These pieces emerged as a sequel to the project 'The Wheel Bears No Resemblance to a Leg', commissioned by InSite/Casa Gallina and carried out in the course of 2014-2015. One of the central aspects of the piece raises a critical look at the body/machine relationship offered by surrealism, having a group of young of a military band as protagonists.
For this work, the artist made a complex visual score in which he structured the script for the recording of the different performances, contemplating the movement relationships between the bodies in space and the music for his montage. Guided by the tensions between organic and mechanical forms and military references, that notation guided the creation of a work that was proposed to offer the viewer a feeling of overflow.
Later, and given the complexity of the score itself, he decided to transform it in order to produce other images. Thus, what in the score were cogs, texts, colors and defined schemes, was converted into a black and uniform silhouette that condenses the sequence of each action.
Using the surreal techniques of cut out and collage, the artist dismantled this dark entity to give it a new place in four compositions. The result is four flags where the colors constitute a kind of territory. The black silhouettes represent the troops that cross them, and the seams indicate the order that they establish in them. The notions of territory, troop, and order, which give title to this work, are inscribed in its forms. Furthermore, on the obverse of these hand-embroidered flags, the marks of their careful creation are displayed.
The intersections between languages are a constant in the artist's work. He has indicated, for instance, that he conceives of video editing as a way of choreographing images. He is also interested in the ways in which the spoken word can become other forms of sound and has alluded to various social problems based on systems of abstraction and visual coding. Some of the works where he uses these strategies are his 'Étude taxonomique-comparative' (2010) on the colonial caste system, 'Even when Fall is Here' (2018), where he developed a series of 45 color-coded paintings, and 'All Night the Birds were Heard ing' (2018), in which a series of color bars alludes to the birds of the present and to those that have disappeared.
Through the different color systems, whether in medals, flags or other forms, the artist points out the implications of the different value systems in society. With his approaches from different artistic languages, he appeals in different ways to the corporeality and experience of the viewer.
CGV January, 2021
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj_nLDwv18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjC06bNax-8
http://erickmeyenberg.com/la-rueda-no-se-parece-a-una-pierna
https://insiteart.org/people/erick-meyenberg
