EXHIBITION “A look at Lima through drawing" - “LI-43”
THE COMMERCE
CULTURE – LIGHTS p.7
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Gustavo Emé presents his sixth individual, where he represents each of the districts of our city using pencil and ink.
DIANA QUIROZ
Arriving in Europe for the first time made the then plastic arts student Gustavo Emé open his eyes to the Peruvian. At that time, recognizing himself as part of Peru was as strange to him as listening to chicha. Seeing other realities in situ was the artistic push he needed so that years later the city, and especially Lima, would become the recurring theme in five of the six singles he has presented so far.
The last of them and the most ambitious is “LI-43”, a show with pieces alluding to each of the districts that make up the chaotic but fascinating Metropolitan Lima. The exhibition is on display until April 4 at the Fundación Euroidiomas gallery.
-Idea in evolution-
In 2002 Emé traveled to Germany to attend the Documenta exhibition in Kassel. During his tour of that and other European countries he felt like never before what it meant to be Peruvian. “I had always had a slightly alienated culture, I was disconnected from the reality of my country, but when I was in Europe it became clear to me where it came from. That's where the idea of working on the urban issue was born because I can talk about what's outside but also about what I have inside”. Four years after his tour of the Old Continent, the idea materialized with “Ciudad”, his first solo album.
-Draw the districts-
Although the city is a constant in his work, Emé points out that it is his last three solo shows that have an almost identical aesthetic. The compositional discourses that nourish this sixth individual and the previous two are inspired by the Paracas mantles and their modularity. But there is more. "My interest apart from the recurring theme that is Lima [from which he takes his architecture and the most significant elements to make a linear record] is also to explore the possibilities of drawing itself, placing them in a mobile and playful structure," he says. Another characteristic of his works is the use of human hair and horsehair. For the artist “hair is a drawing line in movement that grows. And the first thing that the drawing portrays is what is in you, your joys, hopes and conflicts”, he points out.
Due to the artist's perfectionism, several of the works in “LI-43” are a kind of “remake of previous pieces”. A clear example is the one that identifies San Juan de Lurigancho. It is a structure with two identical drawings, placed above and below as if it were a mirror, now more complex and with an interactive table – with pencils and sheets that invite viewers to draw. - that can scroll throughout the showroom.
MORE INFORMATION
Place: Euroidiomas Foundation. Address: Calle libertad130, Miraflores. Hours: until April 4, Monday through Friday from 10 am to 10 pm and Saturday from 2 pm to 6 pm Admission: free.
EXPRESS
Monday, March 4, 2019
CHRONICLES AND PORTRAITS
FUTURE AND MEMORY
Robert Cores
Lima gave him inexhaustible material to create such an interesting and complex system of patterns and repetitions with which he composes his sixth individual, LI-43, which makes me stop, asks me to get closer and return to what I have seen. Lima is for Gustavo Emé the starting point, his intention and direction. It collects it in the title that alludes to the postal code of its districts, the sharp profiles of the hills, details of republican and contemporary architecture and in that vast selection of references, seen as units and groups, that make up the whole organized as a careful black and white mosaic. Elements that arrive at the support responding to a strict approach with a precise mission and function in which not even a gesture is an unreasoned trait. And this that could give it coldness, it does not, because the work has, I'm sorry, a playful warmth translated with an impeccable hand that uses a variety of techniques to achieve its purpose. A creation resulting from calm, contemplation and experience. I think you can go through it and see it knowing that it is not an unforeseen event, that it is a way of thinking about studying interpreting Lima with a thoughtful and technical explanation; that, if you don't know it, you can see it without sin, enjoy the neat drawing, the organized finesse, the independences and links, what is represented that you can identify and that new reality that you can read with your own alphabet. LI-43, an exhibition curated by Silvana Vargas Machuca, is offered by Andrés Pereyra, who is now in charge of the new direction and cultural management of Euroidiomas. Without much fuss or complications, he puts on the table his clear work program with which he promises mobility, variety and zero boredom. Without being a witch, which I would like to be, I know it will be successful.
LA REPÚBLICA - LA CONTRA
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Gustavo Emé / Artist and teacher
“Different people find different ways of fulfilling ourselves”
Alejandra Villanueva Zapata
Gustavo Emé is an artist, but also a teacher. You have to resort to a country where the terror of a father is that his son "dies of hunger" by being a musician or journalist (hello, mom). Life is much more than a car of the year and this cartoonist knows that well. Inspired by his city, he recreates the districts of Lima like the Paracas.
- Why Paracas?
- I grew up with my back to the country. As I got older, I began to value what we had. I use pre-Columbian compositional resources to show the chaos of Lima.
- For you, what is Lima like?
- I want this show to have a chaotic charge, because that's what Lima is like. It's a pretty fucked up city. There is the rat, the snake, the buzzard, the cockroach. Obnoxious animals that, except for the second, are in the city.
- Did you find similarities or differences between, for example, La Molina and Ate?
-In the sample, the drawings are divided between northern Lima, southern Lima, and central Lima. They don't look alike at all. There are some sociopolitical aspects that I initially ignored.
- Since when are you preparing this collection?
-Since August 2016.
- Do you care more about giving a message about how you perceive this city or the aesthetics?
-I try to capture both things, but many times the taste for drawing wins me over. For the details.
- You recreated the city that you see
-One of the drawings was going to have the possibility for people to write their opinions about the political situation. I think the drawing came out quite successful for the moment because shortly after the PPK government ended. That is why it is called "Misgovernment". Drawing is such a passive and solitary activity that it allows one to go within oneself.
- Can you make a living from drawing?
I have my fearful side. I think for my age I'm a missionary. My classmates already have their house. These are things that matter to me, but my goal is not to have my apartment.
- It's hard to have both.
-I have colleagues who no longer do art because they had children and others are bothered that it is not lucrative. Different people find different ways of fulfilling ourselves. If I had kids, I wouldn't be able to do this anymore.
- If they ask you what you are...
I am a teacher and artist. For me both are equally important because I must be able to do the other to one.
