The Museo Moderno is thrilled to present this solo exhibition by La Chola Poblete (b. Mendoza, 1989). La Chola is a major young artist from Argentina. Her work focuses on reclaiming her indigenous roots, advancing the importance of ancestral knowledge in South America and the need to reverse colonial practices of gender and racial discrimination in our country. It condemns the mistreatment of brown peoples and sexual dissidents, and the stereotyping and exoticisation of native peoples, while vindicating the presentation of anti-hegemonic beauties and corporealities in opposition to culturally constructed standards.
The Museo Moderno has selected an important group of early drawings by the artist, created between 2014 and 2015, whose subtleties lead us through her profound inner processes. The series that gives the exhibition its title, Ejercicios del llanto [Exercises in Weeping], explores possibilities for introspection and organises a space of recollection and silence in the heart of the Museo Moderno from which to reflect on the challenges facing humanity today. In page after page of her sketchbooks, subtle strokes and thousands of tiny dots build abstract patterns, images that mutate and allow us to glimpse the artist’s interests and concerns. Deftly sketched or outlined, we are confronted with tears and wailing, the cross (a symbol of oppressive colonialism), the potato (referencing her roots) and allusions to sexuality at the precise moment the artist considers her dilemma vis-à-vis her own gender.
Exercises in Weeping stages the work of a great Argentinian artist of international scope. It takes the form of an intimate diary telling a process of personal and political identity construction at the very moment of conception of the artist’s convictions. Poblete’s oeuvre combines in a dialogue with five other exhibitions on the Museum’s first floor, which also reflect on the need to vindicate and respect differences in our origins, bodies, feelings and ideas in today’s world.
Curators: Victoria Noorthoorn, Marcos Krämer
La Chola Poblete (Mendoza, 1989) completed an undergraduate and teaching degree in Visual Arts at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Since 2012, the artist has received grants from the Centro Cultural Kirchner and the Fondo Nacional de las Artes, and has held workshops and clinics with Diana Aisenberg, Max Gómex Canle, Silvio Lang, and others. La Chola Poblete participated in the Universidad Torcuato di Tella Artists’ Programme (2018) and the MARCO Arte Foco Artists’ Programme. At the 11th Escenarios de Sevilla Awards in 2014, she was recognised as “Best Young Artist”. Her solo exhibitions include El órgano masculino de la Chola [La Chola’s Male Organ], at the Mercado de Arte in Córdoba, and SLAVE, at the Museo Carlos Alonso in Mendoza (2019). These were followed by Tenedor de hereje [Heretic Fork] in 2021 at the Pasto Galería (Buenos Aires) and, more recently, an exhibition at Feria ARCO in Madrid.
Portrait of La Chola Poblete
La Chola Poblete asserts the importance of ancestral knowledge in the South American territory, and the need to reverse colonial practices of gender and racial discrimination in Argentina. Her work denounces the mistreatment of brown populations and of sexual dissidents, the stereotyping and exoticization of indigenous peoples, and advocates for the presentation of beauties and bodies that oppose culturally-constructed standards. On this occasion, the Museo Moderno has chosen to display an important set of early drawings by the artist, created between 2014 and 2015, through which we can accompany the process of this profound, internal development. In her sketchbooks, page after page is filled with subtle strokes and thousands of tiny doubts that at times develop into abstract images that mutate and allow us to glimpse the artist’s interests and concerns. Emerging from these sketches and outlines are tears, the cross (a symbol of colonial oppression), a potato (an allusion to roots) and references to sexuality, all at a time in which the artist faced a dilemma regarding her own gender. The series for which the exhibition is named, Ejercicios del llanto [Exercises in Weeping], explores the possibilities of introspection through constructing a space of recollection and silence from which it is possible to reflect on the challenges facing humanity today.
La Chola Poblete studied for the BA degree and teacher training degree in Visual Arts at the Universidad de Cuyo. He participated in the Artists’ Programme of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (2018) and in the Artists’ Programme of MARCO Arte Foco, artist-in-residence workshops. In 2014, he was awarded in the 11th edition of the Escenarios Award for the “Best Young Art Proposal”. He participated in the First Performance Biennial at the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes “Franklin Rawson”, de San Juan. Among his solo exhibitions, the following can be mentioned: El órgano masculino de la Chola [The Chola’s Male Organ], at the Mercado de Arte, in Córdoba, SLAVE, at the Museo Carlos Alonso, in Mendoza (2019) and Tenedor de hereje [Heretic’s Fork], at Pasto Galería, Buenos Aires (2021).