Johanna Calle: “Variaciones”

February 10th – March 27th of 2010

Casas Riegner Gallery presents Johanna Calle’s new exhibition, a body of recent works produced between 2008 and 2010, where the concept of drawing is analyzed, departing from different forms of writing.

When examining the representations of calligraphies proposed by the artist, we find variations that allude to the singularity of the stroke. She reaches for taquigraphy, manuscripts, music scores and letters and she rescues the aesthetic qualities of the written gesture in them. She formulates the act of drawing as an open field for experimentation with materials such as metal and surgical silks.

The title of the exhibition VARIATIONS, includes different approaches to themes that, when compared to the models from which they were structured, demonstrate subtle differences. Some examples of it are the selected music scores. In them, the music pieces are represented
(i.e: parallel lines) in recognizable codes. The viewer codifies a poetic sign and the context allows for a metallic element to be read as a music note.

Johanna Calle has had numerous solo exhibitions in Colombia, ZONA TÓRRIDA at Casas Riegner, PRETÉRITA at G. Alzate Avendaño in 2006; LACONIA at the IV Premio Luis Caballero in 2007, VARIACIONES POLÍTICAS DEL TRAZO at Teorética Foundation in Costa Rica in 2008, curated by Virginia Pérez-Ratton. She has participated in group shows such as INTERROGATING SYSTEMS in the CIFO Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami, in 20 DESARREGLOS, curated by Gerardo Mosquera, CARTAS DE LA PERSISTENCIA e HISTORIA NATURAL y POLÍTICA, curated by José I. Roca at the Luis Ángel Arango Library in Bogotá in 2008, besides from the ARTISTS AND WAR exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art in 2009, curated by Laurel Reuter. More recently, her work was exhibited at the VII Mercosur Biennial in Brasil in 2009, invited by Victoria Noorthoorn.