Opening reception: August 24, 2012. 7:00 p.m.
From August 17 through October 4, 2012.
The exhibition El beso showcases a seminal photo installation piece representative of this time period. El beso, 1994-95, is a visual representation of that vulnerable space of the act of devouring, confidence, and the passage between the outer and known to the inner and unknown places that the mouth represents. Throughout her work, Caputo has been interested in the relationship between the inner and outer body. El beso intends to reconstruct the experience of the mouth as a threshold, as it constitutes the first organ that establishes the experience of the self and the recognition between the self and the world. It is also the channel by which we first connect with our needs and emotional gratifications, as it provides us with the first sensations of pleasure, satisfaction, and desire. It is a portal and the unequivocal separation between the inner and outer body. The mouth embodies the space where words appear, kisses are given, verbal and non verbal-communication happen, laughter, intakes and outtakes.
In Caputo’s words: “One of the pivotal issues in my work has been memory and time passing in relation to our physical and mental body. My early work dealt with bodily modifications and experiences as a visual channel of memory, and the use of photography as the tool to register the passage of time. Coming from a family of scientists, my early connection with photography came through very abstract microscopic inner body imagery or medical photographs. I became interested in creating images that had a medical semblance whilst dealing with more psychological and philosophical issues related to the understanding of the self, identity, history, memory and the body.”
Caputo has thought about photography and it’s many angles in terms of being both, a narrative or a non-narrative tool, always placed as an intermediate between the thought and the action of clicking and registering a specific frame in time. She has used photography and studied its capacity for building and re-building personal and collective memories, while she provides the elements for the re-creation of an intimate narrative that takes place between what the viewer perceives as a final image and a record of memory.
Currently, she still uses the body, though she concentrates less on her own personal experiences, as she intends to explore and study more in depth the medium itself, along with the presence of the corporeal, in ways that she can relate to a variety of concepts such as time, history, memory, narrative, theatricality, and ultimately, as an archive of ideas.
Amalia Caputo holds a BA in Art History from Universidad Central de Venezuela and completed her MA from New York University and the International Center of Photography in the fields of Art Theory and Photography. Since 1989 Caputo’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Bienal de Cuenca in Ecuador, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami, Museum of Latin American Art in California, the Museo Alejandro Otero in Caracas, Scope in London and New York, Primavera Fotográfica in Barcelona, Miami Art Museum, Centro de la Imagen in Mexico DF, Fundación Banco Mercantil in Caracas, and Ela-Asia Art Taipei in Taiwan, to name a few.
Her work is represented in various public and private collections including those of the Galería de Arte Nacional in Caracas Venezuela, Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California, the Fundación Banco Mercantil Collection and the Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection in Miami, among others.
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