By Yasef Calderon
The exhibition “Food and Fabrics: The Cultural Warehouse Between Chile and China” by artists María José Morandé and Nicolás Santa María opened this Tuesday at the Ping An International Finance Center gallery in Beijing.
In his speech, Mauricio Hurtado, Chilean ambassador to China, said that “Today we celebrate the cultural connection between Chile and China through art, a form of expression that transcends borders and languages.”
“This event not only highlights the richness of our cultures, but also strengthens the bonds of friendship and cooperation between our peoples,” said Ambassador Hurtado.
“Food and Fabrics: the cultural warehouse between Chile and China” is made up of textile installations by María José Morandé and thirty superb photographs taken by Nicolás Santa María.
In front of Santa María’s work, the visual epiphany of these “natural portraits” borders on the limits of augmented reality. Investigating through lenses that magnify the poetics of the botanical and celebrating with all those creatures that also emulate as creation of creations in the realm of this world. The lens soaked in mystery, embossed in image and likeness, at times connotes the grandiloquence of the arcane and before other “subjects” assumes the speculative enjoyment of asymmetrical symmetries in the univocal. These could be the thematic guidelines of this sinuous exploration of the most succulent natural ingredients of Chinese cuisine. A “gastronomic catwalk” of poetic boiling… the wooded, the earthly, the humid, the fruity and the fertile marry to reveal their graceful charms, their sonorous solitude and above all, the outstanding aesthetic whims of evolution.
In “Food and Fabrics: the cultural warehouse between Chile and China,” Morandé “hangs” sophisticated epigrams that virilize the textile force. Using dyes, gels and patterns, from her own feminine universe, the Chilean artist invites us to reflect on motherhood, fertilization, the ephemeral and the sacred-encouraging.
Nicolás Santa María is a Chilean photographer based in Shanghai. His works have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Chile, the CTDO Gallery in Buenos Aires and the Instituto Cervantes in Shanghai.
María José Morandé is a Chilean artist with a degree in visual arts and pedagogy who has exhibited her works in cities such as Buenos Aires and Barcelona. She was awarded the prize for excellence in the textile art category at the Borges Cultural Center in Buenos Aires.
“Both artists represent a new generation of internationally renowned Chilean talent, and we are proud to have them here today, sharing their art with the Chinese public,” said Ambassador Hurtado.
The exhibition “Food and Fabrics: The Cultural Warehouse between Chile and China” will be open until September 13 at the Ping An International Finance Center in Beijing.
As the Chilean ambassador pointed out, “this is the sixth consecutive week where we have presented top-level cultural content.”
Chile’s summer cultural agenda in the Asian giant began with the signing of a cultural exchange agreement with the people of Jingtai. Then, the Chilean classic “La Araucana” was presented in Chinese; the presentation in Chinese of the anthology “La Lámpara en la Tierra”, in commemoration of the 120th birthday of the poet Pablo Neruda and “Mujeres del Alma Mía”, by the novelist Isabel Allende, among other memorable encounters with Chilean arts in China.
“This exhibition is an example of the commitment and collaboration between Chile and China in the cultural field. I hope that you enjoy this unique experience and that, through these works, we can all appreciate the richness and diversity of our cultures,” concluded the Chilean ambassador.
(Web editor: Zhao Jian, Zhou Yu)
