Conceptual framework

The curatorship of the 43rd (Inter) National Salon of Artists (43SNA) will function on the basis of two conceptual approaches:

In general terms, one aspect of the exhibition is resumed by the theme of "SABER", which means knowledge or to know, that is, the revision of the canon from the point of view of the traditional bodies of knowledge of indigenous and other ethnic groups, as expressed in their narratives of origins and rootedness. Metaphorically speaking, "SABER" highlights the importance of a specific context: the traditions pertaining to a certain territory and the knowledge which has been developed there. It refers to walking with a firm stride, it is the compass which guarantees survival.

As a parallel to this knowledge, however, there is the theme of "DESCONOCER" (not to know, ignorance, to be unaware of), the second conceptual approach of the event. Here we refer to works which acknowledge the suspension of univocal meanings and enable us to open ourselves up to the doubt, ambiguity or uncertainty which afford the promise of the new. It is a mental state which allows for the possibility of escape and navigating towards other futures, new notions of the present and the reinvention of the past. The proliferation of paths, the refusal to get stuck in a specific place and tradition, likewise serve to impel us forward, to accept the expansion that is needed to undertake a directionless journey, so that we may explore the immense ocean, jungle or sidereal space of the unknown.

The concepts of Knowledge and Unawareness are apparently contradictory but they will be joined at the Salon in order to create, as in an oxymoron (a figure of speech which combines contradictory terms), a new meaning. In short, throughout the exhibition, some works will operate within the concept of "SABER" and others within that of "DESCONOCER" and there will be a third category which, like a shaman, will reconcile the dichotomy between what we know and what we do not know through vectors, routes, tensors and other metaphors of mediation of the same kind.

(From press information)