Of encounters and other collective readings

September 08 - November 10, 2018

Carlos Alfonso is a Colombian artist exploring nomadic life and the relations between superstition and storytelling. In next September, Galerie PARIS-B will host his first solo show in Paris bringing new narratives from the recent trips abroad, a travel journal made of experiences and dialogues with individuals and communities. The exhibition will have also a video program co-curated by the artist and Théo-Mario Coppola, featuring works by Francis Almendarez (US), Yasmina Benabderrahmane (FR), Charlie Malgat (FR), Kasper de Vos (BE), among other artists.

In 2016, Carlos Alfonso decided to embark on a journey with his wife, exploring nomadic life as a way to learn throughout the engagement with others, visiting different countries and collecting stories that mirror this anthropological experience where traveling becomes another medium. In his work he appropriates, writes and composes narratives, outlining them in the form of an essay, searching for dialogues between abstraction and concretion. The anecdotal aspect is an alternative vehicle to explore expanded fields which cross in the perception and reading of our past and present history. By using sculpture, audiovisual media, cooking, drawing, performance and editorial resources, he constructs situations with the intention of shaping poetics. In some cases, these constructions are developed precisely for a place or are determined by a physical context. In others, the public is involved as an active agent of the work itself.

Currently he’s traveling in New Mexico, continuing his research around food, healing and magic, and working on the third number of his comic Ancient Abstract Stories published by La Silueta in Bogotá.

 

Théo-Mario Coppola