Frieze Masters : Queering Modernism: Visual Languages of the 20th Century,
Luis Fernando Zapata (1951–1994) desarrolló, durante las décadas de 1980 y principios de la de 1990, un vocabulario escultórico en el que convergen la arqueología, el ritual, la encarnación y la mortalidad. A partir de una investigación sostenida sobre culturas antiguas y experiencias acumuladas en viajes por Sudamérica, Egipto, el norte de África y Oriente Medio, creó una serie de obras —tituladas Stela, Objet Rituel, Tombe, Barge y Sarcofagi — que parecen pertenecer a civilizaciones a la vez antiguas e imaginarias.
Realizadas con pasta de papel moldeada a mano, pigmentos naturales, arena y materiales encontrados, estas obras encarnan una contradicción fundamental. Evocan la perdurabilidad de los monumentos de piedra, los vestigios arqueológicos y los objetos funerarios, pero están hechas de materiales caracterizados por una marcada fragilidad física. La permanencia se ve así realzada por la naturaleza efímera de la materia; una permanencia propuesta simbólicamente a través de lo que concebimos como el propósito del objeto: sobrevivir como signo, huella y memoria.
A partir de 1990, al enfrentarse a su diagnóstico de VIH y a su propia mortalidad, la investigación de Zapata sobre los orígenes, la desaparición y la persistencia del arte adquirió una dimensión cada vez más existencial. La abstracción se convirtió en un lenguaje ritual. Los signos se resisten a ser descifrados; las vasijas sugieren tránsito; las tumbas se transforman en umbrales; y las obras de la serie Sarcofagi aglutinan los elementos que marcan la frontera entre la vulnerabilidad del cuerpo y su transformación en una dimensión espiritual.
Presentada en la exposición Queering Modernism: Visual Languages of the 20th Century, bajo la curaduría de Anke Kempkes, la obra de Zapata puede abordarse como una profunda investigación sobre la arqueología de lo efímero: una práctica en la que la reducción propia del modernismo se redirige hacia historias, experiencias encarnadas y formas de memoria que resisten la desaparición.
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The Elvira Moreno Gallery (Bogotá) is participating for the first time in Frieze Masters, a sector dedicated to showcasing a unique contemporary perspective on historically significant artworks from ancient eras, old masters, and the late 20th century. Under the curatorial leadership of Anke Kempkes, this section is dedicating a sector titled Queering Modernism: Visual Languages of the 20th Century, committed to contending with the politics of oblivion, seeking to reposition historically marginalized practices developed independently and to situate modern perspectives within the frame of contemporary queer and trans discourses.
The exhibition pays homage to the legacy of Luis Fernando Zapata (1951–1994), whose work constitutes a profound meditation on human fragility, spirituality, and the permanence of memory. Through sculptural objects, reliefs, and ritual objects created between 1988 and 1994, Zapata conceived art as a space of transition between the earthly and the eternal, intertwining influences from Mesoamerican, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian cultures with a reflection on the body and time.
His practice, developed primarily in Paris during the late 1980s, solidified as an act of aesthetic resistance against the impact of HIV. In dialogue with his life experience, his work becomes a silent manifesto of transcendence: each barge, stele, or sarcophagus stands as a symbolic threshold —a "door of light" to the immemorial.
The project follows our first exhibit of Luis Fernando Zapata in our space in 2024, which alluded to the concept formulated by Jean-François Lyotard, who defined ‘the inmemorial’ as "that which cannot be remembered or forgotten, it is that which returns uncannily." At a time when contemporary art revisits notions of ritual, body, and spirituality, Zapata's work acquires a luminous relevance, revealing art's capacity to endure as a testament to the human soul and the legacy bestowed by those affected by the AIDS epidemic.
The work of Luis Fernando Zapata is part of recent prestigious institutional acquisitions, including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (New York), The Miami ICA, the Banco de la República Museum (Bogotá), and the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art (MAMBO), as well as prominent private collections in the Americas, Europe, and Latin America. It is now being exhibited simultaneously at the ICA Los Angeles, Wrightwood 659 Chicago, and ICA Miami, and as part of the permanent exhibit at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.
The Elvira Moreno Gallery is a space dedicated to research, experimentation, and progressive thought, focusing on exhibitions that explore the relevance of contemporary art, the international historical influences on Latin American art, the rediscovery of fundamental and transcendent artists who died as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and contemporary manifestos that lead to a broader and more complete understanding of new artistic languages and paradigms in contemporary Latin American art.
CONTACT
Francisco Arévalo
Program Director
+1 305 542 8990 gallery@galeriaelviramoreno.com www.galeriaelviramoreno.com IG: @galeria_elviramoreno
