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LYDIA AZOUT
Tierra Vieja - Tierra Nueva (Old Earth - New Earth)
JULIAN LEON CAMARGO
I Think...
June 17 | August 31, 2021
Dot Fiftyone Gallery is proud to present Lydia Azout and Julián León Camargo, two Colombian artists from different generations, in an exhibition where they generate, through their recent works, an honest, profound dialog. They both start from observation and dissent in nature, mutating it in their work: abstractions that we do not see at first sight, even though we are able to perceive them.
Tierra Vieja – Tierra Nueva (Old Earth – New Earth)
Lydia Azout
For her third individual exhibition at this gallery, Lydia Azout presents a selection of sculptures that flesh out her vision in accordance with what is currently happening: What happens when a space of clarity becomes a vitiated, expressionless space? Absurdity is negative. Is negativity always the end? Or is it rather a path to make way to the new? This is a personal thought process that has become matter; rather than purely conceptual, “Tierra Vieja / Tierra Nueva” is a risk, a medication, a vulnerability opened to the rebirth of pleasure and freedom.
Lydia Azout’s sculptures and installations convey her journey: she has found vestiges of ancient, essential forms, and she brings them to life using elements drawn from nature and transformed through human intervention, like metal, for instance, which contains the lessons associated with fire and lasting shapes. Whether covered by the dark patina of iron oxide, or playing with the light reflected by steel, her works open the abstract to the representation of the invisible and radiate a cosmic meaning to the surrounding space.
Lydia Azout (born in Bogotá, Colombia) studied at David Manzur’s workshop in Bogotá (1970-74). Later, she continued her studies with Luis Camnitzer in Lucca, Italy, in 1981. Then, in 1988, she participated in workshops at the Institute of Marble and Art in Pietrasanta, Italy. Individually, she has been exhibiting since 1978 at major galleries, museums, and biennials around the world, such as The Museum of Modern Art (both in Bogotá and in Cali), The Alejandro Otero Museum in Caracas, Venezuela, and the Frost Art Museum in Miami. Some of her works are part of permanent collections in museums of Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the USA, as well as in numerous private collections worldwide.
I Think
Julian León Camargo
In his first show in Miami and as a guest artist of the gallery, Julián León Camargo shows his paintings, through layers and layers of pigments, in an organic process of trial and error, taking his work to a place far away from where it was created.
If for Mondrian earlier, the beginning was the quest, for Camargo it is the pretext to keep on painting and connecting, which never ends within the limits of the canvas, and both artists share this point of departure.
Julián León Camargo’s work happens in between two parallel powers. On the one hand, a pictorial desire, experimental in nature, focusing on the process rather than on a predetermined outcome and, on the other, an analytical interest, intellectual in nature, which tries to make sense and a systematic organization of that pictorial practice. In all his works, he tries to find the point of perfect balance between these two methods. This way, his paintings are impossible without a text, which may contain and make sense of them, either literally or metaphorically, but not as a destination or as a controlling agency, but rather as a trigger, a launching pad — a pretext.
Starting in 2003, Julián León Camargo has participated in several group and solo exhibitions in Colombia, Germany, Spain, and Argentina, where he currently lives. In 2007, he was invited to participate in The Intricate Journey project in Berlin, an exchange residency program organized by the NGBK, and he participated in the residency program at La Tabacalera in Madrid in 2020. In 2013, he participated in a residency program for artists at the Art Department of the Torcuato di Tella University in Buenos Aires. In 2014, he co-founded ESPACIO KAMM, an exhibition gallery for site-specific projects, in Buenos Aires, together with German artist Kirsten Mosel. In 2015, he was invited to participate in the fourth edition of the Biennial of the End of the World in Valparaiso, Chile.
Both exhibitions will be on view through August 31st, 2021. The hours are Monday to Friday, from 12 pm to 6:30 pm, and Saturday from 2 pm to 6 pm.
Click here for the exhibition’s check list
