ExhibitionJuly 8, 2022
Politics of Reproduction: 50 years of the Popular Prints by Álvaro Barrios
"Políticas de la reproducción: 50 años de los Grabados populares" curated by Eugenio Viola, is the first exhibition dedicated to this series, produced by Álvaro Barrios from 1972 to the present, featuring internationally recognized works. It will be on view at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá - MAMBO from June 16 through September 4, 2022.
The exhibition offers a broad overview of the repertoire of artistic media that Barrios has had at his disposal, including his experimentations with different engraving techniques such as offset, photogravure, lithography, and serigraphy, as well as collage and mixed media on paper.
Since the 1970s, through his "Popular Prints," Álvaro Barrios has challenged the relationship between the original work of art and the replica by employing different means of print distribution, which are understood here as poetic and political devices that criticize the value attributed to the work of art in the commercial market. They intended to reach as many people as possible, democratizing the work of art by displacing it outside its traditional exhibition environments, such as galleries and museums.
These prints were distributed and popularized free of charge through newspapers and magazines (or as flyers), with the same edition number of the selected print media (the most extensive edition was the 500,000 copies of the newspaper El Tiempo, in 2008). In all cases, the artist only signed and numbered the works presented by the public within a pre-established period, after which they acquired the price of traditional engravings.
Álvaro Barrios' "Popular Prints" simultaneously celebrate and critique consumption and (re)production decisions, anticipating postmodern concerns about originality, authenticity, and appropriation. By reusing and repeating existing images, the artist questions copyright issues, and the role of technical reproducibility. This approach is particularly evident in Álvaro Barrios' first NFT (Non-Fungible Token): "El Circo del Museo Duchamp de Arte Malo" (2022), first exhibited in February as part of the artist's retrospective presented by MAMBO at the Gabriel García Márquez Cultural Center in Madrid. On this occasion, it is exhibited for the first time in Colombia and shares with "Popular Prints" the same concern concerning the use of NFT as another tool that questions the reproducibility and authenticity of the work of art.
The exhibition offers a broad overview of the repertoire of artistic media that Barrios has had at his disposal, including his experimentations with different engraving techniques such as offset, photogravure, lithography, and serigraphy, as well as collage and mixed media on paper.
Since the 1970s, through his "Popular Prints," Álvaro Barrios has challenged the relationship between the original work of art and the replica by employing different means of print distribution, which are understood here as poetic and political devices that criticize the value attributed to the work of art in the commercial market. They intended to reach as many people as possible, democratizing the work of art by displacing it outside its traditional exhibition environments, such as galleries and museums.
These prints were distributed and popularized free of charge through newspapers and magazines (or as flyers), with the same edition number of the selected print media (the most extensive edition was the 500,000 copies of the newspaper El Tiempo, in 2008). In all cases, the artist only signed and numbered the works presented by the public within a pre-established period, after which they acquired the price of traditional engravings.
Álvaro Barrios' "Popular Prints" simultaneously celebrate and critique consumption and (re)production decisions, anticipating postmodern concerns about originality, authenticity, and appropriation. By reusing and repeating existing images, the artist questions copyright issues, and the role of technical reproducibility. This approach is particularly evident in Álvaro Barrios' first NFT (Non-Fungible Token): "El Circo del Museo Duchamp de Arte Malo" (2022), first exhibited in February as part of the artist's retrospective presented by MAMBO at the Gabriel García Márquez Cultural Center in Madrid. On this occasion, it is exhibited for the first time in Colombia and shares with "Popular Prints" the same concern concerning the use of NFT as another tool that questions the reproducibility and authenticity of the work of art.
Gallery
