“East in my West” is a special installation that I designed for the Fundacion Ciec Art Gallery in Betanzos, Spain. The exhibition came together with the “Jesús Núñez Prize” that was awarded to my work last year. Jesús Núñez arrived to the city yesterday and he will be in the opening as well. The series of works where started during my second residency in China in January 2015 and completed in Buenos Aires.
“East into my West” it is a new series of works that Argentine artist Alicia Candiani began producing in January 2015 during her second residence in the”Guanlan Print Village” in Shenzhen, China. The series is a synthesis of the impressions received in multiple trips to the East (China, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong) and, most recently, to Greece. They are recited through their national colors, flag symbols and some features of the architecture. In this new proposal, the artist continues to work with the human body, which is the main theme of her work, but now presented by Greek sculpture. The citation of the masterpieces of the classical Greek period unfolds fragmentary- Manipulating their original proportions, the sculptures become almost monumental architectural forms that simulate buildings. Here the symbols of the Japan’s (circle), Argentina (sun), Hong Kong (Hibiscus) and China’s (star) flags appear abstractly and stripped of any political reference to those countries. They are used to design banners that do include the original colors of the flags of both countries plus the Argentine´s one: light blue, white and red. Underlying, the work makes a reference to the dichotomy (or not) between East-West and the possible creation of fictitious flags that ensemble various cultures and places, pondering the breakdown of borders in a globalized world.
ALICIA CANDIANI 