MUAC / Enrique Jezik / Obstruir, destruir, ocultar. - Boek 861

Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, MUAC
Enrique Ježik
Obstruir, destruir, ocultar.
11.06.2011 / 27.11.2011
Ciclo Fantasmas de la libertad 2010-2011
A lo largo de dos décadas, marcadas por su traslado de Argentina a México en 1990,
Enrique Ježik (Córdoba, Argentina, 1961) ha desplegado un complejo trabajo de
exploración de las estructuras y dispositivos de fuerza, vigilancia, represión, control y
violencia, desde el interior de la práctica polimorfa de la escultura contemporánea.
Para Enrique Ježik, la escultura es un modo de pensar al poder y la violencia como un
terco accionar sobre la materia de los cuerpos. Sus performances, videos e
intervenciones específicas, que involucran tácticas que van desde el uso de las balas
hasta la escritura en braille, atestiguan una etapa histórica donde los medios de
destrucción y las tecnologías de control crean los espacios, metáforas, dispositivos y
trayectorias de la política.
Obstruir, destruir, ocultar despliega por primera vez un panorama de las obras y
proyectos de un artista que ha sido una pieza crucial del relato del arte
contemporáneo mexicano. Organizada en seis secciones que refieren a conceptos de
los dispositivos, espacios y operaciones de la violencia (obstrucción, destrucción,
ocultamiento, el cuerpo del enemigo, el teatro de operaciones, y constructivismo
sacrificial) la muestra recorre el territorio de objetos, fuerzas e imágenes que Ježik ha

ido conformando al reflexionar sobre la relación simbólica y técnica de la escultura con
los dispositivos de la dominación.
Cuauhtémoc Medina
Enrique Ježik, "What comes from outside is reinforced from within," 2008.
Action-intervention at The MeetFactory, Prague.
Courtesy of the artist.
• The exhibition displays for the very first time an extensive review of the works
and projects of an artist that has played a key role in the narrative of Mexican
contemporary art
• It is organized in six sections relating to the concepts of violence devices,
spaces and operations.
In the last two decades Enrique Ježik (Cordoba, Argentina, 1961) has deployed
a complex work of exploring the structures and devices of power, surveillance,
repression, control and violence, from within the polymorphic practice of
contemporary sculpture. For this artist, sculpture is a way of thinking power and
violence as a stubborn drive on body matter. His performances, videos, and
specific interventions that involve tactics—ranging from the use of bullets to
Braille writing—testify to a historical period where the means of destruction and
control technologies create the spaces, metaphors, devices and paths of
politics.
The exhibition Enrique Ježik: Obstruct, Destroy, Conceal displays for the very
first time an extensive review of the works and projects of an artist that has
played a key role in the narrative of Mexican contemporary art.
Organized in six sections relating to the concepts of violence devices, spaces
and operations ("Obstruction," "Destruction," "Concealment," "The Enemy's
Body," "Operations Theater" and "Sacrificial Constructivism"), the exhibition—
curated by Cuauhtémoc Medina—travels over the territory of objects, forces
and images, put together by Ježik while musing on the symbolic and technical
relationship of sculpture with domination devices.
The keenest focus of Ježik's recent work has been the exploration of visual and
physical power, and both the iconography and the effects of the weapon as a
prosthesis of the body and an instrument of destruction. The weapon appears
in his work in a multiple sense: as an equivalent predecessor to the sculptor's
hammer and chisel of the sculptor and as a sculptural artifact of power and
violence. While the use of rifles and pistols has long been present in art—all
over the second half of the twentieth century—Ježik emphasizes the physical

dimension of arms as a historical and aesthetic vector.
"We live, in a single schizophrenic gesture, in a civilization simultaneously
obsessed with and haughtily indifferent to violence," said Cuauhtémoc Medina.
"We live in a historical period where the political alternatives are dissolved and
the main purpose of society would seem to be security and control, where
power claims to exist in order to address the alleged proliferation of internal
and external enemies, managing and consciously or unconsciously transforming
all social conflict in a military or law enforcement issue. This climate is the
political moment outlined in Ježik's work, not in offering tactics to escape this
hegemony, but in witnessing it through sensitive operations."
Complementing the exhibition, MUAC will release the book Enrique Ježik:
Obstruct, Destroy, Conceal, a comprehensive collection of the works of the
Argentinean-Mexican sculptor. Edited by Cuauhtémoc Medina, this highly
illustrated volume includes an interview and philosophical, historical and
aesthetic essays by José Luis Barrios, Néstor García Canclini and David
Goldberg.
Enrique Ježik: Obstruct, Destroy, Conceal is part of the core exhibitions within
Fantasmas de la libertad (Ghosts of Freedom), a cycle that gathers artistic
proposals that not only suggest specific points of view, but engage in taking a
stance with regard to current common conflicts throughout Latin America.
Share this announcement on: Facebook | Delicious | Twitter
Enrique Ježik:
Obstruct, Destroy, Conceal
11 June–November 2011
Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo, MUAC
Insurgentes Sur 3000
Centro Cultural Universitario
Delegación Coyoacán. C.P. 04510
México D.F.
T +52 (55) 5622 69 39 & +52 (55) 5622 69 72
difusion@muac.unam.mx
www.muac.unam.mx