Oscar Murillo on Building a Body of Work Against Line Time

Those art lovers who are not in Doha this week may be in Mexico City at ZONAMACO. Every year during Mexico City’s Art Week, kurimanzutto, the city’s most prestigious gallery, puts on a high-quality exhibition in its spacious San Miguel Chapultepec, and this year, “oscar murillo: el pozo de agua,” brings together 15 years of the star artist’s career. We caught up with the artist to hear more about the show, which you can’t miss if you’re in CDMX this week.

The press release for the exhibition opens with a poem about “the state of time.” What does that line mean to you, and how does it fit into the rest of the show?

Reduction of time indicators Frequencies as a reference, an encyclopedic library, the universe as I view the world—perhaps an act that points to how different historical temporalities, experiences and layers of meaning inhabit and accumulate over time. It suggests that history is not linear, but rather a coexistence of multiple, overlapping layers (structures, behaviors, events) operating at different speeds, as Airplane drawing, the act of drawing at the speed of an airplane—say, at 600 mph or, alternatively, let’s say a 14-year-old in a Singapore school takes six months to contribute Frequencies database in 2014.

This exhibition collects the work of the last decade and half of your practice. What was it like to see everything together at the same time? Did you learn anything about yourself?

Time exists differently; it doesn’t line up. So it’s not a time survey as your question suggests. As a profession, Telegramit comes together over time. Or you like I water wellwhich is a short pause before you enter the show. I consider it a container of thought or a library of material and knowledge; there is no sequence of events.

How would you describe your relationship with your work areas? How has that evolved over the years?

These places register marks and strength. I don’t have a concrete relationship to the face in the plastic sense of painting, but I think about solidity both in a physical and mental sense.

I loved your work this fall São Paulo Biennialwhere you have placed areas around the building for others to comment on. How did you come up with this idea and how does it relate to all of your practice?

In many ways, Community map it is an evolution of Frequencies with a very short working tempo, and a different structure to make the general public. In the context of the cultural center and the streets themselves, it is also a tool to record the passage of many people, with the simple act of marking. On the other hand, Frequencies it is a global network, it attaches itself to the framework and infrastructure of the school, and it works with children as vessels. Community map we coincide with this time of research and chaos that we live in, where layers upon layers of marks reveal thoughts that people freely record and share, no matter how small or deep.

While he was just starting out, he quickly became a market darling. How does that experience inform the art you make today?

Your question is somewhat interesting. I’m not a star of anything, I don’t remember such a time. I miss the constant focus and testing in the studio.

What is the difference between the way your work is received in Latin America and South America compared to other places in the world?

The ideas in this work come from the dynamic world order that is currently at stake. Community map maybe the answer to this. It’s my way of being on the street as a witness.

Do you have a favorite work in the show? One that resonates with you for your own reasons?

Installation of I water well on the balcony of the gallery space. It acts as a kind of encyclopedia. It contains pieces of material that have taken up space in my studio over the years. They are witnesses of my process. A piece of material for my exhibition “Espíritus en el pantano” at the Museo Tamayo full of marks from the public takes up one of the walls of the building, for example. There are also large black canvas flags that I presented more than 10 years ago at the 56th Venice Biennale titled “All the world’s futures,” curated by Okwui Enwezor. There is a song about my father’s migration from Colombia to London recorded in 18 different languages.

In this sense, I water well it is the source from which memories and material things are released. Like a library, a visitor can come and consult them before viewing the paintings on display.

More for artists