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Emilio Rojas_The Lions Teeth And/Or The World Was Once Flat

January 28, 2017

How are we complicit with the past we inherited? How are we accomplices of the history of what we consume in the present? The tomato traveled from the Andes to Italy, to transform our experience of gastronomy; the potato saved Europe from famine, as did the corn. 

The Lion’s Teeth And/Or The World Was Once Flat is Emilio Rojas’ first solo show in Italy. Developed over the past two years this exhibition includes stop motion animation, video, performance, sculpture, photography, text, and drawings. The center of the work is the decolonial and metaphorical study of dandelions as an invasive species. The research began with the collection of 15,000 dandelion heads, over half a million seeds that became the raw material for investigating the historical implications of colonialism through botany. The origin of the name of this plant endemic to Europe, comes from middle French dent de lion, literally "lion's tooth" (a name given from its serrated leaves).

The dandelion as the central axis of the site-specific installation, interventions, and performances at GALLLERIAPIÙ, ties together botany (dandelions and tomato), anatomy (anatomical theater), geography (Ptolemy’s atlas printed in Bologna in 1477) and colonization (the figure of Christopher Columbus). Through the use of a plant commonly considered as a weed, Rojas establishes a reflection around the ways in which we can decolonize our bodies. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”

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The world was once flat
site specific mural with tomato paste, 300x200cm, 2017

(At the end of the exhibition, the mural will be detached from the wall of the gallery with the same technique used for the frescoes and it will remain as a testimony of the performative action)

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The world was once flat is a reproduction of Ptolemy’s map, the first round map of the world in Europe printed in Bologna in 1477, which Christopher Columbus saw before he had the idea to reach India by circumnavigating the earth. The map has been reproduced by the artist in collaboration with some students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna using tomato paste directly on the gallery walls. Geography and botany coming together to analyze the historical implications of colonialism, in relation to the trip of many products.

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The world once was flat
performance action with eating, 28/01/2017

The complex action that Rojas performed in the gallery throughout the opening is the result of a deep thought on food that we eat every day without paying attention and on how we are accomplices of the past we inherit. During the performance the artist did a liberating but at the same time violent gesture, throwing against the wall of the gallery 64 kg (his body weight) of tomatoes. During the course of the action Mrs. Lucia picked up tomatoes from the floor and cooked them slowly making a tasty sauce for seasoning potato gnocchi served to guests of the gallery: the audience was invited to eat food cooked following a violent action. The apex of this action has been achieved when some guests in the gallery joined the artist helping him to complete the action of the launch of tomatoes in order to alleviate his fatigue entering in full empathy with him. This outside program compared to the performance script filled the atmosphere with energy as only the real participatory actions can do.

La conquista della terra
installation with table, velvet, old book, sculpture with dandelions seeds and resin, 2017

 

History of European Morals

installation with table, velvet, old book, sculpture with dandelions seeds and resin, 2017

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Two old books on colonialism titled History of European Morals and La conquista della terra have been altered to become handcuffs for the casts of the artist's hands made of dandelions seeds and resin. A critique of colonization and the enslavement of people´s across colonized territories while the colonizer tried to upkeep a sense of morality and superiority. The work relates as well to current forms of exploitation, and neocolonization in developing and 3rd World countries. The two works dialogue in a site-specific installation through a red velvet carpet that compels the visitor to cross a border, and having to decide whether to enter the exhibition or not, and becoming aware of his/her surroundings.

Trittico Aldrovandi
fine-art photo print on cotton paper hahnemühle, debossed text, frame, 81x61cm, 2017

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- Tomato "Noi siamo qui perché voi siete stati là"

- Mandrake "Le mie radici sono forti come le tue paure"

- Dandelion "Le nostre virtù non sono state ancora scoperte"

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This triptych was made in collaboration with the University Library of Bologna. In this work the artist reinterprets the Aldrovandi’s herbarium, Storia Naturale, choosing the plants as symbols of the topics covered in the exhibition: the dandelion, the tomato and the mandrake. Rojas utilizes his hands to intervene this historical archive of nature, to serve as a key for the exploration of the show, as well as tracing a genealogy of a history of classification of specimens in Europe, which also included plants, animals and humans from discovered territories. The debossed texts in the photographs references the current migration crisis that the world faces today that traces its origin in colonial exploitation. ¨We are here because you were there¨, ¨My roots are as strong as your fears¨ and ¨Our virtues have not yet been discovered.¨

Biblioteca (De)Coloniale
video installation with old books, I-phone, quartz, sculpture of resin and dandelion seeds, pedestals and plexiglass, 170x28x135cm, 2017


A collection of books relating to colonialism, or forms of thinking imposed into the colonized, from ethics to philosophy, to ways of narrating or remembering, arranged in a chromatic scale. A decolonial library that has been altered to make space for what has not been included in the metanarrative of history, books that go beyond their purpose of transmission of knowledge, to embodied gestures of defiance. Volumes that have been used as masks, as glory holes, breast-feeding machines, handcuffs, different purposes for different size of holes. Through it a compilation of their uses, an animated archive of late XIX century and a model of an anatomical theater,  representations of the cannon, and the other. How far in can you see.

La Prova della nostra conquista

fine-art photo print on cotton paper hahnemühle, debossed text, frame, 81x50, 2017

 

Non siamo stati scoperti

fine-art photo print on cotton paper hahnemühle, debossed text, frame, 81x50, 2017

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In this diptych, the main subject is the maquette of the first permanent anatomical theater in Europe built in Padua in 1594. This model was gifted by the University of Padua in the 1950s to the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, where the artist was given permission to work directly in the model. The anatomical theater was the place where the mapping of the body took place, which was simultaneous to the mapping of the colonized territories, and the conquest of the Americas (early mentions of anatomical theaters date back to the mid XV century). These two parallel forms of mapping are confronted within the space, in the Anatomical theater and Ptolemy’s map with tomato paste, formally both following an elliptical shape, the body uncovered its mysteries as the “unknown” was traced and “discovered”. In these photographs the model becomes the subject of a botanical conquest by dandelion seeds, weeds that originally from Europe colonized the entire world, and the tomato, which from the Andes arrived in Italy to become the protagonist of its cuisine.

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The Lions Head And/Or Cresciamo dove non siamo voluti

fine-art photo print on cotton paper hahnemühle, debossed text, frame, 68x53, 2014-2016

 

This photograph is the documentation of the first performance the artist conceived during the collection of the seeds that became the raw material for the rest of the work. The performance consisted on creating a bouquet of dandelion heads, with germinating seeds, enough to cover the entire face, and wait for the wind or people walking around to blow the seeds. The performance ended when there was no more seeds in the stems to blow. This piece was repeated several times, during the collection of the 20,000 flowers used for the creation of all the works in the exhibition.

 

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Frutto dello sfruttamento "se vi piace sarà così se non vi picce sarà così lo stesso"

fine-art photo print on cotton paper hahnemühle, debossed text, frame, 81x57, 2014-2016

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Nature Morte before and after 

fine-art photo print on cotton paper hahnemühle, debossed text, frame, 160x115, 2014-2016

 

Frutto dello sfruttamento is a play on words in Italian, that translates to fruits of exploitation. The photograph depicts the fruits and vegetables prior to them being used in the animation The Lion’s Teeth, and undergoing a process of decomposition. This work is also available in a dyptich that shows the before and after the use of the fruit, in the tradition of the still life (nature morte). The text printed in the photograph "se vi piace sarà così se non vi piace sarà così lo stesso" is a fragment of what Umberto Eco wrote in "Migration, Tolerance and the Intolerable".

 

“The problem is that the next millennium (and since I am not a prophet, I cannot say exactly when) Europe will become a multicultural continent – or a “colored” one, if you prefer. That’s how it will be, whether you like it or not.”¨

Umberto Eco da “Le migrazioni, la tolleranza e l’intollerabile” in Cinque scritti morali – Milano Bompiani 1997

 

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The Lion's Teeth

stop motion animation, 8 min, 2014-2015

 

The Lion’s Teeth is a stop motion animation which centered around the historical, botanical, decolonial and metaphorical study of dandelions. The artist collected over 20,000 dandelions heads approximately one million seeds, which are the foundation of all the work in the exhibition. The flower, which is considered an invasive species originally native to Europe, is now found all over the world. The stop motion utilizes the fruits and vegetables that were brought to Europe from America and colonized territories, and now consumed all around the world (corn, potato, tomato, avocado, banana, pineapple, cacao, coffee) to create a relation of former colonial exploitation with current systems of neocolonialism.

Monuments to (De)Colonialism

mixed-media collage on velvet, frame, 33x41cm, 2017

 

A series of collages that began with the artist collection of historical postcards of monuments to Columbus, which then Rojas utilizes to deconstruct the moments and create alternative ironic narratives through framing, alterations, drawings and juxtapositions of conflicting histories. The series also reflects on moments when monuments to Columbus have been defaced or toppled as a gesture of resistance. This collection also expands outside of just Columbus monuments but also to include monuments that celebrate the indigenous heritage and pre-columbian histories or mestizaje. 

Emilio Rojas (ca.1985, Mexico City) is a multidisciplinary artist, working primarily with the body in performance, using film, video, photography, installation, public interventions and sculpture. Rojas utilizes his body in a political and critical way, as an instrument to unearth removed traumas, embodied forms of decolonization, migration and poetics of space. He has attended numerous residencies including the Banff Centre, Elsewhere Museum, the Surrey Art Gallery, the Botin Foundation, Hammock Residency, and Pirate Camp: Stateless Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. His works have been exhibited in the US, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Austria, England, Greece, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia. Besides his artistic practice, Emilio is also a translator, community activist, yoga teacher, and anti- oppression facilitator with queer, migrant and refugee youth.  He is currently pursuing an MFA in the performance department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017), where he was awarded the New Artist Society Scholarship. Rojas also collaborates with Mexican artist Adela Goldbard under the collective name El Coyote Cojo, a research-based, cross-disciplinary collective that magnifies areas of political tension in bi-national relationships through the creation of site-specific artistic projects attempting to visualize and juxtapose suppressed histories and occluded narratives – dismemberment, prosthetics, violence, nationhood, and crisis – within current socio-political issues. The first project of the collective, Phantom Limb, received the Shapiro EAGER Grant, and they recently opened their first solo show in Public Access Gallery in Chicago, as well as a commissioned performance at the Stony Island Art Bank a project space by the Rebuild Foundation, founded and led by artist Theaster Gates. Galeria Jose de la Fuente in Spain represents Rojas’ work.

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