Invite to Petropias
LnS Gallery, Miami
November 2021 - January 2022
The central physical, symbolic and metaphorical axis around which the entire exhibition revolves is the “hole,” or the “void” – an empty space that channels various readings and interpretations. This motif, which recurs in almost every part of the exhibition, has its geological origin in the holes drilled by humans in order to penetrate the top layer of the Earth and procure petroleum.
Tony Vazquez-Figueroa, who was born in Venezuela and lived there until 2010, has turned to this natural resource found deep within the earth, transforming it and its various products into both the subject and the object of his oeuvre. Over the years he used oil and its byproducts as a symbolic material, an object of research, a source of inspiration, and a form of iconographic subject matter. In doing so, he has been studying the economic and sociopolitical history of the culture in which he was raised, exploring the tangled relationship between nature and economy – as well as its fateful implications for our planet.
In “Petropias,” Vazquez-Figueroa’s political poetics presents us with a wide-ranging view of Venezuela’s historical vicissitudes. He traces the country’s sharp fall from grace as the richest country in Latin America, to an economically and politically troubled country in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Vazquez-Figueroa focuses here on the sharp shift from utopia to dystopia – from a place seemingly symbolizing modern progress and enjoying a self-image associated with sexiness, hedonism, extravagance and prosperity, to one synonymous with poverty, scarcity and corruption.
The exhibition title – “Petropias” – alludes to its exotic tropical context, while bringing together five ideas: a petro-state – a state whose economy is based on the petroleum industry; entropy – a physical concept relating to the degree of disorder and chance occurrences within a system; Petare – the largest slum in Caracas; dystopia – the opposite of utopia; and heterotopia (from the Greek hetero=different, and topos=place), a term employed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Venezuela, as Vazquez-Figueroa sees it, is a unique kind of heterotopia: a petro-state whose rapid rise to prosperity led to a conflict between the modern European and American spirit and the tropical experience of a third-world country at the heart of Latin America.
LnS Gallery, Miami
November 2021 - January 2022
The central physical, symbolic and metaphorical axis around which the entire exhibition revolves is the “hole,” or the “void” – an empty space that channels various readings and interpretations. This motif, which recurs in almost every part of the exhibition, has its geological origin in the holes drilled by humans in order to penetrate the top layer of the Earth and procure petroleum.
Tony Vazquez-Figueroa, who was born in Venezuela and lived there until 2010, has turned to this natural resource found deep within the earth, transforming it and its various products into both the subject and the object of his oeuvre. Over the years he used oil and its byproducts as a symbolic material, an object of research, a source of inspiration, and a form of iconographic subject matter. In doing so, he has been studying the economic and sociopolitical history of the culture in which he was raised, exploring the tangled relationship between nature and economy – as well as its fateful implications for our planet.
In “Petropias,” Vazquez-Figueroa’s political poetics presents us with a wide-ranging view of Venezuela’s historical vicissitudes. He traces the country’s sharp fall from grace as the richest country in Latin America, to an economically and politically troubled country in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Vazquez-Figueroa focuses here on the sharp shift from utopia to dystopia – from a place seemingly symbolizing modern progress and enjoying a self-image associated with sexiness, hedonism, extravagance and prosperity, to one synonymous with poverty, scarcity and corruption.
The exhibition title – “Petropias” – alludes to its exotic tropical context, while bringing together five ideas: a petro-state – a state whose economy is based on the petroleum industry; entropy – a physical concept relating to the degree of disorder and chance occurrences within a system; Petare – the largest slum in Caracas; dystopia – the opposite of utopia; and heterotopia (from the Greek hetero=different, and topos=place), a term employed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Venezuela, as Vazquez-Figueroa sees it, is a unique kind of heterotopia: a petro-state whose rapid rise to prosperity led to a conflict between the modern European and American spirit and the tropical experience of a third-world country at the heart of Latin America.
Invite to Petropias