'TECTONIC SHIFT' CONTEMPORARY ART FROM CHILE FROM THE JUAN YARUR COLLECTION

Paz Errazuriz, 'Adam's Apple', 12 black and white photographs, each 50x60 cm, 1983
amazing photographs of Chilean transvestites in the 80s, during the height of the Pinochet dictatorship






Christobal Lehyt, 'Drama Projection 1-8', 2008
archival inkjet prints, each 220x167 cms
Contour drawn figures of ghostly human forms




Magdalena Atria, 'Smiling Desperately I', 2004
toothpicks and plastiline


Pablo Rivera, 'Gazelle', 2001
bicycle with plastic bottles, exchanged from its original owner who would recollect the bottles to sell them for economic survival


young Mr. Juan Yarur


curator Maria Berrios, with Yarur collection curator Cecilia Brunson, with art patron Vanessa Arelle


'TECTONIC SHIFT, CONTEMPORARY ART FROM CHILE FROM THE JUAN YARUR COLLCTION', IS CURRENTLY IN VIEW IN LONDON AT PHILIPS DE PURY AND THE PHILLIPS DE PURY SPACE AT SAATCHI GALLERY. UNFORTUNATELY, TWO OF THE ARTIST ANNOUNCED ON THE 22 OF NOVEMBER PRESS RELEASE (not online anymore), JOHANNA UNZUETA AND FELIPE MUJICA, MYSTERIOUSLY DID NOT HAVE WORK ON THE EXHIBITION, AND THEIR NAMES DISAPPEARED FROM THE 29 OF NOVEMBER PRESS RELEASE (below). YOU CAN SEE SOME OF UNZUETA'S WORK here, AND MUJICA'S WORK here.

IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THE RELATIONSHIP ESTABLISHED BETWEEN A YOUNG ART COLLECTOR AN AN AUCTION HOUSE, WHICH MAKES EVIDENT NEW MODELS OF MARKETING AND EXHIBITION BEING DEVELOPED WITHIN THE ART ECONOMY. INDEPENDENTLY OF THE CRITIQUES THAT ONE COULD FORMULATE FROM THIS, AND WITHOUT BEING AN ADVOCATE OF EXHIBITIONS THAT PROMOTE NATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS, IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE, THAT APART FROM THIS EXHIBITION, THE PRESENCE OF CHILEAN ARTISTS WITHIN LONDON (AND INTERNATIONAL) ART INSTITUTIONS HAS BEEN ALMOST INVISIBLE (EXCLUDING MAYBE ALFREDO JAAR WHO EXHIBITED AT THE WHITECHAPEL IN 1992 AND AT THE SOUTH LONDON GALLERY IN 2008). IT IS HOPED THAT THIS EXHIBITION WILL OPEN THE EYES AND AWAKEN THE CURIOSITY OF INTERNATIONAL CURATORS, AND THAT IN THE FUTURE WE CAN HAVE ACCESS TO THE WORK OF JUAN DOWNEY, LOTTY ROSENFELD, EUGENIO DITTBORN, CARLOS LEPPE, BUT ALSO TO OTHER ARTISTS OF THE YOUNGER GENERATION, INCLUDING MUJICA AND UNZUETA, MARIO NAVARRO, THE GREAT EARLY VIDEO WORKS OF JO VILLABLANCA, THE WORK OF ARTIST RUN SPACES GALERIA CHILENA AND GALERIA METROPOLITANA, AMONG MANY OTHERS...

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November 29, 2010 Press Release:

Phillips de Pury & Company are proud to announce Tectonic Shift: Contemporary Art from Chile from the Juan Yarur collection curated by Cecilia Brunson
december 4 – january 16
Phillips de Pury & Company at Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York's HQ, London SW3 4SQ
january 4 – january 28
Phillips de Pury & Company, Howick Place, London SW1P 1BB

Artists: Magdalena Atria, Catalina Bauer, Cristóbal Lehyt, Livia Marin, Josefina Guilisasti, Alvaro Oyarzún, Gerardo Pulido, Tomás Rivas, Pablo Rivera, Cristián Silva, Malu Stewart and Paz Errazuriz.

The exhibition, drawn from the Juan Yarur collection, celebrates the most compelling contemporary artists working in Chile today. This new generation of artists emerged, buoyant, through the fabric of the new Chilean democracy in the late 90s, causing the art scene in Chile to stop, look up, and make room for some clear new voices.

Despite the monumentality that characterizes these works, there is an undeniable modesty in the use of everyday materials. The choice of source materials is also about an attitude and reaction to the technology and ‘production values’ of first world art. These are, above all, engagements with process and a desire to put the spectator in the centre of a fantastical, obsessive, formal, abstract and narrative universe.

In contrast to previous generations (Eugenio Dittborn, Gonzalo Diaz, Alfredo Jaar, and others), overtly political expression is left to one side in favour of journeys through personal, poetic, artistic and existential concerns. In the exhibition the works attempt to portray “the ambiguous, confusing, intimate, and emotional side of the socio–artistic struggle.”

Juan Yarur, the youngest patron participating in the Latin American Acquisitions Committee at Tate Modern, and Chile’s most celebrated art collector, “Chilean art has gained an energy from the emergence of this group, and I feel honoured to be able to provide the pieces to make such an important exhibition, through the curatorial work of Cecilia Brunson.”

Cecilia Brunson, curator of the exhibition commented, “Latin American art has previously been viewed through Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Now we see the contemporary art horizon extending beyond the Andes.” Brunson has worked with this group of artists independently for the last decade through North and South America. Regarding the collection and collector: “I celebrate this exciting collection brought together by such a young person (he is 26 years old). The collection demonstrates courage in the acquisition of challenging collectible work and I admire Juan’s commitment to the art scene of his native Chile.”

Phillips de Pury & Company
Founded in London in 1796, Phillips de Pury & Company is widely acknowledged as one of the three leading international auction houses, and is the only major auction house to concentrate on contemporary art and culture. The Company has enjoyed immense success in the global marketplace as a result of its focus. Phillips de Pury & Company is universally acclaimed for the quality of its visual presentation in catalogues and pre-sale exhibitions, its creative marketing activities and the pioneering vision of its Chairman, Simon de Pury, and his team in identifying new collecting trends and setting numerous auction records. Phillips de Pury is recognized as the contemporary culture tastemaker. For more information, please visit: www.phillipsdepury.com.

Notes to Editors:
The 26 -year- old Juan Yarur is a descendent of Amador Yarur (part of the Chilean Yarur family). He has been collecting international artists such as Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami since 2006. He is the youngest patron participating in the Latin American Acquisitions Committee at Tate Modern. Today he is the most prominent patron of Chile’s contemporary art scene. In 2008, he founded AMA fellowship, a grant that supports Chilean art residencies abroad. Yarur has also been attracting the art world’s elite to Chile, inviting international curators every year to visit the AMA fellowship exhibition, which takes place at the MAVI museum of art in Santiago. Here curators see the artists that, once selected by an international committee, have won the scholarship and participated in residencies such as Gasworks in London, APT in New York, and RIAA in Buenos Aires.

Cecilia Brunson is an independent curator based in London. For more than a decade she has worked in New York and Latin America. Her career began in 1991 in New York at the age of nineteen. For ten years she built a collection of Latin American art with the Edwards publishing family. In 2001 after graduating from the Centre for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, she was appointed Coordinator of Exhibitions at The Americas Society in New York. This was followed by an invitation to be Associate Curator of Latin American Art at The Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. Because of her interest in supporting emerging artists and bringing to light the work of up-and-coming curators she founded INCUBO in Chile. This was a residency program for international curators to innovate and experiment with different formats for exhibitions, lectures and publications. She recently directs the AMA Fellowship, a grant that facilitates residencies abroad for Chilean artists. In 2010 she curated a series of solo-exhibitions by Chilean artists at House of Propellers, London.