Lovesong | "A silent battle between black and white"

SISMICA, sector brand for the Chilean visual arts, features a review of our exhibition Lovesong by Wladymir Bernechea, presented by Isabel Croxatto Galería in our virtual gallery ICG+.

Find the complete publication here (in Spanish).

Read a full translation below.

WLADYMIR BERNECHEA

LOVESONG

Isabel Croxatto Galería presents Lovesong, virtual solo exhibition by the artist Wladymir Bernechea (Rancagua, Chile, 1989), curated by the Chilean researcher Sebastián Valenzuela-Valdivia. The artist's debut at the gallery gathers 23 recent paintings that transit between loneliness and longing in a silent battle between black and white.

Isabel Croxatto Galería presents its fifth virtual exhibition, a new format that was inaugurated a year ago with the show El Turista by Coco González Lohse -the first to be produced 100% digitally in Chile-, with which it has furthered its programme of innovation in the presentation of contemporary art online to a global audience.

The exhibition title, Lovesong, is a direct reference to the song of the same name by the British band The Cure from 1989, coincidentally also the year of the artist's birth. 'Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel whole again... However far away, I will always love you' sings Robert Smith, the band's frontman, over a dark pop-tinged melody. In the same way, Wladymir Bernechea explores recurring themes in his production, such as loneliness, melancholy and introspection, through faces, figures and blurred landscapes that silently appear between the sublimation of the whites and the gloom of the blacks.

Growing up in 1990s Chile, the artist belongs to a generation whose childhood was fully immersed in pre-internet globalisation, later influenced by high information flows and the deterritorialisation of imaginaries. Pop, as well as Japanese culture represented in the West through anime and manga, are cardinal references in Wladymir's work, who portrays his characters by incorporating their shapes, physiques and costumes.

This influence can also be seen in the research he has conducted on the subject, which he has presented in the publication of the books De la Tierra al Cielo. Arte, cultura japonesa y escenas locales [From Earth to Heaven: Art, Japanese culture and local scenes] (2018) and Neo Tokio: Historia del Anime en la Cultura Chilena [Neo-Tokyo: History of Anime in Chilean Culture] (2020). His landscapes, meanwhile, are especially tributary to Soviet architectural brutalism and postmodernism, invoking scenes of large, abandoned and desolate buildings east of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe.

Lovesong consists of 23 small and medium-sized oil paintings on canvas, giving way to a more intimate encounter with solitary characters, scenes and landscapes. 'The exhibition points to a common state of a certain human emotionality. However, it is not a narrative (literary or cinematographic) emotionality, but one strictly linked to painting', Wladymir Bernechea explains. 'What is represented consists primarily of fragmentary scenes that do not belong to a clear context. In this sense, they use their ambiguity to draw the viewer into a mere state of contemplation'.

The exhibition is curated by Chilean researcher Sebastián Valenzuela-Valdivia (Santiago, Chile, 1990), founder and director of the magazine and publishing house ÉCFRASIS, proyectos, in Santiago. In his curatorial text, Valenzuela-Valdivia writes: 'Through these paintings, Bernechea shows us his insistence on pictorial technique, introducing us to a series of characters who are portrayed individually - or in groups - muted by the absence of faces. This silent character is enhanced by the abandonment of contour lines, by the blurring of the pictorial paste and by the union of black and white'.

The virtual space ICG+, which holds the exhibition, presents a renewed 3D architecture, developed by the collective deeptime.art. In this regard, gallery director Isabel Croxatto comments: 'The architecture of our virtual gallery this year will mutate into a pavilion located in the virtual representation of the different landscapes of this region of the world, giving a geographical context to the voice of our young and emerging artists.' 'A fundamental part of our endeavour is to present contemporary art from the south of the world to a global audience, and this proposal, which will be replicated with other artists and landscapes, is a new way of rescuing and inhabiting these territories', she adds.

Lovesong, virtual exhibition by Wladymir Bernechea, will be available to the public from 28 April through 9 June 2021 at www.isabelcroxattogaleria.com