La Llama
4th – 18th June 2000

In a time when the so-called economic globalization, the quick access to information and the overused concept of multiculturalism have established themselves in the space of contemporary debate and cultural production, the rise and proliferation of initiatives such as the Artist Workshop La Llama is not a concept disjointed from the interest promoted by the spirit of our time. The self-proclamation and definition of this type of experience as alternative spaces that confront the hegemony of established systems, regarding the creation, circulation and promotion of artistic works, both locally and internationally, hopes to bet on the configuration and creation of networks of artists from various geographic backgrounds. The workshop model proposed by the Triangle Art Workshop in 1982 in the city of New York, has not only stimulated many artists to partake in them, but also led them to organize similar experiences in their own countries. With the logistical support of Triangle Arts Trust (London), countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, United Kingdom, Zambia, United States, Botswana, Cuba, India, Mozambique, Trinidad, Kenya, Senegal and Jamaica, have become part of the exchange of multiglobal experiences through the organization of this kind of workshop, thus joining the current movement that searches for new spaces and promotes the interest of having artists from different cultural contexts as part of the international art arena.

As in the other countries where these kinds of experiences have taken place, La Llama starts as an initiative of a group of Venezuelan artists: Luis Romero, Joel Casique, Carola Bravo and Marylee Coll, with the purpose of opening up an independent space in the circuit of local creation and exhibiting, a system that has become too institutionalized and that has conditioned the promotion of the work of Venezuelan artists to specific and limited events. If we consider the Venezuelan political panorama over the last two years, the fact that an initiative such as La Llama could become a reality, thanks to the support of private and public institutions, points not only to a growing awareness among artists regarding the creation of their own spaces and mechanisms of promotion, but also --without having been its goal--takes the lead in becoming an example for the pool of resources that the cultural policies of the current administration desires to promote.

 

La Llama, Tácata Arriba, Venezuela

A 90-minute drive, a map and following many signs on the toad, were needed to arrive from Caracas to Tácata Arriba, the cattle farm that became the site for the first Artist Workshop of La Llama. Upon arriving at the setting, one experienced a sudden change in vision: the landscape is everything, nature is everywhere without being overbearing and time unfolds in layers of changing luminosity. A large country house with traces of Venezuelan colonial architecture, a pool, a church, valleys, sheds, mountains, rivers, cattle, dirt roads, rural housing are, in broad outlines, the elements that configure the Hacienda. In this setting, idyllic, bucolic, paradisiacal, strange and even fictitious for jaded city-dwellers, 20 artists from various nationalities had to live and work together for two weeks, sharing an artistic experience that happens for the first time in Venezuela.

It seems that the structural purpose of this type of gatherings is to stimulate the dialogue among the participating artists, something that results out of the unavoidable proximity imposed by the daily sharing and that is reinforced by the long conversations at meal times, the presentations given by the artists in the evenings, the conferences offered by the guest artists (Carlos Zerpa and Antonieta Sosa), the parties in honor of the artists, the folk music performances, as well as the fact of having to share the shed that became the artists’ studio. When interviewed, most artists participating in La Llama coincided in pointing out that this communicational set-up was the most important aspect of the gathering, since it led to the exchange of experiences and ideas in contemporary artistic practices, established differences and similarities in media of production, circulation, marketing and distribution of art in their countries, generated collaborations in situ and in future projects among the artists, allowed each artists to face his/her individual work in the midst of a collectivity of creators, and finally, created situations where ideas about the meaning of art, its political compromise and the different concepts about how to make it, could be actively discussed and explored.

Aixa Sánchez

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