UC begins NODO Project with an exhibition
The academic Mónica Bengoa is the curator of the first group exhibition of alumni at the Art Gallery of the Extension Center. The initiative of the Directorate of Cultural Extension and the School of Art brings together the work of six artists, who use different techniques and supports.
2020 was the last Thresholds exhibition. The sample that was carried out since 2002 was a selection of degree exams of graduate students from the UC School of Art and convened annually at the UC Extension Center to a large public interested in meeting new talents. However, changes in the curriculum and in the way of evaluating works of art led the school to rethink the initiative.
The idea was supported by Daniela Rosenfeld, director of Cultural Extension. “I think that from time to time it is necessary to review all projects. Audiences change, contexts change,” she says.
The initiative establishes that every year a teacher from the school will be in charge of organizing a group exhibition of alumni. This year the role of curator fell to the academic and visual artist Mónica Bengoa, who chose water as her theme.
As a result of this dialogue, led by Rosenfeld, Alejandra Bendel, director of the School of Art, and Mónica Bengoa, head of Extension and Director of Galleries, the NODO project emerged, which was inaugurated on July 13. The initiative establishes that every year a teacher from the school will be in charge of organizing a group exhibition of alumni. This year the role of curator fell to the academic and visual artist Mónica Bengoa, who chose water as her theme.
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“The proposal is that each year there is a different teacher and that he does not necessarily exhibit his students, they can be visual artists who graduated from the school years ago. The idea is to see what has been done, what distinguishes the UC School of Art. And it has to propose a theme that agglomerates the work of these artists”, points out the director of Cultural Extension.
The exhibition “Water and its movements” brings together the work of six artists, graduated between 2009 and 2023: Daniela Canales, Pilar Elgueta, Fernanda López, Ignacio Navarrete, Andrea Olea and Sebastián Riffo Valdevenito. They are different looks at the elusive essence of this element, with very varied techniques and supports, ranging from video creations to photography, textiles, animation and painting.
As the curator states in the exhibition catalog “water, perhaps like no other element, reminds us of our inevitable finiteness while connecting us with the immensity of human existence: the tiny and the grandiose in a delicate balance.”
“It is an exhibition that also allows us to see the relationship and interaction between our graduates, and where you can see a concern for issues more linked to the environment, to water scarcity, but also other more poetic and symbolic dimensions of this element. ”- Mónica Bengoa, academic and curator
For example, the enamel on canvas measuring 2.5 by 4.5 meters, by Sebastián Riffo, alludes to the alluvium of Lake Cabrera in February 1965, in the Hualaihué commune, a catastrophe about which little is known in the rest of the world. country. And “Sentimental Signage” is a project by Pilar Elgueta that includes art actions and a digital video of one of these –a fragile raft that holds a screen with a message- in the waters of the mouth of a glacier.
“It is an exhibition that also allows us to see the relationship and interaction between our graduates, and where you can see a concern for issues more linked to the environment, to water scarcity, but also other more poetic and symbolic dimensions of this element. ”, says Monica Bengoa.