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Noticia / 6 Nov — 2021

Enrique Ramírez

People Are Places

Galerie de l’UQAM will be hosting a major exhibition by Enrique Ramírez in collaboration with the École nationale supérieure de la photographie (Arles, France). Showcasing his first solo exhibition in Canada, the Chilean artist is known for his sensitive treatment of biopolitical themes both historical and current, such as the Pinochet dictatorship and the politics of migration, interpreted through the motifs of disappearance and the sea.

“How can we recall the past without reediting the present? How can we move forward while understanding what we’re leaving behind? How can we give back dignity to precarious bodies?” These are questions that guide the curators of exhibition People Are Places, which puts forth a dozen of artist Enrique Ramírez’s works under the themes of displacement and the sea.

Born in Chile in 1979 during the Pinochet dictatorship, Ramírez evokes in many of his works the bodies of the “disappeared,” those killed by the regime and often thrown into the sea. In the absence of tombs and graves to grieve these lives cut short by terror, this body of water becomes a place of memory and mourning. The exhibition also includes many references to modern-day migration policies and issues, where the sea is a kind of limbo in which civil rights are nullified.

Through videos, images, sound, texts and objects of great visual and poetic strength, Enrique Ramírez explores these concerns. The artist, who is met with great international success, will namely be presenting a video titled Los durmientes (2014), a triple projection of monumental size that brings to light a troubling episode of the Chilean dictatorship, where some victims were thrown into the sea at great heights, bound to railway ties. The title, in Spanish, translates to both “sleepers” and “railway ties”.

Studying his works, we see in the fluctuation of the waves, and hear in the sighing of the wind, beings that seem to come from nowhere, in danger of disappearing, of being left disembodied and faceless. And yet the artist succeeds in conjuring up, in his own words, ‘millions of stars shining on the seabed,’ transforming the risk of shipwreck and loss into an image of hope and a place for humanity.

Accompanying exhibition Enrique Ramírez. People Are Places, this publication will be co-published by Galerie de l’UQAM (Montréal) and the École nationale supérieure de la photographie (Arles). In three languages (French, English and Spanish), it will include a comprehensive documentation of the Montréal exhibition, as well as the French iteration presented at the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in the summer of 2021 under the title Jardins migratoires. Readers will find essays by Marta Gili in conversation with Enrique Ramírez, Louise Déry on the concept of the missing image and Nelly Richard, a Chilean cultural theorist specialized in contemporary art during and after the Pinochet dictatorship. The launch is set to take place in 2022.


Enrique Ramírez was born in Santiago, Chile. He lives and works between Paris and Santiago. He studied popular music and cinema in Chile before joining the postgraduate master at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains (Tourcoing, France) in 2007. In 2013, he won the Prix des Amis du Palais de Tokyo (France) and, in 2014, the LOOP Fair Prize (Barcelona). He has since exposed in major venues such as Le Palais de Tokyo, Centre Pompidou, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton and Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, France; IX International Biennial of Art, Bolivia; Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico; Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, Santiago, Chile; and Centro Cultural MATTA, Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2017, he participated in exhibition Viva Arte Viva for the 57th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Christine Macel. In 2020, he was a finalist for the Marcel Duchamp Prize (Paris). This past summer, his exhibition Jardins migratoires at the École nationale supérieure de la photographie was part of the Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles program. Ramírez is represented by Galerie Michel Rein (Paris, Brussels) and Die Ecke Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago).

ENRIQUE RAMÍREZ: PEOPLE ARE PLACES

Curators: Marta Gili, Louise Déry
Dates: November 5 – December 18, 2021
Opening: Thursday, November 4, 2021, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Galerie de l’UQAM
Judith-Jasmin Pavilion, Room J-R120
1400 Berri, corner of Sainte-Catherine East, Montréal
Berri-UQAM Metro

Tuesday – Saturday, noon – 6 p.m.
Free admission

Agenda

Del 26 de septiembre al 6 de marzo

Exposición individual

María Luisa Portuondo Vila en "Animal Studies"

Casita María Center for Arts & Education / Miami

Del 5 de septiembre al 5 de octubre

Exposición colectiva

Tocornal y Bardehle en "Re-Localizando el Horizonte"

Instituto Cervantes / Sao Paulo, Brasil

Del 31 de agosto al 12 de octubre

Exposición individual

Guillermo Loca en "The Shine in the Room"

Tang Contemporary Art / Seúl, Corea del Sur

Del 11 de septiembre al 26 de octubre

Exposición colectiva

Fabiola Burgos Labra en ´Life is what happens to you while you are busy doing other plans - transmitting the aesthetics of Contingency´

Kyoto Art Center / Kioto, Japón

Del 1 de septiembre al 25 de octubre

Exposición bipersonal

Fabiola Burgos en "In Between Points, Things Happen"

Tatjana Pieters Gallery / Gent, Bélgica

Del 30 de agosto al 20 de octubre

Exposición colectiva

Constanza Valderrama en "Memories"

Fotografisk Center / Staldgade, Dinamarca

Del 17 de agosto al 5 de enero

Exposición colectiva

Enríque Ramírez en "Transformative Currents"

Oceanside Museum of Art / San Diego, California

Del 5 de septiembre al 6 de octubre

Exposición individual

Victor Hugo Bravo en "LAGARTO: La máquina higenizante en Latinoamerica"

Tranquilandia / Bogotá

Desde el 12 de julio al 31 de octubre

Exposición colectiva

Gianfranco Foschino en "Textos en el agua"

Bithouse / Córdoba

Del 17 de julio al 3 de noviembre

Exposición colectiva

Hamilton, Jarpa y Rosenfeld en "Esto es lo Verdadero"

Centro Cultural de España en México / Ciudad de México