Photo: Ricardo Bohórquez
Photo: Ricardo Bohórquez
Territorios agotados
“Exhausted territories”
XIII Biennale of Cuenca, Impermanencia
Cuenca, Ecuador
2016
Luis Chenche’s approach to drawing can at times seem like a case of horror vacui playing out, in which even the tucked-away passages of the largest works have been elaborately detailed over many accumulated hours of precision craftsmanship. In part, this is because of the artist’s preference for selecting unassuming corners of the world as his subjects, and rendering them at approximately three-quarters scale, so that they invite a close-up scrutiny.
Because of his interest in surfaces and textures, Chenche’s selection of the Casa de Arcos as the ideal site for his drawing-intensive installation, has enabled him to lay claim to a pace in which the architectural prerogatives of the white cube gallery have been replaced by abundant evidence of the landmark building’s gradual deterioration over time. Our eyes move easily from the fragile surfaces of the Casa de Arcos’s walls to the intimacy of Chenche’s drawings, and back again, while his careful positioning of two tables filled with small drawings is intended to point our gaze toward the view out the window, across the river and up into the mountains, bringing epic and domestic scale together in perfect harmony.
Dan Cameron,
Curator.