Maso by multi-disciplinary artist Javier Sanchez
For his exhibition at Big Orbit Project Space, Sanchez has created a site specific video installation that reflects on notions of mythology and cultural identity. An opening reception with the artist will take place on Saturday, April 1, 2017 from 8-11pm.
Maso is a multi-channel video installation that investigates the realm between man and nature, real and imagined, sacred and profane. Sanchez’s explorations seek to decolonize aesthetics in relation to the ability of the moving image to transform and alter cultural identity. This immersive multi-media based installation presents the viewer with characters and mystical entities shaped by Latin American culture featuring characters and their activities, which toy with pre-scripted notions that are often perpetuated by films and television.
Sanchez creates a place where the real cross-pollinates with fantasy to form an amalgam suspended between fact and fiction. Through the clever manipulation of cultural stereotypes, Sanchez’s characters — sometimes played by the artist himself — begin to disrupt, contort, and subvert our understanding of the indigenous stock characters often found within cinema. They are at once exoticized caricatures of mythical proportions yet somehow believable. The viewer is forced into a precarious negotiation between perceptions shaped by mass media and the inherent authenticity of the artist.