Wednesday 18 April 2012

'CHEVERISMO, A USER'S MANUAL', BEATRIZ LOPEZ AND PABLO LEON DE LA BARRA TALK ABOUT CHEVERISMO AT BELLAS ARTES PALACE IN MEXICO CITY


Comandante y Comandanta Cheverismo in front of Fernando Botero's 'El Presidente' and 'La Primera Dama'


Beatriz Lopez and Pablo Leon de la Barra, in front of a revolutionary mural, invited to talk about Cheverismo, the art movement that's revolutionising the American continent at the Palacio de Bellas artes in Mexico City, part of the public programme of the exhibition of the Grand Maestro Fernando Botero.






Telepathic exercise done with the assisting public in order to concentrate on the cheverisation of the planet!

Cheverismo is an international art movement started by Beatriz Lopez and Pablo Leon de la Barra on the last days of 2008, as an attempt to generate a new art movement for the next decade. Cheverismo art is critical, socially and politically engaged, but also full of humour. Cheverismo art is chevere. Cheverismo develops from the American continent, but has no nationality. Cheverismo produces aesthetic manifestations which exist beyond the circuits of galleries, museums, art fairs and biennales, creating new networks for exchanges. Cheverismo Internacional developed after a meeting of some of the participants in Puerto Rico in 2009 and in Medellin in 2011. Since then a series of exchanges between the participating members, and new incorporated ones has occurred. Cheverismo is financed by the economy of friendship.

The original Cheverismo Manifesto consisted of the following commandments:
1. Cheverismo doesn't belong to anyone, it belongs to all.
2. Cheverismo doesn't need art, art needs Cheverismo.
3. Cheverismo exists beyond the art market, and beyond the circuit of galleries, museums, festivals and art fairs.
4. Not only does Cheverismo allow internal and external contradictions, it celebrates them.
5. Cheverismo has no form and sets out no formulas.
6. Cheverismo proposes a new language and a subsequent new form of action.
7. Cheverismo is transmited orally and telepathically.
8. Cheverismo never dies… it transforms it self
8. Cheverismo is bipolar
9. Cheverismo auto curates itself.
10. Cheverismo is for everyone. Cheverismo is only for chevere people!

What is Chévere?
First we need to discuss the exhaustion of art forms and models. In the last year of its first decade, we will revise the model, the quote, the market. A decade in which the commonplaces of 20th century art were constantly revisited and cited, as if art refused to take over its time and embrace the new millennium.
Nevertheless, some artists took the risk of experimenting in their own stance, and consolidated works from this, our time and beyond. Hence, Cheverismo is a celebration of the works that by their chévere, unprecedented characteristics have marked the beginning of the history of a new art, anticipating, creating new windows, possibilities and fields of action. Cheverismo proposes to eliminate the boundaries of conventions and to point out those manifestations that happen beyond the conventional spatial limits of art, set by the museum, the studio, the gallery, etc. It concentrates on the creation of direct realities that stem from the way we relate to each other, inside or outside of the art world. 

Chévere, is a Caribbean word that describes that which is unpretentious and good. It could also allude to a milestone in the Latin American revolutionary imagery: Che Guevara. Thus, Cheverismo gathers that which is chevere and simultaneously political and revolutionary.

For more information, please visit:
http://cheverista.com

all photos by Otto Berchem

No comments:

Post a Comment