Mexico Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

The Mexico Pavilion at the Venice Biennale will be open to the public from May 11 to November 24, 2019, in the Weapons Room of "The Arsenal".

Mexico Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
Venice. Photo by Andy Holmes / Unsplash

The Mexico Pavilion of the 58th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2019 (event that brings together 90 countries), which was inaugurated yesterday by the director of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL), Lucina Jiménez, will host the piece "Acts of God", a video installation of Pablo Vargas Lugo with the curatorship of Magalí Arriola

The Mexico Pavilion at the Venice Biennale will be open to the public from May 11 to November 24, 2019, in the Weapons Room of the Old Naval and Military Complex is known as "The Arsenal". "In this work, Pablo Vargas Lugo opens the possibility of recreating multiple and unexpected paths to the foundational myths in which the narratives and beliefs of a part of humanity rest."

Vargas Lugo's video installation, filmed in the Cuatrociénegas biological reserve, Coahuila, juxtaposes the geological time and the biblical narrative, to make nature a protagonist of the story. The stromatolites (stratified microorganism sheets that continue to grow in the pools of this area), also find a place in the exhibition as a microbial mat in which layers of pigmented sand that follow a vibrant and unstable pattern are mixed.

Stromatolites are the oldest life forms on Earth and date back more than three billion years. The Cuatrociénegas hosts a unique microbial mixture that has provided evidence of a long history of metabolic processes that gave rise to life as we know it today.

The stone blocks brought from the location reveal an encrypted biblical equation that amalgamates disbelief, laughter, fear, betrayal, doubt, guilt, and remorse, all of them, human behaviors encoded in the religious narratives that still permeate the cultural precepts, social norms, and political and judicial systems that shape the contemporary world.

Cuatrociénegas is one of the few places in Mexico that allows us to understand biodiversity and biocultural resources from the perspective of the Earth to the configuration of the basic elements of human creation.

Pablo Vargas Lugo said that his work "has been a very intense experience that has generated a great learning, both for me as an artist, and for all the people in the team of professional people, linked to both the world of art and production, who embraced the project, understood it and gave it the dimension it deserves."