Barroco Nova: in conversation with Patrick Mahon Madeline Ferracuti Patrick Mahon, co-curator with Susan Edelstein, shares his insight on the ideas behind the exhibition with Madeline Ferracuti. Madeline Ferracuti: To begin, just for people walking in to the exhibition, can you tell us a bit about the Baroque movement? Patrick Mahon: The baroque is a historical era that really spanned form the 17th to the 19th century. And, although it’s associated with the Counter Reformation, it probably needs to be thought of foremost as a kind of movement or a resistance to the kind of classical that the Renaissance was so preoccupied with. The art of the baroque was exaggerated, and often times it was an art that was about trying to convince the viewer of a certain idea or position. The neo-baroque has some of the same sensibilities. It’s an art of exaggeration, an art that attempts to convince us through its opulence or its strength, and I think that the question is: what is it trying to convince us of? Well, we’re living in a time of change, dramatic change, and the Baroque era was also a time of dramatic change. So, really I think it is art that’s trying to wrestle with change. MF: What are some of the different ways artists in this show understand “neo-baroque”? PM: Well, one thing that’s important to say is that none of the artists would necessarily say that they intended to make work that’s Neo-Baroque. So none of these artists are intentionally referring to the Baroque as a particular era of art history. But, I think that we have various themes that we go on in the exhibition. One relates to post-colonialism, one relates to urban life, and kind of what we might call a “heterotopia” in urban life, and the other relates to ideas around the body, and a kind of excess. MF: How did you come to select these particular artists? PM: There was a big exhibition in 2000 that came out of South America, although it was mounted by the San Diego Museum of Art. And it was called Ultra Baroque, and it tried to show that the art of Latin America has a strong kind of affinity with Baroque tendencies. So, when Susan Edelstein and I became involved in this project (which relates to a big research project at Western called the Hispanic baroque) we knew that we needed to look at what had been shown in this Ultra Baroque show. Also, to try and see if there was contemporary art coming from Canada and North America that has some relation to that. MF: The exhibition is separated into 3 parts: urbanesque features, surface features, and the fold and possible worlds. Can you tell me about the three locations? PM: To start with the post-colonial, we basically have four artists whose work related to post8
/ pulp / Arts Magazine