In a time when we are shocked by images of worldwide atrocities, we should ask where does the horror of the spectacle stop. For many artists, the challenging dilemma is how do they present brutality in the visual arts without adding more terror to it. In order to expose existing mechanisms of injustice, violence, and inequality, the Latin American artists featured in Basta! bring their own experiences and responses to diverse forms of crime, brutality, and exploitation.
By blurring the lines between legality and illegality, crime and justice, they are interested in the effects of the remains of violence. Their practices can be viewed as a remembrance of horrific deeds, an act against indifference and forgetting brutality. They follow the traces and vestiges left by violence, so the reminiscences of the events don’t disappear. In most cases they are torn between the desire to depict traumatic events, and the recognition that it is not possible to render them in fullness by its mere visual representation.
Basta! features works in a variety of media by Latin American artists Ivan Argote (Colombia), Marcelo Cidade (Brazil), Regina Galindo (Guatemala), Anibal Lopez (Guatemala), Teresa Margolles (Mexico), Jose Carlos Martinat (Peru), Yucef Merhi (Venezuela), Alice Miceli (Brazil), Mondongo (Juliana Laffitte and Manuel Mendanha -Argentina), Moris (Mexico), Armando Ruiz (Colombia), Giancarlo Scaglia (Peru), Javier Tellez (Venezuela), and Juan Toro (Venezuela). They address topics such as crime, vandalism, transgression, gender-based violence, illegal immigration, drug cartels and state power.
