ALDO CHAPARRO

ALDO CHAPARRO

Based in Mexico City, Aldo Chaparro (b. Lima, Peru, 1965)  has been a cultural denizen for years, as an artist and as publisher and former editor-in-chief of Celeste, one of Latin America’s most influential arts and culture magazines.  Celeste is but one in a series of publications grouped under the umbrella of Celeste Editorial Group, which caters to the production of several different publications, an enterprise that he runs with his wife, Vanessa Hernandez. What’s struck me most about Chaparro’s run as editor-in-chief of the magazine (since he has relinquished his editorial duties to focus on his art) is the artistic nature of his editorship. And what distinguishes Celeste, now under the editorial guidance of artist Pia Camil, is the curatorial approach to each issue. The magazine doesn’t have a storyboard. Thematically, the content was and still is produced by grouping together interests to create a sort of meta-dialogue, a method that isn’t dissimilar to his artistic practice. What results, both in the magazine and in his art, is a conversation, not an implicit conversation, but a situation in which the sum of the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

Aldo Chaparro is interested in the way that borders fade and blur across one another; he is interested in appropriation and what can come of it. His studio, located in the Condesa neighborhood of Mexico City, is in a non-descript three-story building just north of Parque España. The offices of Celeste are right below. On a recent visit to his studio I met with Chaparro to discuss some of his projects, past and present, in anticipation of his upcoming solo show in November at Galería OMR in Mexico City.

Chapparo is a conceptual artist whose methods are performative, spaning all artistic genres, from sculpture and painting to large-scale installations. In the last three years he has produced a surprisingly large body of work. He utilizes materials that seduce; familiar phrases culled from pop songs, neon, and reflective color-coated sheets of metal. The strongest thematic elements of his style deal conceptually with the simultaneity of existence, the decontextualization of language, and the reconstruction of memory, but in a way that doesn’t isolate any specific mode, so there’s a lot of overlap in sensation and form.

Language figures copiously in his work. Following the tradition of contemporaries such as Barbara Kruger or Bruce Nauman, Chaparro utilizes the magnetic force of words to conjure our senses, and to place us more deeply inside ourselves. Chaparro is interested in mashing up popular meaning to create new ones; or to create the place, time and moment where the viewer can recognize its personal place within his work. For a solo show entitled ‘Obra temprana’ (2008), at Galería OMR, he created a series of minimalist posters, each with a printed lyric of a universally recognized pop song by bands such as The Cure, New Order, Nirvana, Nina Simone and The Smiths, to name a few. Phrases such as “I feel stupid and contagious here we are now entertain us,” from the classic hit by the band Nirvana are printed across a non-descript square poster, and sitting next to New Order’s “How does it feel.” Out of the context of music these lyrics, which are very much part of our collective imaginary, take on a new more personal meaning as one cant help but hear the song and to recollect or perform with their own memory.

His performance-based action pieces, such as his series of freestanding metal sculptures, are constructed by hand. Once large flat metal sheets are taken by Chaparro and twisted, stepped on, bent and kicked into elegant monuments of physical engagement that embrace the memory of the actions that gave them its shape.

In strong disagree on Robert Indiana’s iconic ‘LOVE’ pieces from the 1960s, Chaparro has introduced his own understanding of the work, most noticeable through his “PUTA” series of sculptures, a sly summary of our own time. The “PUTA” pieces vary in form, from neon to rug, and are made in large and small scale. Chapparo has used the same method of appropriation in his neon pieces, which are equally formally seductive, especially his ‘It Must be Nice to Disappear’ (2008) a reference to a classic song by Nina Simone. However, his use of neon isn’t limited to text-based pieces, Chaparro also creates multi-form installations using webs of fiber optic lights.

Calling to mind such films as the Disney science fiction film ‘Tron’ and Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001’, ‘Two Black Monoliths’ (2009) is mystical, minimalist piece that is perhaps a nod to Nauman or Rothkos critique of mass and volume. Installed recently at the Museum el Eco in Mexico City. The monoliths are total science fiction, framed in neon, these large blocks of black reflective metal call to mind the Gothic mysticism of New York City artist Banks Violette. More recently, this year, Chaparro has created another series of huge black monoliths, this time addressing Constantin Brancusi’s classic “Bird in Space” series of the 1920s and 1930s, however, Chaparro has done it in the reverse. Instead of showcasing the streamlined physical movement of the bird in flight, Chaparro has called to question the understanding of the base, and more importantly, the value of display, and more broadly, who determines it.

In all of Chaparro’s work one is reminded of Paul Virilio statement that “art does not speak of the past, nor does it represent the future; it becomes the privileged instrument of the present and of simultaneity.”