SGR Galería
Salón ACME 2019

DOMESTIC LANDSCAPE: Domestic Landscape is a project which originates in the tradition of XVII century European Landscape painting. It questions the state of contemporary landscape painting, and the harmful relationship that new generations make evident regarding the construction of imaginaries tainted by the digital culture. Using images found on GoogleEarth as a starting point, searched for and downloaded from the sterile comfort of a desk, Alejandro Londoño generates this series of hand made paintings, which seem to be manipulated and redesigned by a single agent: the processor. The contrived colors, the spectacular reflection, the stripe's rhythmic repetition and the edges' mechanical precision potentiate the pictorial dynamic and deprive the landscape of its distinctive features, therefore evidencing the immediate consequences of digitalization processes. In his proposal for Salón ACME No. 7, Londoño visits, through Google Earth, the places that served as references for XIX and XX century Mexican landscape painters. The exhibition named "Horizontes" (2011) curated by Consuelo Fernandez at the Arocena Museum in Coahuila, Mexico, served as a starting point in order to understand the way in which the first travelers, inspired by the mythical writings of Alexander Von HUmboldt, portrayed the Mexican geography in a scientific manner, and how the schools of open air painting then related images of of the Mexico Valley, the marinas of Mazatlan, or the peaks of Acultzingo in their work.
The references to great masters like Jose Maria Velazco, Rosario Cabrera, Gerardo Murillo or Carlos Orozco allow discussions around new dynamics of production and knowledge, which are revealed after visiting the territory through digital platforms. This invites us to reflect upon that which is gained and that which is lost when the human spirit is forced to face the consequences of progress.