Colección ASARCCO

Azul Arena presents ASARCCO Collection, a project co-curated by the collectives Ope and Aridamérica, both based in the state of Chihuahua, together with the collective Un Dique and Azul Arena gallery, both based in Ciudad Juárez.

The exhibition brings together works by AnaMar Torres, Camila Abbud, Camil Clemente, Celeste Villa, Estefanía Mares, Isaí Omega, Jackie Herald, Maic Corral, Mireille Franco, Nayeli Hernández, and Paulina De la Rosa—artists who are part of the growing network of collaborators of this imagined corporation.

Over the course of a year, the collectives carried out laboratories, mentoring sessions, and exchanges with the participating artists, sharing methodologies, accompanying research processes, and exploring materials and approaches to the ASARCO phenomenon and its historical, environmental, and social impact in Chihuahua and along the Juárez–El Paso border. This collaborative process gave rise to a series of works that question the notion of the corporate collection and propose alternatives from within contemporary artistic practice.

In this project, ASARCCO, deliberately spelled with a double “C,” is presented as the Association of Contemporary Chihuahuan Artists, a fictitious company that operates as a critical and imagined counterpart to the legacy of the historic American Smelting and Refining Company.The narrative of this invented artistic corporation makes it possible to revisit and subvert, through fiction, the models of accumulation and representation that defined ASARCO—an enterprise that in its early years was closely tied to the economic power of the Guggenheim family and was instrumental in consolidating an extractivist system that transformed the territory and left deep environmental marks that still resonate in the region. This project is made possible with the support of Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, PAC, and Paso del Norte Community Foundation.

— Azul Arena