Indistinct Chatter

GONZALO FUENMAYOR
ARTIST-RUN AT THE SATELLITE SHOW, MIAMI BEACH

OCEAN TERRACE HOTEL
DECEMBER 1–6, 2015
PREVIEW Tuesday, December 1, 4–10 PM

Transmitter is pleased to present Indistinct Chatter, an installation of works by Miami-based artist Gonzalo Fuenmayor considering historical and cultural identities as manifested in acts of translation, and the ambiguous relations created as cultures are translated back-and-forth.

Don Cry consists of an appropriated video of a 90’s Colombian rock band performing a cover of the Guns N’ Roses song “Don’t Cry”. With the help of iPhone’s Siri set to Spanish translating the lyrics, the video attempts to expose the gaps evident in the translation of a pervasive American popular culture creating something akin to mimicry. The viewer may sing along, karaoke-style, to this Spanish text rendered from an English performance by a Colombian Rock band. 

The video’s acts of translation are mirrored by The Empire Strikes Back, a wall drawing which presents an imaginary conversation based on the book Working Spanish for Homeowners: Communicate efficiently with cleaners, housekeepers, child-care providers, landscapers, and lawn-service providers by Gail Stein and Paulette Waiser. This conversation, rendered in phonetic Spanish, examines how language and culture carry implicit power and racial structures.

These forms of cultural interference carry through in drawings including further instances of phonetic Spanish, as well as drawings of iconic TV images that form an ambiguous landscape offering a window on the “other” culture. Images become unclear, and text has lost its context.

Gonzalo Fuenmayor was born in Barranquilla, Colombia in 1977. He received an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, and a BFA from the School of Visual Art, NY. Recent awards include a 2015 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists, 2014 Traveling Fellowship by the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and 2013 first prize at the 6th Bidimensional Salon at Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation in Bogotá, Colombia. He has had numerous solo and group shows in the USA, Latin America and Europe. Recent exhibitions include a solo show, Tropical Mythologies, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Caribbean Crossroads at the Queens Museum, NY; and Florida Contemporary 2011 at the Naples Museum, among others. Upcoming in 2015–2016 are solo exhibitions at El Museo Gallery in Bogota and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco, CA.  He currently lives and works in Miami, FL and is represented by Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Miami and Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco. 

7410 Ocean Terrace, Miami Beach, FL