10.02.2020 - 27.04.2020
We have arrived at the end of the second decade of the millennium, over the course of which the system of contemporary art continued its global boom and expansion parallel to that of neoliberalism. Out of the proliferation of art fairs, biennials, museums, galleries as well as self-directed spaces aspiring to gain autonomy from such institutions, a dialogue of unprecedented breadth has emerged, made possible in large part by the explosion of the Internet and social media. While the democratization of knowledge has benefitted the artistic trade, the consolidation of a system whose supporting structure—caught between the local and the global—perpetuates, feeds, and fortifies the capitalist logic of exploitation, abuse, and profit, has not been averted.
However, we have glimpsed other possibilities. As a large portion of the global population continues to live without money, arts communities have become accustomed to creating without any kind of long-term support, whether it be institutional or market-driven. An alternative system of art has grown alongside blue-chip galleries and fairs; artists show, design, write, and build in order to ensure and vindicate their autonomy. In spite of the fact that many work within the cultural field, they don’t necessarily create objects that are for sale, nor do the structures they organize attempt to institutionalize according to the parameters of contemporary art. What to expect then about art and culture?
In order to reflect critically on the models and structures that articulate the economies of contemporary art, in this issue of Terremoto we ask ourselves: on whom and on what do we depend? How can we support each other? How can we navigate on a daily basis between the emancipation promised by art and the alienation that working in any system entails? Understanding economy in its literal etymological sense, “household management,” we will think about our artistic and intellectual practice as the house where we meet and embrace each other in order to explore our modes of social interaction, which oscillate constantly between competition and solidarity. We will problematize the contradictions that bring us together through the production, distribution, and consumption of our work, inside as much as outside the system of contemporary art framed by neoliberalism. And we will try to understand the meaning of our work in order to seek out worthy ways of organizing ourselves twenty years into the twenty-first century.
17
2020
José Eduardo Barajas (Maseco), "Golden Shower", 2018. Oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm. Image courtesy of the artist
17 2020
10.02.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem
Monika Bravo, Dorothée Dupuis
Artist Monika Bravo reveals to Dorothée Dupuis, director of Terremoto, the spiritual tools that allowed her to weave with each other her life and art, as well as some spiritual advises about consciousness awakening for the 2020 decade.
17 2020
17.02.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem Chile, EE.UU., Nueva York, Santiago
Jessica Briceño Cisneros, Ignacio Gatica
In a series of letters between New York and Santiago, artists Jessica Briceño Cisneros and Ignacio Gatica highlight how the streets of Santiago turned into a semiotic battlefield where the Chilean contemporary art is disrupted in relation to its neo-liberal context.
17 2020
24.02.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem Culiacán, Ecatepec, Mexico
Tonatiuh López
From Ecatepec to Culiacán, in the intersection of personal biographies, the writer Tonatiuh López narrates the common search with artist Ling Sepúlveda for finding possibilities of community healing through art in the face of the normalization of violence in these places which they left to finally come back.
17 2020
02.03.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem
Pascal Gielen, Lara García Díaz
The academics Lara García Díaz and Pascal Gielen argue that the precarious condition that afflicts cultural entrepreneurs could be the fertile albeit, although dark seedbed for new forms of “commoning” which are able to overcome the tragic absence of stable economic resources in the cultural field.
17 2020
09.03.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem CDMX, Culiacán, Mexico
Nicolás Pradilla, Tamara Ibarra, Diego del Valle Ríos
Facing the systematic precarization of Mexico City’s art field, the researcher and artist Tamara Ibarra, the publisher Nicolás Pradilla y Diego del Valle Ríos, editor of Terremoto, question the possibility of an organized resistance as an art union.
17 2020
16.03.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem Colombia
Victor Albarracín Llanos
The curator Víctor Albarracín analyses the effect that the ideology of creative industries have had on the economic possibilities of contemporary art in Colombia to point out the power of the strike as an anti-capitalist union.
17 2020
23.03.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem Colombia, Mexico
Gaby Cepeda
Considering the fact that Latin America is the region with the most commercial centers in the world, curator Gaby Cepeda reflects on «MALL», a project created by artist Adriana Martínez and cultural manager Juliana Echavarría dedicated to «wearables», as a means of questioning the relationship between art and consumption in the «post-normcore» era.
17 2020
30.03.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem EE.UU., USA
A.L. Steiner, Naomi Fisher
Artist Naomi Fisher and A.L. Steiner talk about their respective commitments in favor of better laboral justice for art workers in relation to the influence of feminism and activism on their own practices.
17 2020
13.04.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem USA
Natalia Zuluaga, César García-Alvarez, Jasmine Wahi, Chris E. Vargas
Building on a reflection proposed by Terremoto, artist Chris E. Vargas, curator and activist Jasmine Wahi, curator César García, and curator Natalia Zuluaga share their opinions on identity politics, diversity, inclusivity, and legitimization in the contemporary art museum system in the United States.
17 2020
20.04.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem Argentina
Benedicta M. Badia de Nordenstahl
Benedicta M. Badia analyzes and questions, from her role and position as an art collector, how the art market works and survives within an inefficient state and an economy in perpetual crisis like that of Argentina.
17 2020
27.04.2020
Issue 17: No Money No Problem Venezuela
Rodrigo Figueroa
In light of the past 70 years of its history, Rodrigo Figueroa reviews the surprising capacity of Venezuelan art to survive internationally yet locally blossom despite the terrible socio-political crisis they face.