Munir Toral & Juan Pablo Ramos

As part of the exhibition Retorno a la luz, Galería Alfredo Ginocchio invites you to El espíritu de la porcelana, an activation by artist Munir Toral and curator Juan Pablo Ramos.

The event will feature Lenormand tarot readings, a deck that originated in 19th-century France and was inspired by the renowned fortune-teller Marie Anne Lenormand. This tarot consists of 36 cards adorned with everyday symbols used for oracle readings.

The readings will be accompanied by a special ambiance created by Munir Toral, who has curated a musical selection inspired by his work "Apocalypse".

Retorno a la luz is a group exhibition that brings together 18 artists from different countries. For almost four decades they have presented the works of important artists from Mexico and all of Latin America. Under the curatorship of Juan Pablo Ramos, renowned storyteller and essayist, this exhibition highlights the gallery's commitment to contemporary art. The exhibition presents a broad spectrum of disciplines including painting, engraving, lithography, monotype, ceramics, watercolor, mixed media and design, tracing a journey from great exponents of modern art, such as Julio Le Parc (Argentina) and José Luis Cuevas (Mexico), to notable contemporary voices such as Matías Solar (Chile) and Fernanda Barreto (Brazil). Thus, the exhibition breaks down time and geographic barriers, creating an enriching dialogue between different generations and contexts.

Retorno a la luz invites reverie and hospitality. The link is reinforced through the intersection between art and design, as in the signature lamp designed for the exhibition by Ingrid Culebro Brown, as well as in the artisanal work of Fray Gabriel Chávez de la Mora, whose metal cross –exhibited for the first time– goes back to the first designs he executed at the Emaús workshop. In other cases, the image is born of active imagination and inner vision: Munir Toral exhibits a scene inspired by the Apocalypse of John of Patmos. Reinforcing the contemplative character of the exhibition, a monochrome in gold leaf by Federico Schott is ironically inserted in a context of financial speculation of the artistic work as an ingot. Halfway between the spiritual and the advertising, the sacred and the mercantile, Schott occupies the sideboard with a piece from his spurious corporate Del Nazas. Those who have had near-death experiences claim to have seen a light, but also those who experience a revelation or manage to save themselves from the emotional wreckage, that visible darkness: the same that the novelist William Styron described before committing suicide. Perhaps the light will never be able to shed its mystical connotations. With the rigor that characterizes Alvaro Verduzco's drawing production, we discover an unusual exercise in Arabic calligraphy: Al-lahu-àkbar (“God is the greatest”). In times of barbarism and obscurantism, light struggles to cling to divinity.

–Juan Pablo Ramos