MEXICO CITY.- Celaya Brothers Gallery is presenting Tenemos todo menos miedo (We have everything but fear), a solo show by Mexican artist Laura Meza Orozco, which promotes humor in moments of crisis and addresses art as a form of affective protest.
In times of electoral fraud, hundreds of missing people, drug trafficking, feminicides, attacks, real estate speculation, a country in flames, flames that are overflowing everything, how can we reformulate the links between art and life? The exhibition Tenemos todo menos miedo is an essay about play and leisure, an effort to exhume these experiences, to paint and drink them.
Tenemos todo menos miedo
One day, walking home after the bakery on the corner got robbed, I saw a sign inside an inn which is also a tortilleria. The sign, made with black letters on a yellow background and enclosed with drawings of knives, grenades and guns, read: “We have everything but fear.” In times of electoral fraud, hundreds of missing people, drug trafficking, feminicides, attacks, real estate speculation, a country in flames, flames that overflow onto everything, how can we reformulate the links between art and life? I believe that even in times of terror there must be celebration, leisure, the desire to take someone’s hand and go dancing. The exhibition Tenemos todo menos miedo is an essay about play and leisure, an effort to exhume these experiences, to paint and drink them; because one month after the robbery, the bakery reopened and gave out free bread.
The recurring concern of my practice is to research the possibilities of leisure, the dichotomy of laziness-pleasure, partying and games; to create a platform of affective protest. Design and architectural elements such as barbed wire and broken glass, generally used as a form of defense and security, are combined with hammocks, fruits, plants, and other elements used for leisure. Hostility and friendliness, rejection and reception are at odds. Tenemos todo menos miedo seeks to celebrate friendship as either a place to hang out or a series of paintings that portray daily life.
For the past three years I’ve been traveling throughout Latin America, carrying out a study called La Jocosidad (jocularity); as a concept and lifestyle, as a way of getting closer to art and my surroundings. With a critical stance as well as a sense of humor, I’m interested in promoting the unity of Latin America beyond the crisis, through a real sense of empathy, understanding and reflection. I seek - in jocular terms - to vindicate coexistence in difficult times, like the ones we live in, not by being patronizing but as a gesture of resistance to a world where work, competition, consumption and perpetual growth are primarily encouraged. --Laura Meza Orozco
Laura Meza Orozco was born in Mexico City in 1988. Her work is inspired on the Latin American context and the research she has done on the concept of jocosidad (jocularity). She seeks to question the neoliberal notion of work and promote coexistence and a sense of humor in times of crisis. She appropriates urban elements such as stalls and the so-called “defensive architecture” to give them uses designated for rest, play and laughter instead. Her main premise is to draw attention to parties, games and leisure to bring life, color and joy to the white cube.
Meza Orozco studied at the ENPEG: La Esmeralda and was part of the 2014-2016 SOMA Academic Program. Her work has been exhibited in galleries such as Casa Maauad and Bikini Wax in Mexico City; museums like the Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City and the Museum of Art of Sinaloa in Culiacan (Mexico), and the contemporary art fair Salón Acme. She has participated in residencies and exhibitions in Cali (Colombia), Quito (Ecuador), Tegucigalpa (Honduras) and San Francisco (USA). She was awarded the 2015-2016 Adidas Border Scholarship and is currently part of the Young Creators Program FONCA 2016-2017.
