David Uttermann recovers the family archives in his exhibition ‘The sun of the deer’

The memories collected in old photographs, newspaper clippings, objects from the time, and other elements that take us back to the past with the help of new technologies, are combined in the exhibition the deer sunof the artist David Uttermanwhose inauguration will be this Wednesday, in The Lavayen-Paredes House, of the Historical Park.

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“It’s a bit about preserving a memory. I am interested more than anything in the phenomenon of why these things are preserved…”explains Utterman in an interview with this newspaper.

In a text written by him he also explains: “The aim is to show how one can definitively reconcile with a past and allow oneself to refocus on the present, accept the destiny of things, even their final decline, in order to move forward, always animated by the spirit that allowed it to reach us”, describes.

The exhibition brings together approximately 23 works -the vast majority from his family’s archive-, which were part of his first two exhibitions years ago; with this third sample he closes the cycle, he points out. Among them are three-dimensional pieces made from a photograph; for example, the hand of his grandfather or the faces of some other relatives of his. “That way I was able to three-dimensionalize the faces of many relatives who had died before I was born, and with this technology I was able to feel their faces,” refers.

In fact, he found that 3D printing Grandpa’s hand was a violent act. This piece is on a cover of EL UNIVERSO, from the year 1927. “The photograph from which I took my hand, shows my grandfather reading the newspaper, and since it was the original negative I was able to get close enough to see the date of the newspaper”, bill.

In the same way, it exhibits letters, literary narratives, climatic data from the past, newspapers, postcards, videos, colored photographs, sound recordings and other documents, which it has been able to interpret or recover with the help of programming algorithms and other new technology tools. Production is by Charlotte Förster; and curated by Ana Rosa Valdez.

The man from Guayaquil says that this tradition of collectors in his family could be about the intention of preserving a legacy. “There is a part of my family that has kept quite a few files, photographs, letters, for a long time, they were very careful to keep all these things… I think it responds to keeping the memory of what we were”express.

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Somehow, coming across letters that he had to read thoroughly or get involved with each of the archives to reconstruct a fragmented story, allowed him to understand essential details of his own story. “During that tour I was able to find out quite a few family secrets, many things that explain quite a few how things unfolded in my own life, that is, the level of influence that all that legacy had on me“declares Utterman about this investigative and artistic process that he undertook three years ago, and that has been a catharsis for him.

Casa Lavayen, more than a location

The Casa Lavayen-Paredes, of the Historical Park, It is a space that dialogues with the past and that connects its visitors with the old Guayaquil. Its structure is close to many of the environments that can be seen in photographic records. “I realized that this Casa Lavayen was very similar to the house of an ancestor of mine,” says the artist, who decided that his exhibition should be in space because of the memorial value it represents.

“All part of a work that was already in progress, which has architectural testimonies of my family, descriptions of houses in which they lived, houses that were owned by one or another relative. What I did was create an application, with the help of an algorithm, to translate from drawings to photographs; in this way it was possible to rebuild the facades of the houses that were in the memory of some relatives”, details.

The sample the deer sun It will be open to the public starting this Wednesday at 18:00. It can be visited from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 to 16:00. Free entrance. (I)