Hechizo en Managua

16.03.2023 / 19:00 – 21:00
With Patricia Belli

Patricia Belli’s mainly sculptural works engage the audience’s body to formulate reflections on subjectivity, balance, the union of opposites, desire, fear, empathy, or control. In dialogue with José Montealegre, she will present her artistic work in Berlin for the first time.

In addition to her artistic work, the focus of the discussion will revolve around EspIRA, a program she founded in 2001 in Managua, Nicaragua; a critical-reflexive space for artistic research and artistic education that has had a significant impact on the development of contemporary art in Central America for over twenty years.

José Montegalegre, a former student of Patricia Belli now living in Berlin, will draw on their shared experiences to discuss Belli’s work and her themes and references, such as the relationship between life and death, chaos and harmony, balance and collapse, and the role of mythology, history, and the impact of natural laws on form and material.

Patricia Belli lives and works in Managua, Nicaragua. Her recent exhibitions include: Ser Sin Serlo at Villa Vassillief, France where she was a Pernod Ricard Fellow (2018); Equilibrio y Colapso at TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica (2016), Fundación Ortiz Gurdián, Nicaragua (2017), Artecentro, Guatemala (2017); and Fágiles at TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica (2015). Her work was also recently included in the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2018), the 38th EVA International, Ireland (2018), FEMSA Biennial, Mexico (2020-21) and the 58th Carnegie International (2022–23), Pittsburgh.

She is currently a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellow in the Visual Arts.

José Montealegre (b.1992 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras) lives and works in Berlin. He studied philosophy and literature at the Universidad Centroamericana de Managua, Nicaragua, and with Willem de Rooij at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Thomas Schulte in Berlin (2023), the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne (2022), Klosterruine in Berlin and Mountains in Berlin (both in 2021), Convent Art Space in Ghent (2019), and in group exhibitions at Louche Ops in Berlin (2023), Dortmunder Kunstverein in Dortmund (2022), Lantz’scher Skulpturenpark Lohausen in Düsseldorf (2021), Städelmuseum in Frankfurt am Main and Natalia Hug in Cologne (both 2019), among others.