A Cosmetic Decision

Installation View 2017

Agility plus likeness, minus unreasonable burden, multiplied by attraction, and divided by history equals the Killer Work of Juan Camilo Guzmán.

I’m deeply impressed by what appears to be Guzmán’s critical knock for bringing both of these strategies together to, let’s say, reboot them inrelation to current debates about identity and difference, as well as the useor alleged misuse of (source) imagery. New-Colombian Neo-concrete Abstraction in the Era of Global Post-conceptualism. In honor of the dolphin of the Amazonas, for example creates a kind of feedback loop that is set in perpetual motion from the formal to the social and back again ad infinitum. And its companion, And Child, rubs up against it with cunning (or cutting) cuteness. The depicted seriousness of the triple threat of Guzmán’s photoshoot series Tiempos Díficiles (Hard Times)-seductive and contemplative displays of display (a hanging vinyl banner, and an unframed and framed photograph of different sizes), and a part of what he has considered as a Political Activist art campaign that could be aestheticized, if not romanticized -is contra-posed with other works like Troll (aesthetic power) and Wallpaper Pattern #9 that open up the body of Guzmán’s work to the complicated and stable legacies of the found objects and collage of high modernism (note John Tagg’s claims above). And if by the time you are reading this Guzmán has gone ahead and called a digi- tal print on canvas of a painting of a horse Portrait of a Young Man, we will be faced with fourth threat to the mask of difference that actually reinforces the exponential capacity of his total- ly killer enterprise. I sincerely hope he did it. Terry R. Myers

A Cosmetic Decision
Installation View
2017

A Cosmetic Decision
Installation View
2017

A Cosmetic Decision
Installation View
2017

A Cosmetic Decision
Installation View
2017

A Cosmetic Decision
Installation View
2017

Dead Nature
2017
Digital print and plexiglas
83.82 x 100.33 cm

Wallpaper pattern #9
2017
Digital print on papper
66 x 94 cm

New-Colombian Neo-concrete Abstraction in the Times of Global Post-conceptualism. In Honor of the Pink Dolphin of the Amazonas. 2017 Digital print on papper 68.60 x 99 cm

And Child
2017
Digital print on sticker
35 x 49.50 cm

Vereda Tropical
2017
Digital print on canvas, acrylic and vynil
200 x 200 cm.

Wellness
2017
Framed digital print
51 x 35.50 cm

Wellness / 2017 / Framed digital print
51 x 35.50 cm

From the Series Tiempos Difíciles, part of a Political Activist Art Campaign
2017
Digital print on banner
110.50 x 148.50 cm

Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man)
2017
Digital print on canvas
50.8 x 63.5 cm 

From the Series Tiempos Difíciles, part of a Political Activist Art Campaign
2017
Digital print on papper
48.26 x 75 cm

From the Series Tiempos Difíciles, part of a Political Activist Art Campaign / 2017
Digital print on banner 110.50 x 148.50 cm

2017 / Digital print on canvas / 50.8 x 63.5 cm
From the Series Tiempos Difíciles, part of a Political Activist Art Campaign

Untitled (Portrait of a Young Man) / 2017
Digital print on matte paper
48.26 x 75 cm

Poster Sampler
2017
Digital print on foam board
129.50 x 149.86 cm

Troll (aesthetic power)
2017
Digital print on sticker
99 x 69.85 cm