León, Guanajuato, January 30, 2019. With the support of the Museum of Art and History of Guanajuato, the FEMSA Collection organized a dialogue space titles Friction and Resistance. Art and society, in which some experts addressed issues related to the ways in which art has an impact within the social environment.
More than 120 people attended the event and had the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the artists Francisca Aninat and Nina Fiocco, the curator Christian Padilla, the philosopher and writer Benjamín Valdivia and the Director of the Cultural Forum of Guanajuato, Arturo Joel Padilla, with whom they discussed questions such as: Is art a form of activism? What impact should the artistic practice generate in society? and How can we enhance the idea of art as an agent of change?
The diversity of profiles and experiences among the guests offered the community different perspectives around each questioning and allowed them to explore topics like philosophy, curatorship and artistic practice.
“Contemporary art confronts us and puts a mirror in front of us, it portrays us just as we are, and it is not necessarily a pleasurable process. It can be a process of estrangement, anger, search, provocation,” said Arturo Joel Padilla on the impact of art on society.
Christian Padilla explained: “Artivism really happens when art has an active role. That is when it becomes a transforming agent of society. […] It is not necessarily and only a beautiful image, but it goes a little further into that interest of being able to contribute in a community, or give it a voice.”
Francisca Aninat spoke from her performance as an artist and the way in which she involves members of the community in her actions. “I am interested in making art a mobilizing axis that goes from the silent spectator to the word, the presence of another being where safety is not necessary, where a more ambiguous terrain is allowed, where the accident is present, and where we have a threshold between anonymity and presence, from the invisibility of viewers to their image as participants.”
Nina Fiocco elaborated on her position on the transforming power of art in society: “I do believe that art can be an agent of change and it is. It is an agent of change, mainly, in its ability to translate, to overflow narratives. ” To support her point of view, she used as a reference a project in which she collaborated: “We tried to observe how an artist can be an agent of change at the moment when, being in a social, political and economic circumstance of being an artist, they try to build an immanent critique of its own situation and a construction of, in this case, an alternative economy.”
Once Benjamín Valdivia, moderator of the dialogue space, closed the session, attendees had the opportunity to visit the exhibition Temporalidades: Arte Latinoamericano (Temporalities: Latin-American Art). FEMSA Collection, in the same Museum.
The following day, Francisca Aninat led a session in which she invited attendees to participate with their personal experience in the creative process she uses to involve the communities where she undertakes artistic actions, through two activities: Drawing without looking and Involuntary exercises: fears.
These encounters were held as part of the activities around the exhibition Temporalidades: Arte Latinoamericano (Temporalities: Latin-American Art). FEMSA Collection, which was inaugurated during the month of October at the Museum of Art and History of Guanajuato, within the XLVI International Cervantino Festival, and remained open until January 20, 2019. Nearly 15,000 people visited the exhibition that, conformed by 86 works, presented the thought, the projections and the contradictions in relation to the memory and the current idea of the society of the XX and XXI centuries.
Francisca Aninat
She studied Fine Arts at the Catholic University of Chile and continued her studies in Fine Arts and Art History. She has experimented in her artistic work with different elements and techniques. Her productions are at important national and international collections.
Christian Padilla
He holds a Ph.D. in Society, Culture, and Heritage from the University of Barcelona and obtained a masters degree from the same university. Prominent studies of his are on various Colombian artists and his work as a curator in exhibitions in multiple countries.
Nina Fiocco
She studied art history with a masters degree in visual arts from the Iuav University of Venice and, currently, she teaches at UNARTE and the Tecnológico de Monterrey (Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education) Her artistic work has oscillated in different countries and has been awarded different prizes.
Arturo Joel Padilla
He graduated as an architect from the University of Guanajuato. He completed his masters and doctorate within the same university. Since 2012 he has held the position of General Director of Guanajuato’s Cultural Forum.
Benjamín Valdivia
He completed his doctoral studies in different disciplines at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Autonomous University of Zacatecas and the University of Guanajuato. His academic and teaching work stand out, as well as his productions in novel, poetry, and theater, from which he has been awarded numerous prizes.
About FEMSA
FEMSA is a leading company participating in the beverage industry with Coca-Cola FEMSA, the largest franchise bottler of Coca-Cola products in the world; and in the beer industry, through its ownership of the second largest equity stake of Heineken, one of the worlds leading brewers with operations in over 70 countries. FEMSA participates in the retail sector with FEMSA Comercio, which operates various small-format chain stores including OXXO; a Fuels Division operating the OXXO GAS service stations chain; and a Health Division that includes pharmacies and related operations. In addition, through FEMSA Strategic Businesses, the company offers logistic services, point-of-sales cooling solutions and plastic solutions for FEMSA’s companies and external customers.
About FEMSA Collection
FEMSA Collection was born in 1977 as part of the company’s commitment to the development of its employees, their families and their communities. Currently, it is recognized as one of the most important corporate collections internationally. It gathers more than 1200 works of Latin American art from the 20th and 21st centuries from different disciplines such as painting, sculpture, drawing, graphics, photography and installation. Its collection offers a journey that illustrates the evolution, plurality and richness of modern and contemporary art in Latin America with special emphasis on Mexican production. Through an active program of exhibitions, individual loans of works, publications and various activities, FEMSA shares its Collection with the most diverse communities in Mexico and abroad, thus fulfilling its objective of promoting the dissemination of culture and the promotion of artistic appreciation. FEMSA Collection is part of FEMSA Foundation, which generates positive impacts on people and communities through social investment projects for sustainability.
