María José Argenzio proposes decoloniality in her exhibition ‘Transtemporal Presents’

María José Argenzio He has dual nationality, Ecuadorian and Italian, something that he attributes to his upbringing, as he claims to come from a family that was always looking for a blue blood genealogy. However, the aristocracy, colonialism and that look to the north that Latin America has always had has always been questioned. In his solo show Transtemporal gifts, cured by Susan Rocha, makes a reading about the power structures that are attached to the relations of gender, class and ethnicity.

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The Guayaquil woman explains that the exhibition is the result of several investigations that started from different moments with the same common thread, decoloniality. “I am trying to make people and society aware of this colonial mentality that is still very present in Ecuadorian society and I would dare to say Latin American”, expresses Argenzio, who maintains that this ideology is the generator of many current social problems.

At the entrance of Neighborhood house, a cultural space where the exhibition takes place, some colorful flags welcome visitors. In them, the artist has changed the Spanish iconography with symbols that represent the Ecuadorian identity and culture. “What I’m doing is creating our shield, the one that identifies us, the real one, the one that should be ours”, dice.

In this way, he suggests as iconographies a guayacán tree, a quena, an Amazonian weapon, a hut wall, and a macaw. All embroidered with rayon thread and bar by the commune of Ibarra.

The sample is a selection of works of his authorship that go from 2013 to 2019, in which Materials such as gold leaf, oreto and guayacán wood stand out. And where also artisan workmanship of the country is very present, to “make visible and vindicate our culture in general.” Refuting at the same time that “novel” idea that what is outside is better.

“We as visual artists and designers suffer a lot,” mentions the Guayaquil woman who gives examples of some international brands that are preferred by some people, a thought that says “does not let us grow.”

“If we don’t accept who we are and our roots with pride, and exploit that, we will never become a world power,” aim.

In this sense, Rocha describes in her curatorship that Argenzio builds a dialogue with multiple temporalities. “His work is shown as the symptom of the schizophrenic relationship that the present has with its past, both real and fictional”, mentions in his curatorial text.

This reflection is transferred to his sculpture Ruina VI, a Corinthian-style resin column located on the floor of the cultural space. A work that started from a study he carried out on Guayaquil architecture, when after the great fire in the city it was rebuilt in cement by Italian architects, with a look at European architecture.

“I have always said that our culture is a culture of copy and paste. We are always looking north ”, he comments.

In another of his works and with a somewhat satirical intention, he presents three sculptures of bananas bathed in gold leaf and on a dark velvet cushion, traditionally used to place a crown. “There are several things here, there is the question of gender, there is the question of the Eurocentric gaze towards third world countries and continents, this exotic gaze”, dice.

This piece called it Chiquita, Alluding to the famous banana exporter, who in one of her advertisements presents a “sexualized woman” in a banana, who arrives in European lands to promote Ecuador’s star product. “It was this phallic object that came from the first world flirting with them”, emphasizes the artist, who says that during her studies in Europe she was always seen as that cliché of a Latin American woman, with curves, dark complexion, large lips, and curly hair.

In this way, his work is shown as a symbol of the national economy, masculinity and an extractive economic model.

“The past is used by Argenzio as a form of resistance against hegemonic practices, as a symptom that allows diagnosing the naturalization of patriarchal, class and racialized forms of being and being in the world”, the curator analyzes about it.

One of his latest works that are part of the current show and that is exhibited for the first time in Guayaquil is Skip the Tonatrás, a ‘stately’ painting over a meter high covered in gold leaf and with carved wooden frames that are continuously repeated inwards. In this way, Argenzio represents the failed oligarchy, since these constant forms “nullify the figure of this important oligarchic character.”

Transtemporal gifts brings together a total of 14 works that will be available for public view until November 19, at Casa del Barrio (Panama and Juan Montalvo). This Thursday, November 11, at 11:00, the artist will develop a guided tour. While on Thursday, November 18, it will be at 4:00 p.m. (I)