Pre-Columbian Remix: The Art of Enrique Chagoya, Demián Flores, Rubén Ortiz-Torres, and Nadín Ospina

Pre-Columbian Remix explores the ways in which contemporary Latin American artists appropriate and reinvent images and ideas from the ancient Americas. The exhibition focuses on the work of four leading artists: Enrique Chagoya, Demián Flores, Rubén Ortiz-Torres, and Nadín Ospina. These artists address universal questions including: the construction of national narratives, the fetishization of the art object, and the widespread reproduction and commercialization of both real and fake artifacts. Using humor and irony, these contemporary artists also borrow from mass-media culture, creating anachronic images in paintings, prints, photographs, and sculptures which, while giving the impression of being deeply rooted in the past, address crucial contemporary issues, including: rampant political corruption, immigration crisis, war, mass industry and consumption. More than the art of the past per se, these artists question our ways of perceiving and reinventing the past in order to better understand the present.