The art world and its spaces constantly shield themselves in their supposed objectivity when showing works and artists. Whether it is the “quality” of the works, the “trajectory” of the artist or the “relevance” of the works, there is always a longing for a sort of objectivity in its functioning. Evidently, a little analysis and a critical look makes it evident that this system and its choices have nothing of objectivity, but are networks of power within the capitalist system in which we live today.

 

However, knowing that reality, at moZaic we do not want to operate in the same way. “Our Friends,” as the name suggests, is a group exhibition featuring artists and friends from the United States, Spain, Chile and New Zealand. There is no thematic or technical curatorial line; the consistency is given by friendship. In this exhibition you will see drawings, paintings, prints, photographs and collages, addressing and problematizing a wide variety of contemporary issues, like eroticism, nature, the indigenous struggle, the body, the daily life, and friendship.

 

Friendship is an important thing. Although philosophers, poets, writers and artists have addressed it, what matters is that most people have friends, building relationships throughout their lives by meeting and gathering and partying and going out. This exhibition is simply one of those reunions.

 

It is also important to think about friendship in art. Along these lines, Alys Longley and Francisco Gonzalez Castro, two artists in this exhibition, have developed the concept of Artisfriend. In their words: 

 

“A term for a specific relationship one has wherein friendship and artistic practice are entangled. The art makes a space for the friendship, the friendship makes a space for the making. The slope of relation follows the form of artistic practices and the affectionate enjoyment of others' company, often over time. Artisfriends are different to artist-colleagues, or conventional friends, as this simultaneous experience of  both friendship and creative making means that artisfriends often cross boundaries of conventional behaviour together, share understandings of art contexts and ride on shared experiences over many years. Artisfriends move between hanging out and sharing time for pure enjoyment and deeply focussing on projects with various levels of intensity - this crossing between states of practice and of sharing company defines what it is to be an artisfriend.”

 

This approximation allows for a particular approach to friendship and art, one that creates and generates, not one that produces commodities for spectacle. Thinking and acting in friendship opens doors and questions, as mentioned by Longley and Gonzalez Castro:

 

“What appears in friendship? We don't know if we want to know what friendship is, or how to define it. We are interested in what appears there that does not appear in other dynamics.

We think about friendship drawings, friendship letters, friendship songs, friendship poems. Are these works the fruit of friendship? or dedicated to friendship? or dedicated to a friend?”

 

At Mozaic, we want to open a space to make, a space to build relationships and collaborate, not to compete. We want art to be a space for friendship, for social struggles and to propose new ways of life. At Mozaic, we want to invite you to come and share. 

 

We'll be waiting for you with the work of our friends: Avendaño, with his engravings and creation of unreal spaces; Catrileo + Carrión with their Mapuche poetics; Garcia O'Dowd, with his drawings of fantastical yet real worlds; González Castro, with his engravings and performance paintings; Quezada, with his photographs that reflect his perspective on his travels; Skabelund, with his prodigious drawings; Longley and González Castro, sharing their collaboration based on friendship; Román, opening up to show his first engravings; San Cristobal, with his digital collages that deal with eroticism and skin; and Smith, with his nature drawings.

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