"Creators-Recoverers. Three Generations"

On August 14, the Museo de Arte Popular de Petare Bárbaro Rivas in Caracas presented "Creators-Recoverers. Three Generations," an exhibition that was very well received by artists, art critics, and the general public because of the relationships that it successfully established between three generations of creators working with waste materials. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this exhibition—besides the quality, grace, and inventiveness conveyed in each of the more than 70 works included—was showing the manner in which recycling is used, insistently, and sometimes without an awareness of the process that it implies, by artists from different tendencies, languages, proposals, and generations. In each of these works, the objects or recovered materials unfold into a variety of results that fulfill—from an endless number of recyclable objects, industrial materials, raw materials, toys, essentials, clothes, etc.—specific expressive functions that not only underscore the desire of the creators to establish visual and semantic connections but also showcase their inventiveness and even their humor. There is no doubt that the exhibition made us reflect on the magic of objects, their hidden beauty, and on the artists' ability to appropriate their forms and meanings. As correctly pointed by Faitha Nahmens in the text of the invitation for "Creators-Recoverers. Three Generations," the exhibition is also a loud plea for imagination, unconventional and non-conservative conservation, the freedom to dream, and ecology; it is a choral song to innocence and Dadaism immersed in a daring dialogue between opposites that touch. And it is also a defense of the work created by mankind that is deemed obsolete and useless. It is art triumphing over consumerism." The exhibition was curated by J. F. Cantón, Elisa Zambrano and the team of the museum headed by its director Carmen Sofía Leoni. The artists that participated were Mario Abreu, Leonardo Almao, A.A. Álvarez, Vicente Antonorsi, Elvia Armas, Apolinar, Alberto Asprino, Antonia Azuaje, Guillermo Bello, Ricardo Benaím, Juan Bravo, Feliciano Carvallo, Jesús Caviglia, Saúl Chacín, Jorge Chacón, José Gregorio Castro (Greca), Palmira Correa, Alí Darias, José Domingo Escalona, Zoilo Farfán, Daniel García-Volcán, Nelson Garrido, Adriana González-Toledo, Salvador Guida, Monna Gutiérrez, Otilia Idrogo, Ramsés Larzábal, Javier León, Javier Level, Pedro de Lima, Miguel López (Pantaleón), Francisco Marín, Loredana Meza, Elsa Morales, Robert Montilla, Gabriel Morera, Elio Nacarella, José Parra, Francisco Pinto, Félix Perdomo, Cruz Rivas, Manasés Rodríguez, Jorge Romero-Ávila, Felicinda Salazar, Oswaldo Subero, Pedro Tineo, José Vívenes, Miguel von Dangel, and Carlos Zerpa.