Next Thursday, August 2, 2018, at the Patricia Conde Gallery (General Juan Cano # 68, San Miguel Chapultepec), Marcela Lobo opens the “Rituales de despedida” exhibition, under the curatorship of Juan Antonio Molina. The sample includes a set of photographs intervened by the designer Jorge Ayala.

CURATORIAL TEXT

Games for girls for adults part of one of the common places in the history of photography: the attraction for the anthropomorphic object, represented as a double of the human body, but at the same time as an inert thing, which gives it a different meaning, a modern sense, to the concept of still life.

The core of the exhibition is a series of photographs of damaged and recycled dolls, placed in spaces that are also old and gloomy, in what seems to be a sad staging of the transition between different life experiences. The doll is a children’s toy, but in an adult space. This space is not only physical, but above all, mental and fantastic. The doll is represented here as an object of the unconscious that symbolizes lost innocence and mourning.

Complementing this series, Marcela Lobo exhibits a set of black and white photographs, intervened with texts by the designer Jorge Ayala. Originally they were either photographs of landscapes, or images of mannequins and shop windows, with which the theme of the doll moved towards the universe of fashion and design. The mannequin’s seductive function is interrupted by writing; an intimate and yet distant gesture, traversed by a kind of automatism that does not provide an emotional connection with the text.

With such technical and formal explorations, this exhibition shows the impact that the transition from painting to photography has on Marcela Lobo’s work, which can be seen in its emphasis on surfaces, as well as in its attachment to the setting in scene and the physical intervention of the photographic object.