Marcos Avila Forero: Vibrating things

Marcos Avila Forero is an artist in movement, operating on the ground in the furthest reaches of the world. His interventions within these contexts condense the strength of engagement and the power of poetry. His work is balanced between a keen awareness of the world and a profound sense of myth, engaged with questions of language and activism, sound material and displacement. The Colombian artist is driven by personal conviction, working closely with communities and endeavouring to reveal their little-known combats. He often chooses to convey diverse realities that at first seem far apart: at Le Grand Café—contemporary art centre, he crosses the current situation in Syria with the Columbian peace process and the question of colonisations.

To illuminate these elements, Marcos Avila Forero draws readily upon the art of the past, from Greek tragedy (The Persians by Aeschylus) to Pasolini’s documentary research (his African Oresteia, also inspired by Aeschylus).

In Vibrating things, he brings together key works in his career with creations made during his residency in Saint-Nazaire. The show will be in constant reconfiguration thrives on searches, performances and the result of his encounters.

At the end, his works gives voice to a polyphony of anonymous foreign lives and creates an “intense proximity” that highlights the universal resonance of the singular. His leitmotif: human encounters relate politics to the body and explore the notion of social action. The exhibition is then like an open-ended musical score that invites the public to reflect in a universal sense: which instrument should you play in the face of oppression?

Exhibition curator:
Sophie Legrandjacques, director of Le Grand Café, contemporary art centre

Press contact:
Amélie Evrard: evrarda@mairie-saintnazaire.fr