Víctor Albarracín Llanosworks & projects

«Return of the Repressed» (2013)(Cuaderno de dibujos 2007-2008, exhibido bajo el mismo título en La Comuna, Bogotá)

This exhibition, my first show on a commercial gallery, was an exploration of shit, related, on one hand, to several metaphores of money, profit and commodity production and, on the other, to the idea of artists self-portraits or, better, of my own self-portraits as an artist, equally conflicted with the social order of the art institution as well as with my own subjectivity. I considered myself as a symptom largely repressed and then agressively expressed on the form of the exhibition. It was, simultaneously, the materialization of a healing process and a manifesto on the idea of being under influence.

«The Handling of Contradictions» (2013)(Cuaderno de dibujos 2007-2008, exhibido bajo el mismo título en La Comuna, Bogotá)

This show was a retrospective exhibition of recycled works, of things I threw out years before, of aborted projects, of pieces I ignored where they were and of statements made by others or by myself about who I am. In fewer words, it was a show on the notion of “ruin”. Before the show, most of the things included were in the hands of third parts I ignored, people who collected the pieces and the fragments of my previous work as I get rid of it a couple of times during the past decade. I usually try to make void in my life by refusing to keep the things I’ve done, but there’s always someone who keeps the residues or the parts, so I conducted an extense research to try to find my lost works. And I found an important part of them. This exhibition was the evidence of the impossibility to get rid of the own life, so it structured tensions between the personal and collective histories, as well as to the social narratives on what is an art piece that deserves to be maintained and cared.

«Failed Acts» (2011–2012)(Cuaderno de dibujos 2007-2008, exhibido bajo el mismo título en La Comuna, Bogotá)

This is a constantly updated video project that functions as an archive of absurd and improbable ideas for art projects I’ve conceived during the last decade. I have made a bunch of recording sessions since october 2011, using the ideas I’ve found on loose papers and isolated notes on my sketchbooks from the 90’s to present.

http://vimeo.com/victorgonzalo/actosfallidos

«unicornio» (2008–2012)(Cuaderno de dibujos 2007-2008, exhibido bajo el mismo título en La Comuna, Bogotá)

This is a series of public performances of the album Unicornio, by Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez. Lacking any musical training, and displaying total ineptitude, I sing, playing along on a guitar, Rodríguez’s songs, deeply connected to the history of left-wing militance in Latin America. The project is complemented by a series of silkscreened or, eventually, handpainted posters, covered in statements alluding to the co-opting of revolutionary strength by petit-burgeois values, and to ineptitude as a source for the will to liberation and the radical possibility of political transformation.

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unicornio

don-nadie01.Por quien merece amor µµ02.La gaviota µ03.Son desangrado µµ04.Pioneros µµ05.Hoy mi deber µµ06.La primera mentira µµ07.Canción urgente para Nicaragua µ08.El sol no da de beber µµ09.La maza µ10.Unicornio µ

todos los temas son versiones libres de las canciones homonimas contenidas en el disco

unicornio de silvio rodriguez. todos los derechos son suyos don-nadie 2008

«non-profit harassment» (2009)(Cuaderno de dibujos 2007-2008, exhibido bajo el mismo título en La Comuna, Bogotá)

The piece was a lecture on artists’ run spaces, given by the members of El Bodegón, an art space I ran with a group of friends, at an international academic event during the Cali Performance Festival in 2009. The lecture was given on a precarious English, and its purpose was to request financial help from an audience of representatives from international cultural institutions. The lecture was an exercise in self-exotization, through which I sought to render myself precarious; the intent was to challenge models of international financing of art initiatives which are solely grounded on the practice of public relations and social opportunism. As a bonus, the action included an award ceremony: The International Friendship in the Arts Award, that consisted of a heavy sack of low denomination coins we gave, after a raffle, to one of the prominent institutional guests of the event. The soundtrack of the Award ceremony was an absurd version of We Are The World, the USA for Africa song we played.

«PIRATE FRANCHISE» (2009)(Cuaderno de dibujos 2007-2008, exhibido bajo el mismo título en La Comuna, Bogotá)

This was a project by Klassenkämpfe (Lorena Espitia and Víctor Albarracín) produced as a collaboration with Mexican artist Carlos Amorales, exhibited as part of his one-man show Nuevos Ricos at Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel (Germany). The piece deployed piracy and transformation against the images produced by Amorales and the music of artists from his label Nuevos Ricos, all of which were perverted in their original configuration and placed in the specific context of their exhibition for a German audience. The piece consisted on an installation based on silkscreened posters, a t-shirt stand, audio CDs handed out freely, and an audio track.

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«The Joy of Living» (2008)(Cuaderno de dibujos 2007-2008, exhibido bajo el mismo título en La Comuna, Bogotá)

This was the last sketchbook I’ve done after a long hiatus since 2004. A bunch of precarious but colourful drawings, plenty of personal statements, political issues, jokes, little poems and manic gestures and routines. I spent the most of my days on a 6 months lapse in the making of this sketchbook, and finally it became into a sort of reflexión on leisure time and expenditure. I showed this drawings on a public exhibition I did at home. A series of posters from the drawings were published by la Silueta Ediciones.

Entertainment Parks of Columbia Inc. «Neon lights display for the

Quinta de Bolívar Park»

Con Juan Peláez conformamos el colectivo Entertainment Parks of Columbia Inc., con la finalidad de alterar la fachada de la Quinta de Bolívar, patrimonio arquitectónico y Bien de interés cultural de la Nación, intentando señalar un proceso avanzado de pérdida de memoria, ficcionalización del pasado y descontextualización del edificio mismo que, en los últimos años, buscando hacerse competitivo como escenario de entretenimiento, ha ido perdiendo su horizonte como museo, productor de sentido político y activador de metáforas. Una estructura luminosa de neones fue insertada en la fachada de la Quinta para, junto a un empleado disfrazado de Bolívar y una banda sonora de viejos himnos bolivarianos en versión trance, generar una fricción conceptual entre el imaginario del parque temático y el dispositivo arquitectónico del museo histórico.

Entertainment parks of Columbia Inc., «Neon lights display for the Quinta de Bolívar park»(2006)

(Noviembre de 2006. Salón de Arte y Naturaleza, Quinta de Bolívar, Bogotá)

This was an intervention on the façade of the Quinta de Bolívar, a historical building that housed Simón Bolívar, the most important hero of the South American Independence process against the Spaniards. The project consisted of a neon lights display, a dummy of Simón Bolívar and trance music versions of hymns and anthems on his memory. By this means, we transformed radically the whole nature of the space, that began to function as a mere carcassonne totally decontextualized from its historical value, becoming a standard entertainment park. The piece attempted to generate a critical approach to the idea of historical buildings intended as locations for tourism and recreation. During the exhibition, the neon lights were vandalized by unknown hands. Entertainment Parks of Columbia was a collective by Juan Peláez and Víctor Albarracín.

Entertainment Parks of Columbia Inc.

«Neon lights display for the

Quinta de Bolívar Park»

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«I’m so unhappy because of you» (2005)(Abril, 2006. Why I’m so unhappy?, Or Gallery, Vancuver)

A series of 200 silkscreened posters (100 x 70 centimeters), pasted throughout the streets of Vancouver and on the walls of Or Gallery, as part of the exhibit Why I’m so unhappy? curated by Michele Faguet. The posters, printed in black ink on black paper, displayed a photograph of my face, crying in the same position as Bas Jan Ader in his classic series of postcards I´m too sad to tell you (the video version of Ader’s piece was also exhibited in the show), along with the words ‘I’m so unhappy because of you.’ My piece then, was linked to Ader’s, and functioned at once as an homage of sorts to his work, and as an alteration of its sense; since the piece was made up of posters pasted on the streets and visible to passersby, they deployed an ambiguous claim, capable of taking on different tonalities (political, ethical, affective, etc.) depending on the tone of the spectator’s interpretation.

The Modern MamBoys in concert (2005)(Octubre de 2005. Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá)

Institutional critique / music and choreography project. A concert dedicated to the MamBo (Museum of Modern Art, Bogotá) Director, a lady who reigns the institution since the early 70s’, surrounded by several claims of corruption and embezzlement. the Modern MamBoys made a bunch of mambo songs with lyrics inspired by the writings, testimonials and interviews, by or to, Gloria Zea, the lady in question. The concert took place during the opening of a Young Artist Biennial organized by the Museum. Free music CDs’ were given to the public.The Modern MamBoys were: Gabriel Mejía, Juan Peláez and Víctor Albarracín

Colectivo Pornomiseria, «Limpieza social» (2006)(Abril de 2006. VI Festival Internacional de Performance, Cali)

This was a “social cleansing” intervention by Colectivo Pornomiseria, during the 6th International Performance Festival in Cali, Colombia. Armed with sponge, soap and a hose, two barely dressed girls we hired washed a group of homeless persons, while members of the collective invited the people who watched to join this kind of “social cleansing”. This intervention put on the table an important discussion about artists’ use and exploitation of vulnerable communities as a way for social climbing and art careerism. The show evidenced the abjection implicit in the rhetorics of “violence” and “social commitment”, usually argued by many Colombian artist as a medium to be on the hotspot of todays’ art.The members of Pornomiseria were: Kevin Mancera, Edwin Sánchez, Francisco Toquica and Víctor Albarracín.

«De pelo suelto» (2004–2006)(2000 - 2005. Proyecto no exhibido)

This was a series of 600 polaroid portraits of shakin’ head women. I was seduced by the idea of using the photo as a pretext to establish brief contacts with women who intrigued me. I was wondering about the relationship between those women shaking their heads with some level of violence, the freeze point captured by the photo, and the intimate situation of being side by side for a minute, looking at the way the image appeared on the surface.

«That happy feeling» (2004)(Agosto - septiembre de 2004. Espacio la Rebeca, Bogotá)

2,000 sheets of paper ripped from my 1993-2004 diaries and sketchbooks, glued to the floor of the exhibition space. I also wrote a diary on the walls during the weeks previous to the show, as a single line surrounding the whole house. A music CD by Don/Nadie (one of my musical alter-egos) was given for free as part of the show.

Music Projects (1995-2012)(Cuaderno de dibujos 2007-2008, exhibido bajo el mismo título en La Comuna, Bogotá)

I’ve been constantly involved in music projects intended as art practices since the middle of the 90s’, exploring a wide range of genres and styles, focused most of the times on the exploration of DIY possibilities, collaboration, precariety and confrontation. From 90s’ to present, I’ve been part of bands, ensembles and one person projects expressed in the form of music cds’, demo tapes, concerts and soundtracks for art exhibitions and parties, among others.

1. ejpaña2. chica pulpo

3. cabeza de perro4. atardecer en la playa con palmeras

5. 50 minutos6. desaires

7. va cayendo una lágrima en mi mejilla8. arequipe man9. chica de limón

10. jesús me susurró esta canción

SR -3

Contact

++(301) 562-4977thathappyfeeling@gmail.comhttp://issuu.com/thathappyfeelingskype: thathappyfeeling