Oswaldo Maciá “A Laboratory of Cynical Perception”
Henrique Faria Fine Art
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Henrique Faria Fine Art presents A Laboratory of Cynical Perception, Oswaldo Maciá’s second exhibition in New York City. Opening on September 13, the show will feature a selection of recent works on paper as well as aural-olfactory installations. Maciá presents the viewer with immersive experiences that engage the mind and senses, demonstrating the artist’s interest in systems of perception and knowledge. His holistic approach is a visceral one: being that smell and sound exist outside of language, it is the body, rather than the intellect, that must mediate the situation. This process thus adds a personal and redolent element to the multiple and overlapping layers of scents and noises pervading the gallery space.
To describe this inclusive, sensorial thinking, what Jim Drobnik considers “cynical perception”, he writes in the exhibition catalogue, “First, cynical perception compels a keen attentiveness to materials and sensations, thus avoiding pre-established perceptions. Second, it entails a reflexive approach to what is being sensed and how it is being sensed, that is, it questions the normative exercise of the senses. And third, it proposes generative action towards language and knowledge in order to produce new ways to speak about and understand the world.”
The reference to the Cynics, an ancient Greek philosophical school which taught that achieving mental clarity and living in harmonious agreement with nature was one’s life purpose, runs deeply through Maciá’s work. In his sculpture Cynic, he features the scents of amber, cypriol, civet, saffron and cumin, among other ingredients thought by the Cynics to have special cerebral properties. As the fragrance bubbles forth from a thick, black liquid, it melds with the sounds of mating and death calls from animals on the brink of extinction. A cloud of carbon fiber tape hovers overhead, representing the interference of sound waves and molecules of scent, the circular nature of life and death, the coming together of disparate materials in the making of art.
Maciá’s installations intend to subvert the dominance of the visual yet also conjure the visual as certain memories and associations are evoked. The works on paper, such as Electricity and Sound and Smell Composition, serve as portrayals of the process of thinking, of the synthesis of information. The intersecting that takes place, the depth of the various layers, and the new compositions that are formed, are the results of the acquisition of new experiences and understandings and their adjustment into the artist’s/viewer’s life. The Cynics believed that eudaimonia, human flourishing, was dependent on the continual pursuit of knowledge and the clearing of one’s mind from the darkness that clouds insight and discernment. In A Laboratory of Cynical Perception, Maciá truly creates just that: an environment where experimentation with new methods of approaching and interacting with the world is fostered. In this way, the development of sensorial awareness and the interconnection between various types of knowledge continues beyond the “laboratory” walls, further opening up the individual to the mystery, the exploration of life.
Oswaldo Maciá, (b. 1960, Cartagena, Colombia) lives and works in London.
Maciá describes his approach to art making in the following statement: “In my work I seek to question assumptions about knowledge and perception. The ways in which we attempt to understand our place in the world is structured through conventions and expectations that often overwhelm our own direct perception of what surrounds us. I am particularly concerned with how external stimuli we receive from the world are translated into images and information through our senses, often mediated by what-we-think-we-know. Throughout my soundsculptures, smell-sculptures, videos, installations and scenarios I aim to create encounters that initiate and reflect upon multiple relationships with what-is-believed-to-be-reality. My work sets out to complicate experiences that we know, offering proposals to look harder, listen more acutely, and pay attention to the senses in order to think deeper about the structures of knowledge we rely on to construct that which is taken for knowledge.”
Maciá received his BA degrees from the School of Fine Art, Cartagena De Indias, Colombia, (Fine Art), Llotja School, Barcelona, (Mural Painting) and Guild Hall University of London, (Sculpture), followed by a Masters in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths’ College, University of London in England.
His works have been shown in exhibitions such as Manifesta 9, Genk, Belgium (2012); Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands (2012); XI Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (2011) where he was awarded the annual prize; a solo presentation at Museo de Arte Moderno Medellin (2011); 8va Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, \ (2011), XVIII Rohkunstbau, Macht, Schloss Marquardt Potsdam, Germany; Digital Art Center, Taipei, New Narrative, Taiwan (2011); Espaivisor, Valencia Spain 2010; Bienal Pontevedra Utropias, Pontevedra Spain (2010); Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid (2010); as well as Liverpool Biennale, the 51st Venice Biennial, the Shanghai Biennale, the VIII Bienal de La Habana, Thessaloniki Biennale, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and the Whitechapel Gallery (2009).
Maciá’s works are in a number of international collections, including Tate Modern and Daros Latinamerica.
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Schedule
from September 13, 2013 to October 26, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-09-13 from 18:00 to 21:00