Javier Jaimes

Daniela Elbahara presents the exhibition Cuerpo Flotante/ Floating Body by Mexican artist Javier Jaimes.

Javier Jaimes presents in Cuerpo Flotante/ Floating Body a personal, dispersed and dreamlike narrative that seeks to create a visual chronicle of what is now called “CDMX” Mexico City, formerly known as the Federal District, transfers, routines, coming and going, rush hours and endless return.

Tired bodies and floating populations * “Nezahualcóyotl city / main tower” are combined in a dream, to imagine a place less gray, concrete and tezontle, lake city / modern city / contemporary city.

Cuerpo Flotante/ Floating Body is that personal space lost by the squeeze of bodies in public transport, it is the smog, IMECA** and environmental contingencies, it is the chaos of the mornings from trying to catch the five in the morning bus, it is the Jamaica market at three in the morning with the smell of roses and damp chrysanthemums, humidity from cars and factories in the Bondojito neighborhood that evaporates on the asphalt and dissipates in the air, it is the attempt to occupy that minimal space in the convoy subway to be able to get to the office and not lose the punctuality bonus.

Workmanship, black and leather gloves, gray suits, moccasins, stiletto heels, plastic flowers that adorn the desks of government offices, painted aqua green, flag green, pastel green. That is about being a floating body, a recounting of the dreams that this city incites, made by its rituals and the time that turns us into a blurry shadow.

*Floating Population is that which uses one territory but its place of residence is another.

**IMECA Metropolitan Air Quality Index

Javier Jaimes graduated with a degree in Plastic and Visual Arts from the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving “La Esmeralda” of the National Institute of Fine Arts. From 2013 to 2015 he held the position of printer at the Tigre Ediciones engraving workshop in Mexico and was an assistant at the engraving workshop of the Artistic Linking Unit, UNAM from 2011 to 2013. In 2011 he was winner of the “La Otra Esquina” contest. , Artistic Linkage Unit, UNAM, selected at the Julio Castillo Biennial 2018, Querétaro, Mexico. In 2021 he edited the book “Hole” by Hungarian Editions.

— Daniela Elbahara