JOHANNA CALLE: TEXTILES

Galeria Marília Razuk presents an exhibition by Colombian artist Johanna Calle

"All words were once a neologism", says Argentine poet Jorge Luís Borges. Its maxim accompanies the 22 photographs of the Neologismos - 2020 series, unpublished work by the Colombian artist Johanna Calle, who is part of the exhibition Têxteis, her new solo show at Galeria Marília Razuk, on view from the 31st of May.

Author of a production that is both delicate and blunt, Johanna Calle found in graphics a special way of referencing problems and inconsistencies that permeate the Latin American society. To compose her images, the artist takes different forms of writing as a starting point, appropriating manuscripts, letters, musical scores, mathematical matrices or shorthand techniques, in a kind of permanent game between lines, words and signs.

The curator José Augusto Ribeiro, the new Artistic Director of the Gallery is the author of the text that accompanies Têxteis. The exhibition presents a set of 80 works made between 2019 and 2022, all unreleased. They are photographs, texts, drawings, works in fabrics and created by Calle from new procedures in his creation. like fabrics Photographs , series composed of analogue photographs, produced between the end of the century nineteenth and mid-twentieth century, by professionals or amateurs, personalities or anonymous, belonging, rather, to family, public, business archives, or which, for example, circulated through news agencies and media. The works in this exhibition also address urgent political issues in contemporary style, such as land ownership, indigenous peoples' rights and women in Latin America as in the sets of works entitled The Great Tree and Obandos.

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1965, Johanna Calle gets a projection on the important local artistic scene already in the 1990s, and its trajectory conquers a repercussion comprehensive international program from the following decade. According to the curator, in the text that accompanies the show, the artist was quite identified, from the beginning of her career, with research related to drawing, fabric and sewing, photography, writing and suggestion of narratives, with linear works, in which the void plays an active role, the production of Calle has varied connections with works by artists such as Mira Schendel, Eva Hesse, Gego and León Ferrari.

In Têxteis, her fourth solo show at Galeria Marília Razuk, Johanna Calle brings to the public images enigmas that remove from photography the status of registering reality. Instead, the artist attributes to the snapshots an indefinite character, with regard to both the representation as well as its meaning.

“Despite the heterogeneity of techniques and materials, the exhibition reiterates, from a work to the other, a definition of the word 'textile' as that which is transformed into and with threads and threads – that can be braided, superimposed or, equally, unraveled and broken”, reflects José Augusto.

About the artist

Johanna Calle was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1965, where she currently lives and works. After studying at the Universidad de los Andes (1984-1989) in Bogotá, Calle completed his master's degree in Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Art, London (1992-1993).

Among her solo exhibitions, the following stand out: Dibujos/ Dessins, Maison de l'Amerique Latine, Paris, France; Silentes, curated by Helena Tatay, Museu de Arte do Banco da Republica, Bogotá, Colombia (2015); Krizinger Residences, Krizinger Gallery, Vienna, Austria (2013); Intertextos, Galeria Marilia Razuk, São Paulo (2012); political variations of I bring drawings by Johanna Calle, Fundación TEOR/éTica, San José de Costa Rica (2008); Past, Fundación Gilberto Alzate Avendaño, Bogotá (2006); Tangencies, ASAB Room, Superior Academy of Arts of Bogotá (2005). Among the collectives he participated in, the following stand out: Trees, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, (2019), Bienal de Sidney (2016), 31a. Bienal de São Paulo (2014), Lines, curated by Rodrigo Moura, Hauser & Wirth (2014), Artists and War, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, North Dakota (2009); Story Natural and Politics, Luis Ángel Arango Library, Bogotá (2008).

Throughout her career, Calle has received awards for his work, including: Emerging Artists Grants Program, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation CIFO, Miami (2008) and Mention of Honor IV Premio Luis Caballero (2007); Beca Cite International des Arts, Paris, AFFA Associación Française des Affaires Etrangères (2001); Regional Artists Salon Award, Ministry of Culture (2000), among others.