Proyectos Monclova presents the exhibition Toda una vida deslumbrados. Fulgor y Sombra by Néstor Jiménez.

Proyectos Monclova inaugurates the exhibition A Lifetime Dazzled: Fulgor y Sombra by Mexican artist Néstor Jiménez. For his latest project, Jiménez creates his pictorial narrative about the history of the brothers Fulgor and Sombra, the former representing socialism through the color black and the latter representing fascism through red. While the project as a whole will encompass the visual history of both characters in their three stages of life (childhood, adulthood, and old age), for this exhibition Jiménez focuses solely on the childhood period. In his paintings, the artist depicts everyday scenes of Fulgor and Sombra engaging in playful, exploratory, and learning activities, the latter marked by violent moments but also by empathy and affection. An example of this is the appearance of wild, domestic, and working animals, as it revisits the beginning of the relationship with other species during childhood and shows us how the treatment of animals is a fundamental part of human development and the learning process of empathy during childhood. The idea of the sinister arises when repressed childish impulses or primitive urges seek and obtain new confirmations. But at the same time, the artist uses this early stage of life to place viewers in front of the childhood of the economic and political history of the 20th century.

The title of the exhibition refers to the way history is perceived as a set of dichotomous events – of light and darkness – that can produce distortions. Both an excess of radiance and of shadow prevents clear perception of the environment, favoring moments of blindness.

Jiménez takes up elements of 19th-century nineteenth-century painting that represented historical feats and state-nation indoctrination to reflect on fascism and socialism. Thus, Jiménez also delves into the historicity of pictorial genres, while articulating the narratives of Fulgor and Sombra. The monstrous appearance of the characters reveals some physical qualities that have served to define characteristics of radical ideologies. For example, both characters have only one eye. Néstor Jiménez takes up the figure of the cyclops because it is a wild and uncivilized being in Greek mythology. In turn, it functions as a metaphor for extremist ideologies, as these beings only have the ability to see unilaterally and in a flat manner, preventing them from seeing the complete picture of any situation.

— Proyectos Monclova