and this year they were reinstalled so that people can appreciate them and take photos with them.
ENS: And how is the installation process? Do the walls break down?
AS: The walls don’t break. A preliminary installation is done digitally and then, with the cut pieces, they are embedded, to give an effect as if they were embedded inside the wall. They can be seen from the museums as if they came out of the infrastructure.
ENS: In addition to “Incrustations”, what other types of pieces stand out in your work?
AS: At the same time, we are working on a project nominated for the Luis Caballero award. I also have another initiative that consists of using some extracted tiles and placing them in vulnerable communities in Cartagena and Buenaventura. So we are going to go to a neighborhood where there is a little school with a roof in very poor condition and we are going to change them. From there we are going to do some inlays. In November I have a solo exhibition in Havana, Cuba.
ENS: What other countries have you taken your inlays to?
AS: To all Latin America. During 18 years of work I have been able to take my art to countries like Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, Panama, the United States, France, Brussels, Luxembourg, Hungary, Japan and many more countries.
Your interest in containers
Sánchez graduated from the Superior Academy of Arts of Bogotá as a Master of Visual Arts in 2009 and three years later, in 2012, he finished his postgraduate studies in technologies for pictorial production at the National University of the Arts of Buenos Aires. , Argentina. Alejandro investigates social changes in Latin American countries, especially Colombia. For this, he determines the causes, such as globalization, democratization and economic growth, which produce these alterations in social structures.
Alejandro Sánchez’s relationship with maritime containers goes back a long way. For example, he remembers that when he was 14 years old, when he arrived by land in the Colombian city of Cartagena, the first thing he saw was a storage dock that he did not hesitate to interpret as a beach of metal tiles. Much later, when he was doing his postgraduate studies in Buenos Aires, he faced the same landscape again but from an anthropological and psychoanalytic reading: like humans, these objects can carry something that individualizes them but it cannot be seen; and since you can’t see it, people entertain themselves assuming they are in an economy of desire that is only activated as long as they move, at someone else’s expense.