12 October 1492: Christopher Columbus discovers America by accident. From that moment on, until today, Europe has been sending intrepid travellers who, having exchanged armour for Armani suits and trunks for leather briefcases, wish to rediscover and colonize South and Central America again. The United States has not given up either, and also claims its share of the pie. If, nowadays, Angela Merkel is Queen Isabella the Catholic, and Barack Obama King Ferdinand, then our art curators and experts in the field of art are a specialized army at the service of the Monarchs of the Market, sent with a mission to find artistic rarities in distant countries and make these “wonders” known on the old continent.
Europe cannot refrain from its pitiful and patronizing interference: it thinks it can discover Latin American artists, like exotic fruit, gemstones or extraordinary birds. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. There is nothing new or unusual about the artistic potential of Latin America, it is like a volcanic activity which has its roots in the distant past and it does not stop even when state subsidies or recognition of the market are lacking; an activity that is unfathomable, prolific and irrepressible because it is art, and as a form of artistic expression it feeds on a complex kaleidoscope of cultures. The whole continent is speaking, feeling, creating, imagining, thinking, philosophizing, shouting, trembling, laughing – and that is nothing new.
The purpose of our Idiom: Latin America. Mestizos is no more than bringing the audience a sample of today’s immeasurable Latin American artistic reality and inviting people to a celebration of life, of thinking and creative activity.