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IVÁN BUENADER
Iván Buenader is an Argentinian writer and visual artist based between Alicante and Mexico City. He graduated in Computer Science from the University of Buenos Aires. He has exhibited his work (painting, photography, video, installation) in contemporary art venues in Latin America, the United States, Canada, India and Europe, while participating in numerous artist residencies – including MOMENTUM AiR in August – November 2021. He has conceptualized and produced collective interdisciplinary projects including poetry, music, dance and performance (‘CFW Poet Agency’). He is author of 11 novels and 6 books of experimental poetry.
Selected solo exhibitions include: FUTURA Galerie des Artistes (Puerto Vallarta) 2019; Brain Clouds (SometimeStudio, Paris) 2017, Monochromatic Fantasy (Lizieres, Epaux-Bezu), A house full of boxes is a place full of secrets (CentralTrak residence, Dallas TX) 2015, Face down on the sun (Museum of Contemporary Art of Aguascalientes, Mexico) 2014.
Group exhibitions include: FUTURA Alc Video Art Festival (Alicante) 2019; Untitled (Omar Alonso Galería, Puerto Vallarta) 2019; we the people (Montalvo Arts Center), Mikaela (San Miguel de Allende) , Studio Lisboa 018, La Verdi Mexico , CDMX, 2018, Rosadea (Play Video Art, Corrientes Capital), Processes in art (Chancellery Museum, CDMX), Luck of the Draw (DiversWorks, Houston TX), Hotel x Hotel (Carmen Thyssen Museum of Malaga, Malaga and Factory of Art and Development, Madrid) 2017,
Machemoodus (La 77, CDMX), In the lobby (Liliana Bloch, Dallas TX), Les sentiers de la création (Galerie du Lycée Jean de La Fontaine, Château-Thierry, and Gallerie du College Jacques Cartier, Chauny, France) 2016, AAMI Foundation (Mexico City ) , Tell me what you think of me (Texas State University Galleries) 2015, Then / Now / Next, (Gladstone Hotel, Toronto) , Floating Memories (WhiteSpider Project) 2014, Imaginary Archetypes (57th Alley) , Be or Not South (José Luis Cuevas Museum, Museum of the City of Querétaro, Museum of Art of Ciudad Juárez, Museum of Art Co Time of Tamaulipas), Argenmex (Centro Bella Época), Inheritance (MACA Alicante, Hospicio Cabaña, GACX Xalapa, La Esmeralda, Art Careyes, Lakeeren Mumbai, Cloister Sor Juana, among others), Transitios (Changarrito group show, Artpace, San Antonio TX) 2013; Migrant Suitcases (Memory and Tolerance Museum, DF; David J. Guzman Museum, El Salvador; European Foundation Center Philanthropy House, Brussels; CECUT, Tijuana; New Americans Museum, San Diego CA), Side by Side (Universidad Iberoamericana), En mi being eternal (La 77), Mexico; Timeline Project, Chicago; 2012; International Biennial of Banners , Tijuana 2010, International Biennial of Visual Poetry , Mexico 2009; Close UP , Mexico 2007; Domestic Mail , Galerie Nod, Prague 2007; Half Mast, Haydee Rovirosa, NYC 2007, Interregno , Art & Idea, Mexico 2006; Harto Espacio , Montevideo, 2004.
VOLKSPARK
2021, Video Performance, 3 min
Iván Buenader’s video performance, Volkspark, is the latest in a series of impromptu dance performances enacted within the context of every Artist Residency in which he participates. In this case, the work results from his 3-month Residency at MOMENTUM AiR during the summer and autumn of 2021 – a period of cautiously hopeful ‘normality’ in a city still learning to cope with the ongoing aftermath of the pandemic. Buenader is not a dancer. His dance series is not intended as a performance of technical competence, but rather, as his way of experientially engaging with every Residency location by means of mapping the movements of his body onto that space – be it a studio, cityscape, or countryside. The very act of movement through space connotes a freedom of which many were deprived during the long months of pandemic lockdown. While the title of the chosen soundtrack to this performance – “(I just don’t wanna) Miss A Thing” by Kylie Minogue – evokes the thirst for actual experience after months of isolation, coupled with the artist’s journey of discovery through Berlin’s multifaceted cityscape.
In Volkspark (meaning People’s Park in German), Buenader dances through Berlin’s oldest public park: Volkspark Friedrichshain. Dressed in clothes found on the streets – the literal social fabric of Berlin – he moves amidst various monuments inscribed with references to battles, conquests, nations, historical milestones, popular mythologies, and literary characters of children’s fables (the Fountain of Fairy Tales; the Berlin Bear; statues of Frederick the Great, the Javelin Thrower, and Mother and Child; Memorials for German fighters in the Spanish Civil War, and for Polish soldiers and anti-fascist Germans in WWII; and stairs on the hill covering the remains of one of several WWII bunkers and flak towers still inscribed within the fabric of the cityscape).
“The remains that are hidden and lie buried under the appearance of a hill, as well as the static, immovable, inert sculptures that function as tributes to powerful entities or to people who gave their lives, voluntarily or involuntarily, to defend historical or temporal community values, they play a symbolic game with the living, mobile, restless body, which teaches freedom as it orbits around these monoliths, calling for a re-interpretation of memory.”
– Iván Buenader
THE SOWER IN THE COURTYARD OF THE COLUMNS
2021, Wall paint on silk shawl, 85 x 85 cm
This work forms part of Buenader’s ongoing series of paint on textile works. Literally addressing the social fabric, the artist paints abstract alphabets of signs and symbols onto found materials collected in the various cities to which his peripatetic practice leads him. Scarves, blankets, tablecloths, shower curtains, and more found on the street, given by friends, or discovered in flea markets – these relics of the social fabric form the canvases for Buenader’s interventions.