I awoke this morning to a message in the family group chat from my older brother who lives in London, England. It simply said “Is it ok that I feel genuinely sad about the Queen’s passing?” What followed were the family’s typical responses of reassurance followed by a discussion about why one might feel sad about the passing of a rich, elderly woman that we had never met (or even corresponded with).

The main take-away from the conversation were that we all had a subconscious belief that she would be around forever. Her familiar face on our currency and stamps, her Christmas message, and her pep speeches during tough times seemed to be deeply woven into the matrix of our lives. She was a part of the program and was as permanent as the oceans and skies. Until she wasn’t. Suddenly, we had to face an elephant in the room that most people choose to ignore; our time here is limited and no-one is immune, not even the Queen herself.

The conversation had me going back to my time reading Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death in an attempt to learn to accept my own mortality. The premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. In short, we’ve built civilisation in such a way that we can forget about our own impending doom for most of the time so that we can carry on having fun and that. Comfy!

Well what does that have to do with Lima, Peru you might ask? Aside from the obvious connection that Peruvians are also mortal beings, my family’s conversation couldn’t have happened at a more synchronistic time.

Today (September 9^th 2022) marks the opening of the exhibition THE ARTISTA PROJECT by FIDEL (Fidel Barandiarán), which revolves around the genre of Memento Mori; artistic works that serve as a reminder that everyone must all die one day. The pieces ask us to explore the relationships between life and death and how the themes are explored in contemporary art.

FIDEL, the exhibitor of the project, does this through the juxtaposition of two bodies of work: The Artist and The Artwork.

The first, entitled The Cult of the Artist, delves into FIDEL’s legacy as a media character and as a figure endorsed by the world’s contemporary art market. Although FIDEL’s human body is a mortal being, perhaps his artwork will become immortal? My father used to say “We are alive as long as we are not forgotten.” FIDEL’s The Cult of the Artist might have one wondering when an artist truly dies.

The second, The Artwork, focuses on the concrete proposal of the work as a platform for contemplating certain concepts related to immateriality, fineness, and approaches to death.

The juxtaposition between these two fronts serves as a platform to reflect on issues related to the desire for permanence versus that of transcendence, both visually and conceptually; recognition, in the broader sense of the word as a mechanism to understand and be understood; the dichotomy between creator and creation, as relationship of hierarchies or centers of attention; as well as of the going and going between the conception of the nature of death and our vital impulse to remain, in one way or another, here. In short, the denial of death versus acceptance of death. I think?

The works have been elaborated in different techniques: drawing, painting, sculpture and installation, leaving something macabre in all mediums. Will your accept or deny your destiny?

What you need to know:

FIDEL (Lima, 1975) is a multidisciplinary artist and independent curator.

His projects mainly revolve around 3 pillar topics:

• Death, as a concept and transformative event that, when confronted and perhaps understood, allows us to appreciate even more life and its different aspects.
• Art, not only as a means of communication but as a profession inserts into society, structures of the “world of art” and becoming historic of it.
• Desire, as a representation of the impulse to possession, the fantasy of the not yet achieved and the promise of the imagined.

THE ARTISTA PROJECT

Opens Friday September 09 at 7.00 p.m. until October 02 and can be visited from Monday to Sunday at 11.00 a.m to 8.00 p.m

The Visual Arts Gallery is located at the Ccori Wasi Cultural Center (Av. Arequipa 5198-Miraflores)

Admission: Free