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MOJO-HAND

Julian Navarro offers us a photographic group in which he propositions a vision of that which is sacred and profane. Mojo Hand exposes us to a syncretic icon native of Colombia and a product of the artist’s existential experience from his country of origin.  The Mojo is a shielding amulet that the sages give to their protected. This charm has in its interior a group of herbs and mixtures that produce certain “energy”, an “élan” as they combine to battle “bad spirits”. The Mojo in this exhibit symbolizes the recovery of origin and the scheme of a syncretic religion; that which is fundamental in Latin America. This amulet, the Mojo, constitutes a point of reference of a culture and breaks intellectual and science-based taboos that represent an ethnocentric belief system.  Navarro retakes contents and beliefs that root in Latin American imagery. The charm is a sacred/profane object that is a component of the collective mentalities of Latin America. Beyond all Cartesian rationale, the power of the amulet is concentrated in the power that to him the collective grants. He is recipient and receptor; he who bestows true powers to these objects “charged” and transcendent.

Nevertheless, Navarro takes symbolic significance in his work, beyond its meaning. In the photographs we can perceive that the Mojo is always in an individual’s hand in different positions or mudras. We cannot see the one that holds it. The hands surface from an intense Caravaggio-like quiaroscuro with loaded luminous flares that give the picture a scene of theatrical apparition. We can observe only the hands and the hanging Mojo with a red ribbon in each photograph. The hands are the protagonist entity that defines the tone of the picture.  In them all that exists are finger postures, forced, and curved to look like claws or soft, loving sensualities from which associations and significance emanate. Each hand shows a certain state, an expressive reason and a sublime or abysmal moment.  The hands reveal absolute gesticulations where they can offer, give, grant; repress, suppress, oppress or also, contain, shelter, embrace the amulet.  The Mojo can transform itself into an object of multiple connotations. The Mojo, charged with metaphors ceases to be an amulet and it can redefine itself with multiple entities or beings. In certain pieces the Mojo appears completely clean and new; in others it emerges broken and eroded by circumstances or the passage of time.  Navarro creates an open body of work in which the spectator can recreate his own associations and personal experiences. The Mojo is an epicenter of interpretations that interconnect the spectator to his individual life.

In Series Mojo Hand #2, the hands are seen as right and left. The left hand holds the Mojo tightly, the right hand is closed and the Mojo has disappeared completely. The floating hands in dark drama seem to show or insinuate situations; displaying maybe the precarious existence or inexistence of things as ontogenic conditions of life?

In the photograph Series Mojo Hand #3 we can barely visualize the Mojo who has been totally covered by an accentuated dark scene. From the solid Rembrandt darkness emerge merely three fingers securing the Mojo’s crown.

   With an emaciated vision, the artist puts forth precarious irregularities and ruptured nails as grotesque and thick cuticle on the fingers. There is a dramatic vision as well as sublime in these enigmatic fingers that show up as biological worms in an absolute seismic theater.

In this body of work, Navarro also propositions an installation of great proportions. In the interior of a grand circular vestibule there is a great three-dimensional Mojo to the looks of a millenary totem that travels between that which is sacred and the profane. In the circular draperies small multiple Mojo’s surface. The installation resembles a profane altar in which ancient civilizations concentrate to resonate.

Navarro is a contemporary artist from where the optical contemporaneous aesthetic, the use of innovative materials and a pictographic photography proposes a dialogue with the origins of mankind.

Biography

Born 1980 Colombia.

Lives and Works Miami, Florida, USA.

SOLO EXHIBITION

2006    Mojo-Hand, Hardcore Art Contemporary Space, Miami, USA.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2006 Tastes & Tongues: Miami, Miralda-FoodCulturaMuseum, Miami, USA.

Ephemeral Trends, Contemporary Art. ArteAmericas, Miami, USA.

2005 Hardcore Menu: Simples & Dishes, Hardcore Art Contemporary Space,

Miami, USA.

Aerial-Terrestrial, Miami Dade College-Art Gallery System, Miami, USA.

IFK Latin America Art Auction 2005, Miami Art Project/MAC. Miami, USA.

Courage (World Refugee Day Art Exhibition), International Rescue Committee Miami International University / City of Miami, Miami, USA.

Ephemeral Trends III, ArteAmericas, Miami, USA.

Rebambaramba, Florida Center for the Literary Arts,Miami, USA.

Tsunami Art Benefit, Dorsch Gallery, Miami, USA.   

2004 Off-Off Basel, Camera Obscura, Miami, USA.

Photography Direct. www.fotografoscolombianos.com.

2003 Shark’s in the Morning. Daniel Azoulay Gallery, Miami, USA.

Foto-Experimental. Lavecindad, Miami, USA.

1999 Second Room of Graphic Design. Museum of Modern Art  of Bucaramanga, Bucaramanga, Colombia.

Photo-Marathon, With a Purpose Found. Buaramanga, Colombia.

CURATOR OF EXHIBITIONS

2005 Vernacular Secrets, Camera Obscura, Miami, USA.

New Ground, Camera Obscura, Miami, USA.    

2004 Off-Off Basel, Camera Obscura, Miami, USA.

2003 Foto-Experimental, La vecindad, Miami, USA.

SELECTED ARTICLES

Arteamericas 2006. A good formula, Alfredo Triff, Arte al Dia, May 2006.

Hardcore: Una galleria que abre espacio a la provocación, Adriana Herrera,

El Nuevo Herald, Jan 2006.

‘Palabra de mar’: William Navarrete, El Nuevo Herald, Aug 2005.      

Herat gallery: Artists’ Works tell stories of immigrants, Ruth Morris, Sun Sentinel, Jun 2005.

Vernacular Secrets, Alfredo Triff, Miami New Times, Apr 2005.

Art in Focus, Milagros Bello, Arte al Dia. Apr 2005.

Una ‘Rebambaramba’, Olga CONNOR, Nuevo Herald, Apr 2005.

Miami’s Art Attack, Christina Hoan, Miami Herald, Nov 2004.

Camara Oscura, Adriana Herrera, Nuevo Herald, Nov 2004.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

ArteAmericas-The Catalog 2006, Merrill Lynch / ArteAmericas, Miami, USA. 2006.

El Mar de las Palabras, Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade Collage.

Miami, USA. 2005.

IKF Latin America Art 2005, International Kids Foundation/Miami Art Project/Arte al Dia International, Miami, USA. 2005.