Curated by Sharon Lerner
Jorge Eielson is one of the most unique and beloved Peruvian intellectuals and artists of the 20th century. His extensive artistic practice covered multiple genres, from written poetry and visual arts to performance, conceptual art forms, and playwriting. To mark the centenary of his birth, multiple activities were held both in Peru and abroad to celebrate his life and legacy. In this context, at the Pinta Parc fair 2024, a special edition of the Special Project, Tribute Artist: Jorge Eduardo Eielson, curated by Sharon Lerner, was held. This exhibition gathered key points of his visual work across four decades of uninterrupted creation.
While the iconic 'Quipus'—a broad series developed from pre-Hispanic knotting techniques that have become an indelible and recognizable mark of his practice for the audience—were present at the exhibition, the selection favored representations from earlier series as well, such as paintings from the 'Infinite Landscape of the Peruvian Coast' series, or some later series from the 1980s like the so-called 'Self-Portraits' (presented at the Trujillo Biennial of 1987) and the 'Constellations'. The selection of pieces included in this section, mainly from private collections in Lima, resulted in a focused showcase of the various themes that crossed his imagination and, in different ways, emotionally connected him to the territory we now call Peru; to its geography, material culture, but also to its rich ancient peoples and their traditions.
The Special Project Tribute Artist was located on the ground floor of Casa Prado.
Biography:
Jorge Eduardo Eielson (Lima, 1924 – Milan, 2006) was one of the central figures of modern art in Peru and participated in the early days of the Espacio Group (1947), a group of avant-garde architects from the National School of Engineers in Lima, which at the end of the 1940s began a debate around modernity in Peru. After his first solo exhibition at Galería Lima in 1948, Eielson won the National Poetry Prize in 1945, after which he traveled to Europe, initially settling in Paris, where he participated in the exhibition at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. Shortly afterward, he moved to Italy, where he lived until the end of his life. His prolific production as a visual artist includes participation in the Venice Biennale (1964, 1972), the VII Biennale de Paris (1971), and documenta 5 in Kassel (1972), the Underground Ballet, Paris Metro (1971), and Plans and Projects as Art, Kunsthalle, Bern (1969); among others; his participation in the Trujillo Biennial in 1987 and the Teknoquímica Biennial Prize, Peruvian North American Cultural Institute - ICPNA, Lima (2004). His work is represented in various institutional and private collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), the Nelson Rockefeller collection, Malba, among others. In recent years, his life and plastic work have received increasing international attention, with extensive exhibitions developed at the Lima Art Museum (2017), at the Es Baluard Museum in the Canary Islands (2022-2023), as well as a series of tributes in Peru, Italy, and Spain on the occasion of the centenary of his birth in 2024.
Sharon Lerner
She was Curator of Contemporary Art at MALI between 2012 and 2019 and Chief Curator at the same institution between June and December 2021. She received her M.A. in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts in San Francisco (2010). In 2010 she was awarded the 101 Curatorial Fellowship from the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts and in parallel she worked as a researcher for the Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco, USA. She has edited the book Arte contemporáneo. Colección Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI, 2013), as well as catalogs on the work of Armando Andrade Tudela, Fernando Bedoya, Johanna Hamann, Alejandro Alayza, Emilio Rodríguez Larraín and Jorge Eielson. In 2015 she was part of the curatorial team of the 3rd Medellin Encounter (MED15). Between 2015-2017 she was part of the curatorial team for the project Memories of Underdevelopment, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, MALI and Museo Jumex in Mexico, as part of the PST: LA/LA initiative of the Getty Foundation. In 2019 she was in charge of the Perú País Invitado section at ARCO Madrid. Since January 2022 she has been director of MALI - Museo de Arte de Lima.