Alejandro Sanchez (Colombia, 1981)
Alejandro investigates social changes in Latin American countries, especially Colombia. For this he determines the causes; such as globalization, democratization and economic growth, which produce these alterations in social structures. He then examines the factors that drive the development of this change, such as free trade, privatizations and multinationals. And finally, through his artistic production, he reflects on the consequences that social changes can bring, which is why we find themes in his work such as sociocultural displacement and cultural uprooting. He currently resides in Bogota.
Overflow series
“What sort of thing can be contained inside a ´container´?” It sounds funny written like this, indeed, but also because of the semiotic acceptation that might be carried along with by the word itself. That question seems to be questioning the meaning of the question itself; the meaning of ALL questions. “Almost any THING”, the metallic box answers FROM WITHIN, EMPTY, reverberating, the voice that interpellates while it calmly gets ready to receive the cargo. Since we normally see them closed, we imagine that inside them there is only ORDER, while in the outside there may be a little agitation, the box will precisely try to maintain, whatever it carries inside, just like that: STEADY.
In addition to the legality (what is not allowed in an international scope), the specificities or established norms by the countries of ORIGIN and DESTINATION; what that box carries in excess, above its cargo capacity (estimated in a maximum of 28 tons inside 30 cubic meters, approximately) is something that resembles a genie or SPIRIT when contained in a bottle: the SOUL of WORLD COMMERCE compartmentalized, embodied in a group of shipping line enterprises. It may well rest stowed in overlapping columns or carried in the air by the cranes at port terminals from one transportation to another, in its intermodal transport: SEA and LAND, train or truck.
These pieces that make part of a bigger series called “Some Economies”, are miniature sculptures of this STANDARD (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit - TEU) OBJECT-CARRIER object that Sánchez has turned into an icon, not of control, but of OVERFLOW. As if among its habitual contents there was the capacity to capture more of what it´s really allowed: an apology to EXCESS. In miniature form, incapable of retaining any longer what they have, apparently, been holding for a while, among other things, similar blocks and bigger than all the available space which was empty before the cargo: iron, wood, concrete; solidified water with an entire ship inside; these cargos come out sometimes creating a serpentine route (or similar to the confetti explosion of a gift box); or even pouring enormous golden and transparent drops.
These sculptures allude to ambition, abuse, but also to that limit which, as soon as a door is open, it demands to be renegotiated. If the act of containing alludes to moderation, after traversing the oceans, the spillover of objects that won´t fit in their room points at, not only the USELESS GEOGRAPHICAL BORDERS (against a warring world, whose made of sanctions its flag nowadays), but also the incontinence of the so-called CONTINENTS.
Emilio TARAZONA – 2022
