THE PASSAGE OF AMNESIA

Zilberman Gallery, Berlin

September 12 - November 25, 2023

Omar Barquet brings together new works with autofictional elements, which he stages in a tri-partite room installation through which viewers will circulate. Over the years, Barquet has assembled albums in a journal-like process. Drawing from various image traditions, he collects motifs, which he later uses in creating collages and assemblages. In Barquet’s work, landscapes become loaded metonyms for human existence. In earlier works, he often created installations impinging on the public space. More recently, he has focused on our private, mental space. The motif of the eye appears in various compositions, frequently closed or referring to the expression “in the eye of the storm.” The apparent calm is deceptive, for all around us the storm rages violently. Hurricanes, which throw everything into confusion, erode coastlines, and leave prodigious damages in their wake, likewise shape the work of Omar Barquet, who grew up in Chetumal on the east coast of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and today lives in Mexico City. Barquet identifies as 1st Regression the moment when the storm first reaches land. His understanding of history is non-linear: phases of building and destruction follow one another endlessly, in nature as in human life. In working with fragments, he gives expression to this cyclical understanding of time in another way.