QUINTAPATA: Pascal Meccariello, Raquel Paiewonsky, Jorge Pineda, Belkis Ramirez
September 10 – November 6, 2015
Monroe-Brown Gallery
Don Desmett, curator
Quintapata is a group of four contemporary artists from the Dominican Republic. They got together in 2008 with the desire to create art projects that can maintain an open dialogue with both the local and international community. Although they have solid careers as individual artists, they consider this union as a mechanism to strengthen their ability to make significant actions that may have an impact in the future.
Quintapata is a platform that facilitates the construction of cultural projects that promote Dominican contemporary art and raises awareness of the complexity and diversity of the visual discourse produced on the island. They attempt to challenge the perception that art in this region is naïve, exotic and limited to local stages. The group has been working for over six years, initially with exhibition projects that involved the community through discussions, workshops and conferences with international guests, and more recently, taking on collective projects that have been presented in international Biennales like Habana, Cuba, Venice, Italy and, Fin del Mundo, Argentina.
Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, a prominent cultural activist and critic states “The work of Quintapata represents a questioning not only about the subject of art and its methodologies, but also about the very nature of art itself. The symbolic function of art, its value, its creation, these are all, in the end, the subject of the group’s work. By involving the public in a few key aspects of their production, they approach the creative process that relies, in part, on the collective unconscious. This offers another important aspect of the work, which relates to the very questioning of the creative urge and the need for the inclusion of multiple voices: what is art?”
This artists collective has been invited to Western Michigan University’s James W. & Lois I. Richmond Center for Visual Arts to expand to our students, university community, and regional arts public the realization of a global movement in contemporary art. No longer are particular engagements a local, regional, or even national manifestation. There is a global visual language shared by all. Quintapata brings that notion directly to us.
