Uriel López

Galería Gobernador presents La conferencia de los pájaros, a solo exhibition by Uriel López, curated by Daniel Garza Usabiaga.

La conferencia de los pájaros is a project by Uriel López that investigates the bonds established between humans and animals kept in captivity and subjected to specific forms of training; an interest that has been present in his practice for some time.

In these new works the protagonists are birds of prey, primarily eagles, presented through an inquiry into falconry. Representations of this ancient cultural practice between people and birds have existed since remote times —as testified by numerous medieval records, others found in sixteenth and seventeenth century literature, as well as the genre of painting that emerged in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century known as conversation pieces. This historical painting proposal consisted of the representation of scenes of human socialization in different settings, predominantly around hunting. Although they were not central, both living and dead animals were essential to the composition.

Although Uriel López’s project includes different forms of resolution —video, three dimensional pieces— it is to a large extent centered on painting. The presence of falconry and the bond with birds is not limited exclusively to representing scenes of socialization around hunting with animals, as in conversation pieces, but also encompasses material aspects related to the production of the works. López prepares his paintings with a mixture of pigments and collagen obtained from bones regurgitated by captive eagles. The process through which these paintings are made is detailed in the video Pinturas de conversación, which opens this exhibition. The images do not stop there and instead allow us to observe a larger process: the life cycle of a bird in captivity —a particular relationship between species that, as the artist suggests in his video, is not exempt from problematic dimensions and can give rise to different kinds of discussions.

—Gobernador