“They are the memories of three women reflecting on their time.” This is how curator Emmanuel Razo defines the exhibition The Memories of the Future, which brings together thirty works by the painters Estrella Carmona (1962-2011) and Laura Quintanilla (1960), and the photographer Lourdes Almeida (1952).
Within the framework of its 30th anniversary, the Óscar Román Gallery brings together three creators who, “with an exhaustive commitment to research and artistic reflection,” criticize society’s progress towards dehumanization, violence and weapons; and since the 90s of the last century they have addressed topics such as artificial intelligence, science, alchemy, the spirit and the body.
“All three question a society governed by patriarchy. The human figure is recurring in her work. And that future that they recreated for 30 years is the current present,” says Razo in an interview with Excelsior.
The three have defended their precepts and have fought above all. Even in the face of a difficult audience and collectors who are barely valuing them. We propose rereading them to see that they are contemporary, that their work is still current,” adds gallery owner Óscar Román.
Carmona left an extraordinary legacy. She is one of the artists about whom there is still a lot left to say. Although the three have a wonderful career, plastically they are united by postmodernism,” adds the cultural promoter.
Razo clarifies that the idea of the exhibition, which will remain on display until the end of May, arose from the convergence of the three artists in the history of the gallery starting in 1990.
The work on display starts from this date until 2011, in the case of Carmona, and until 2021 in that of Quintanilla y Almeida. It is a review of 30 years of work that allows us to emphasize that the work, more than an aesthetic object, is also a carrier of meaning and reflection on life and reality,” he indicates.
The art historian highlights that thematic concerns link them. “For Carmona, the work of art itself is a way of accessing knowledge, because it becomes and is invested with a sensitive, rational, creative memory, capable of transcending time; that allows us to see the creator in that moment. “She sheds light on different cultural advances and transformations, and on the future of humanity.”
He points out that the reflection on posthumanism in Carmona and Quintanilla is extremely interesting. “They started in 1990, when we were going through different transformations. His paintings allow us to look again at these reflections with concepts of the future that have been modified. They raise the question of where we are going.”
Razo details that Carmona sought philosophical support in his work. “He said that his pieces were postulates. She was influenced by José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros in critically addressing progress. Her work is gestural, very expressive, with strength. She is an artist we must not forget, because her warning about war and dehumanization is there.”
Regarding Quintanilla, the specialist thinks that his proposal is reflected in a symbolic issue from the materials. “Working with encaustic takes us millennia back, with a technique that was no longer used when oil paint appeared; and the incorporation of the chapopote speaks of a present that is culturally and historically reconfigured.”
And regarding Almeida’s photography, he considers that “it speaks of a woman who is in constant inquiry. Chromogenic printing, printing on aluminum, on fabric, scanning it on polaroid; we see a concern for the materiality of the image.
It also carries out a constant reflection on cultural transformations. The male torso shows the sensuality of a woman. We see the presence of chimeras, in which the man has a feminine object; he discusses patriarchal patterns. “Her work is a synthesis of the collective imagination,” she concludes.
Both interviewees invite Mexican collectors to acquire works by female artists, because they offer “a different and unique look.”
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