Art and Letters. El Mercurio
WALDEMAR SOMMER

YENNYFERTH BECERRA and other 14 artists “Haber” MAVI

The installation genre is not free from the reiterative academicism of fairly worn out
formulas. That´s what we prove in the actual group of 13 pieces of work of that kind,
that the MAVI proposes us. Less known names dominate here; nevertheless, we find
some attractive authors. Four more experimented artists stand out. Without a doubt,
the pair Catalina Swinburn-Teresa Aninat proportions the most genuine and deeply
conceptual installation. It consists on a pair of big photos and an extent polyptych of
leather rectangles marked by fire with a key word and date; also, they form a central
cross. This way, it achieves the personal remembrance of a tragic event that has
included two opposite visions of the world. Formally well balanced, the contribution of
Yennyferth Becerra dyes itself of poetry through the white cables, of lights and golden
words; remembering the Brugnoli from years before. Isidora Correa, on the other hand,
falls back on her characteristic profiles of wooden furniture, this time fragmented.
Unfortunately, about the talented María José Ríos it must be said that her mass of
objects results superficial and, above all, incoherent.

Among the less experimented participants, Max Corvalán-Pincheira handles with an
imaginative humor two different identification cards, having the respective identificated
people act in a vehement way, in a digital video. Another sensitivity is the geometry of
Valeria Burgos. Her chromatic alternation of fluorescent tubes –in the line of the
Venezuelan Soto- deserved a much bigger special development. The house dust from
Santiago results the protagonist of Karen Fuenzalida. She captures it through a video
and a golden rug, under the television. For last, if Nicolás Grum knows how to make
sculptures and simple carton boxes playfully, Rodrigo Bruna retakes his peculiar material:
with bakery bags on the side, toasted bread form an ample mosaic of delicate
monochrome.

A lot less known artists than the previous mentioned are, in general, the 51 selected
painters of the MAC´s Concurso Marco Bontá. Few of them deserve to be
remembered. Of the three awarded, the only one to mention, just out of curiosity, is
Gonzalo Vargas’s canvas: a simple drawing obtained by the sun burn through a
magnifying glass. The contributions that do emerge convincing are from the well known
Sebatián Leyton –the magrittesque matter is very well painted, and ingeniously
presented-, from Patricia Claro, Felipe Cusicanqui, Bárbara Mödinger, Catalina Mena and
Christian Correa.

Watch out the imaginative plastic meaning of the pair Swinburn-Aninat, visually
materializing concepts of today’s special present.