"La Vida Nunca Muere"
A Multimedia Installation by Antonia Guerrero
November 16 - December 7 2006

Opening Reception: Thursday, November 16, 6:00PM - 8:30PM
Artist Talk: November 30, 6:30PM - 7:30PM

Inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead, La Vida Nunca Muere recreates the traditional Altar for Departed Souls as an installation of natural and electronic elements. Earth, water, audio and video are integrated under a shrouded canopy that beckons visitors to sit and contemplate a complex symbology of ancient and modern Mexico as reflected in the waters off a video screen.

Pre-Columbian mythology and sacred symbols depict the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth that clash with our notion of death as terminal. La Catrina,the humorous skeleton dressed as a bourgeois lady topped with a plumed hat, recurs contextualizing and recontextualizing the cyclical movement of images and sounds. La Catrina symbolizes with ironic humor the futility of material power and glory. Drawing from Mexican folklore, artist Jose Guadalupe Posada created La Catrina at the turn of the 20th century in order to satirize Mexican bourgeios society. The audio accompaniment includes the voice of Sub-Comandante Marcos of Chiapas, and the musical arrangements of Mexican composer Guillermo Briseno who also recites his poetry.

The poems speak of death, the pangs of love, the turmoil of urban life and of the mystical relationship with the Universe. Each repetition of the video is accompanied by a different track evoking changes in the mood of the observer and of the material observed.

According to Antonio Guerrero: "From Pre-Columbian times onward, in the Mexican world, one vision of death has been ceaselessly reborn into another vision of death. Death and life are not finite. They are steps that lead into each other. A part of an eternal dance. In La Vida Nunca Muere I want to bring the viewer into the unraveling of his own idea of death and rebirth as different epochs and visions merge in a space of silent contemplation."

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Antonia Guerrero is an award-winning Mexican artist working in a variety of media, including painting, performance art, video and installations. She has exhibited in the Diego Rivera Mural Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, and the Munich Museum in Germany. She has performed in theater as a dancer, and has designed costumes for opera, television, film, and the stage. Her costumes for the musical production Donna Giovanna won a major theater award in Mexico City.

Antonia Guerrero studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City and at Pratt Institute in New York City. She lived and worked in Mexico for most of her life before moving to New York in 1999. Her father was the prominent Mexican painter Jesus Guerrero Galvan.

Special thanks:
The artist wishes to thank Wendell Cordtz, artist, and Zulma Aguiar, new media artist consultant, for their invaluable collaboration and creative input.