“Antiquity” Pato Bosich – 26th October 2018: ARTIST IN CONVERSATION on 23 Oct. 2018 – 6.30 – 8.00pm
The current exhibition of mixed-media drawings inspired by the ancient collections of the British Museum by Pato Bosich is the topic of the artist’s talk today.
Pato Bosich will be in conversation with independent curator James Putnam and Dr.Irving Finkel, curator of the British Museum’s collection of Mesopotamian antiquities.
This talk will focus on the artist’s latest body of work by London-based Chilean artist, Pato Bosich to co-incide with the continuation of the new exhibition, “Antiquity” which is currently on display at the Senate House project space, second floor, Malet Street.
Pato will talk about how his latest works have been inspired by and created in dialogue with the British Museum’s collections of, Mesoamerican, Greek, Mesopotamian and other antiquities which he developed over a period of more than five years, both on-site and in his studio. This imaginative series of works on paper using pencil, ink, and wine are the artist’s response to the materiality and iconography of the antiquities, and his fascination for their fragmentation over the course of history.
Bosich’s use of the unconventional combination of ink and wine has uncanny parallels with a poem by the 13th century mystic Abraham Abulafia, often cited by the artist, about perceiving our soul as blood and our spirit as ink, and that understanding the battle that rages between them is our key to self-knowledge.
In many ancient cultures, the supernatural and the fantastic are accessed through the qualities of the animal, and a recurrent theme in this exhibition is the metamorphoses of both animal and human, in particular the female form. Ancient art has an evocative presence that is never merely visual and as a result the artist’s multi -sensory response to the antiquities give a tactile quality to his drawings. Symbols are embodied to play and multiply with each other and new forms are reconfigured as the artist navigates these ancient époques and arrives at the present. His drawings thus represent a form of
artistic ‘time-travel’, a fusion of past, present, and future into a cohesive whole. The Institute for Latin American Studies (ILAS) of the University of London has invited this London-based Chilean artist to present this most recent body of works on paper at their Senate House project space adjacent to the British Museum. The exhibition opens an extraordinary dialogue between this contemporary artist’s Latin American cultural sensibility and the British Museum’s antiquities collection viewed through a Eurocentric
prism. The exhibition is presented in association with London-based art consultancy, McCaslin Art Advisory.
University of London, Institute for Latin American Studies (ILAS), Senate House, Second Floor, Room 246, Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HU Unitil 26th October 2018 Exhibition Opening times: Monday – Saturday, 9.00am – 6.00pm
About The Artist
Pato Bosich (b. 1978, Chile) with a lineage rooted in Europe, Pato’s ancestral spirits beckon him to revisit the continent. For the 19 year old Chilean, an adventure ensues starting in Switzerland, Germany, and finally settling in London in 2000 where he lives and works. Exhibitions include: Courtauld Institute Biennale in London, MSSA museum in Santiago, MAM museum in Chiloé, Sberbank University in Moscow, Porter Contemporary in New York, Jano Arts and Fundació Catalunya América in Barcelona, and Pasaje 865 in
Buenos Aires. www.patobosich.com
