«PERUANO ACCIDENTAL. EN BUSCA DE EL DORADO»

Nader Barhumi

14/02/19 – 19/03/19

With the pretext of Peru as a guest country in ARCO and in syntony with the fair’s own program, Nader Barhumi presents us with a set of unpublished series that move between the abstract and the symbolic.

The first among them, “In Search of El Dorado” is an installation composed of more than thirty paintings in round format which represent, in an abstract manner, the poetic imaginary of what the sailors who arrived first on America looking to make their fortune may have dreamt. It includes the series “Six Visions of a Nocturnal Sailor”, paintings over metal in which Barhumi suggests what these explorers would see when they witnessed the imagined starry sky of their destination. To access this room, visitors cross a line in sand that evokes that which, with his sword, Francisco Pizarro drew in the Isla de Gallo in 1527, and which was crossed by those who came to be known as The Famous Thirteen.

The second series of this show, titled “Nazca”, represents the famous looms and geoglyphs of that ancient Peruvian civilization. Today, their abstract and stylized designs travel whimsically through these metal looms’ surfaces.

In the third and last series, “Accidental Peruvian”–which gives the exhibition its name– Nader reveals his quotidian exercise in different supports and materials such as aluminum, stained glass and paper. He gives free reign to his eclecticism and those influences that have accompanied it throughout his life, from pre-Columbian sources to the works of his great masters, impressionists jasper Johns and Anselm Kiefer, going through Islamic ornamentation and Japanese, American and European paintings. All these comprise the sources of which this artist nourishes, removed from those nationalisms and conceptualisms that he deems unnecessary.