The Argentine artist Ana Gallardo, winner of the second edition of the Julius Baer Prize, recounts the experience of the artist together with María Us, a Guatemalan Kaqchikel Mayan woman, about the memories of both, during the armed processes in Guatemala, between the years 1987 and 1990. This project will provide the space to reflect on complex social issues necessary for the local context.
Ana Gallardo (Rosario, Argentina, 1958) is a multimedia artist whose work mainly develops in video, installation, drawing and performance. Her artistic research deals with ideas related to insecurity, violence, loneliness, exclusion, as well as proximity to death as a consequence of gender violence, prostitution, human trafficking, forced disappearance of women and girls, femicides, domestic violence and discrimination. age.
“(I look for you in another name). Guatemalan Log 1987/2023 recalls a painful chapter in the country's history, and also reminds us that we live in uncertain times, shaken by violence, war and intolerance. This project is an example of Ana Gallardo's committed work, which seeks to unravel personal stories and reveal broader social problems.” — Eugenio Viola, chief curator of MAMBO
Some time ago, Ana Gallardo decided to look for female ex-combatants with whom she formed a bond in Guatemala. In this process she has found fragments of testimonies of violence exercised by military and paramilitary groups on the bodies of said women, including pregnant women, girls and grandmothers. Commissioned specifically for this exhibition, Gallardo made a new series of charcoal drawings characteristic of her work, which recreate an immersive monumental fresco. The artist conceives charcoal drawing as a tool to make feminine problems visible. The words and texts inscribed at the bottom of the drawings belong to the testimony that María Us writes about her experience, and from conversations that both share about her joint participation during the Civil War in Guatemala.
More information on the event can be found here.