GALLERY HYUNDAI holds '299 792 458 m/s,' a solo exhibition of Chilean artist Iván Navarro(Chile, 1972) - the rising star of Neon Art. This exhibition will convey hopeful messages through Navarro’s 14 gleaming neon artworks, and provide you with opportunities to get cultural stimulation and widen your understanding of contemporary art.
Iván Navarro is known internationally for his socio-politically charged sculptures of neon and fluorescent light. The sculptures and installations of Iván Navarro grow out of the legacy of minimalism and modern design, but they subvert the cool detachment of their forms with pointed sociopolitical critique. Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1972, Navarro grew up under Pinochet’s brutal military dictatorship. Pinochet is a notorious figure who ruled Chile by ruthlessly suppressing anti-government protesters for seventeen years after he raised the coup and became the president of Chile in 1973. He cut off the power and enforced curfews for keeping people to stay in their homes. Childhood memory of light, the method of controlling, became Ivan Navarro’s subject matter for his artworks. He manufactures the works based on fluorescent, neon and mirror, the materials with the glow and reflection. What should be noted is that the artist accuses such a dark history and the reality as well as presents desire for freedom, hope and the liberation that is finally acquired throughout his art work. Light is a symbol of hope and on the other hand, it represents itself wholly.
Iván Navarro is an active New York-based artist, and his works have been exhibited in major art museums and galleries, including Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Venice Biennale, and Paul Kasmin Gallery. Navarro’s works are owned by important art museums and collectors such as Saatchi Collection(London), Fonds National d’Art Contemporain(Paris), LVMH Collection (Paris), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden(Washington), and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Virginia). Navarro’s new sculptural installation, This Land Is Your Land, was announced by Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art last February. The site-specific installation presents three water towers inside of which neon reflections repeat infinitely and these will function as vessels for a vocabulary of the political and personal experience of immigration. This exhibit has been receiving many positive responses from the audience and solidifying Navarro’s place as one of the rising artists.
*image (left)
courtesy of the artist and Gallery Hyundai
