The Elephant in the Room is a hybrid multi-layered event aiming to approach many pressing issues of our present society with art as the ideal neutral platform to face and discuss them together, as a community. Produced by IESA arts&culture students, its alumni, and staff, this exhibition features work by the international artists: Emilio Chapela, Marie Roman Minin, Marie Orensanz, David Shrigley, Melanie Smith. In addition to the exhibition in display at IESA Galérie, the audience will have the opportunity to experience performances and panel discussions at IESA Paris from the 2nd to 10th June 2022 at the IESA Galerie and ground floor.
Our world struggles to deal with war and conflict. We find ourselves powerless. We are stuck with an elephant in the room and can’t talk about it. The elephant in the room makes us anxious, nervous and drained. The elephant is obvious but can’t be discussed. What can art do? Art enables discussion and dialogue. Art is creativity as opposed to destruction. Art connects people and gives hope. In 1814, Ivan Krylov (1769–1844), poet and fabulist, wrote a fable entitled "The Inquisitive Man", which tells of a man who goes to a museum and notices all sorts of tiny things, but fails to notice an elephant. The phrase became proverbial. This exhibition is curated with the aim of addressing those taboo and conversations that are collectively ignored by drawing the visitors through a pathway of understanding. The Elephant in the Room is an observational reflection and critique of society through, communicating that apathy is no longer acceptable. Only by acknowledging the elephant in the room can we get past it. The Elephant in the Room addresses a taboo that we universally ignore. Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel Demons wrote, "Belinsky was just like Krylov's Inquisitive Man, who didn't notice the elephant in the museum...."1
Curatorial team: Ailise Rose Barry, Emeline Bonnard, Raffaela Robustelli, and Lassla Esquivel
Emilio Chapela. Salto del Tequendama, 2021. Acrylic and ink on linen. 350 × 100 cm
Emilio Chapela is a Mexican artist currently living in Berlin. His art practice explores intricate connections between science, technology and ecology. He inquiries on notions of time and space that are manifested through matter and forces such as astronomical phenomena, light, weather, gravity, rocks, plants, volcanoes and rivers. He enjoys writing, hiking and stargazing which are tools that he utilises for his art practice. He has won numerous prestigious prizes and has been exhibited in many countries such as France, Mexico and Canada. He is presented in collaboration with the Instituto Mexico in Paris and Henrique Faria Gallery NYC.
Emilio chapela. Un Éléphant...2022. Collage. Polyptych du 8 (40 x 50 cm each).
Roman Minin. Tapestry Plan of escape from Donetsk, Roman Minin, 2019, wool rug 200 x 283 cm limited series 1/10
Roman Minin is an Ukrainian artist born in Donetsk in 1981. He graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts in 2008. He participated in street art festivals and organised one in Kharkov. He directed the program Isoliatsya in Donetsk in 2012. Coming from a region and a family of miners, he pays tribute through his works (paintings, bas-reliefs and stained glass) to these people, their life, their job and their state of mind. He exhibited outside Ukraine in several countries with success (England, Italy, United States). He is presented in collaboration with Mhaata Gallery
Marie Orenzsenz. Born in Mar del Plata, Argentina. She's a key figure of South American art. She began her artistic career studying painting with two of the foundational artists of Argentine Modernism: Emilio Pettoruti and Antonio Seguí. An active member of the art scene in Buenos Aires in the 1960s and 1970s, she participated in the exhibitions and cultural activities organised by the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, and she was involved with the Centro de Arte y Comunicación. In 1972, she moved to Milan. The proximity to Carrara and its marble quarries sparked her early production in stone. She has continued to work with fragments of marble, making them into books and sculptures, since the 1970s. Christina M. Harrison writes, “Orensanz uses material and symbolic fragments—of marble, of line, of signs—to represent thoughts. … An interpretation of the work, in Orensanz’s conception, depends on the intersection of the fragments with the viewer’s own thoughts and experiences.” This work was presented in collaboration with Maison de l’Amérique Latine.
Marie Orenzsenz. Mas alla del equilibrio, 2016. carton, wood, marble. 62 x 53 cm
David Shrigley.
Congratulations, 2011. Ink on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm
We are constrained by ideas, 2011. Ink on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm
The Police, 2011. Ink on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm
Inocculation against foolishness, 2011. Ink on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm
David Shrigley was born in 1968 in Macclesfield, UK. He lives and works in Brighton and Devon, UK. In January 2020 the artist was awarded the decoration of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. He is best known for his distinctive drawing style and works that make satirical comments on everyday situations and human interactions. While drawing is at the center of his practice, Shrigley also works across an extensive range of media including sculpture, large-scale installation, animation, painting, photography and music. Shrigley’s works are included in prominent collections internationally, including Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA; Tate, London, England. These works were presented in collaboration with Galerie Yvon Lambert
Melanie Smith was born in 1965 in Poole, England. She studied painting at the University of Reading. In 1989 she moved to Mexico City and now she lives and works between Mexico City and London.
Her trajectory has been characterised by a multidisciplinary practice, experimenting with her own gaze as an artist and producer of images that often create illusions between time and space. Smith engages critically with topics such as industrialisation, urbanisation, colonialism, and the relations and balance of these processes with nature and humans. She depicts chaos and synergy, modernity and contemporaneity, conflict and harmony, an archaeological and anthropological view. The artist creates scenarios that could be (referring) to a very specific place, but they become doors that open many realities simultaneously.
Her work has been exhibited in numerous national and international institutions, including: PS1, New York; MOMA, New York; UCLA ́S, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; ICA, Boston; Tate Liverpool; Tate Modern, London; South London Gallery, London; CAMH, Houston; Milton Keynes; CCA, Vilnius; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museo de Arte de Lima; Museo Tamayo, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo and Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City; and Museo de Monterrey. In 2011 she represented Mexico at its national pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. The work was presented courtesy of the artist.
Melanie Smith. My World from the series Orange Lush. 1995/2018. Installation: Inkjet printing 57 items on shelves. (10x15.4cm each).
Programme :
Exhibition vernissage: 2 June, 2022 at 18h00
Panel discussion: 2 June, 2022 from 16h00 - 18h00, IESA, Room G001
Online conference: 7 June 7, 2022 from 18h30 - 20h00
