Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín, ABUELA (“GRANDMOTHER”), 2018, thread and maguey fiber, 120 × 60 × 8 cm
The Back Room is delighted to present our latest exhibition, Insistencia/Resistencia: 3 Contemporary Artists from Guatemala. This is a unique showcase featuring, for the first time in Kuala Lumpur, works by three globally-renowned Guatemalan contemporary artists: Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín, Esvin Alarcón Lam, and Marilyn Boror Bor.
Insistencia/Resistencia showcases art practices that intersect with craft and design, while delving into both contemporary and indigenous cosmologies that speak to pressing issues of cultural identity, displacement, and belonging in the context of Guatemala. Each artist brings a unique perspective to the show by exploring the issues of cultural inheritance, as well as the role of art in addressing social change.
These artists derive inspiration from their personal experiences and the broader societal and cultural concerns that drive their artistic endeavours, in a nation grappling with entrenched racism. Through their work, they illustrate how visual art has the ability to generate evocative and imaginative expressions that encourage dialogue and narrow the gap between Guatemala's Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
INSTALLATION SHOTS
SELECTED ARTWORKS
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín (b. 1982, Guatemala) is an artist from the Maya Tz’utujil tradition and a healer and spiritual guide within his community of Lake Atitlan. His practice is driven by anthropological research across the urban and rural regions of Guatemala, and integrates a variety of methods, materials, forms, objects, and rituals.
Antonio has exhibited extensively in Central America and beyond. Notable solo exhibitions include Entre hilos, Cuerpo y Sanación at La Nueva Fabrica, Antigua, Guatemala, 2022; La Tierra Habla at Hessel Museum of Art, New York, 2020; Saq B’eey (camino blanco) at Galería EXTRA, Guatemala, 2018; Registro at Centro deInvestigación Científica y Cultural, Guatemala, 2017; B`atz at Museo de Diseño y Arte Contemporáneo, Costa Rica, 2015; and Poderes Ocultos at Centro Cultural de España, Guatemala, 2010. He also participated in the travelling group exhibition, Garden of Ten Seasons, organised by Para Site, Hong Kong, from 2020 to 2022. In 2017, he was a recipient of the prestigious Juannio Award. He has participated in three editions of the Arte Paiz Biennial, Guatemala, in 2002, 2010, and 2014, along with the Kathmandu Triennale, and the Berlin Biennale (2014). He will be participating in the 2024 edition of the Indian Ocean Craft Triennale. Pichillá’s work is in the collections of the Tate in London, UK, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain, Lars Romer in Copenhagen, Denmark and Dexter Lelain in San Francisco, USA.
Esvin Alarcón Lam (Guatemala, 1988) works across different media including sculpture, installation, photography, painting, sound, video, and performance. Many of his projects involve critical thinking in relation to history and the politics of displacement (human and material), often inspired by his family’s history within the Chinese diaspora of Central America. Contemporary debates interest him as part of a complex world in constant transformation.
Esvin has shown extensively across Central America and the United States. He has had solo exhibitions at MetaMiami in Miami Beach, U.S. (2020), Herlitzka + Faria in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2019), Hidrante in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2018), Casa Niemeyer in Brasilia, Brazil (2017), Henrique Faria Fine Art in New York, U.S. (2017), and more. His work has been included in group exhibitions in New York, California, Munich, Costa Rica, and Hong Kong.
Marilyn Boror Bor (San Juan Sacatepéquez, Guatemala, 1984) is a Mayan-Kaqchikel artist whose practice challenges patriarchy and racism through various mediums, including photography, painting, printmaking, installation and performance. She holds a degree in Fine Arts from the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala and currently continues to live and work in Guatemala.
She was a Fellow of the Utopia Foundation (Spain, 2016), a three-time recipient of the Espira/La Espora Residency for Emerging Central American Artists grant from Nicaragua (2011—2014), and has participated in residencies and conferences in the United States, Central America, Mexico, Germany, Chile, and Spain. Her work has been presented at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (San Juan), the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá, the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Galerie im körnerpark (Berlin), WhiteBOX (Munich), the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (California), the Museo Precolombino de Arte Chileno (Santiago) and the NUMU (Guatemala), among others.
She participated in the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo del Sur, Guatemala, in 2021, the Bienal en Resistencia, Guatemala, in 2018 and 2021, and the Bienal de Arte Paiz, Guatemala, in 2014, 2016, and 2021. In 2022, she was featured in Prime - Art's Next Generation by Phaidon, a publication compiling “the most exciting rising stars in contemporary art” that featured 107 artists born since 1980.