Carlos Aires 

Carlos Aires unveils the contemporary through the lens of catastrophe, thrusting it into the spotlight with the gaze of historical and anonymous figures. His practice unfurls societal complexities through  a contemporary narrative, decoding the very “cultural” codes that shape our knowledge. Within his  works, individual memories, music, material culture, consumer habits, cinema, and the emotions  of fear and love intertwine, inviting contemplation of their intricate dance. Aires courageously  scrutinizes urgent social problems, challenging the principal institutions and figures that wield  today’s hegemonic power. His works exist in a realm of duality, where the wicked coexist with the  passionate, the complex with the playful, fashioning a universe ripe for exploration. 

The two works that take place in Zona Maco 2024, La Mentira and Sabor a Mi are part of the series  „Love Songs for Times of Crisis,“ which features large-format images sourced from banknotes of  various countries. These images cleverly conceal and create a camouflage of the complete lyrics  of love songs from the artist‘s personal or autobiographical discography, celebrating the universal  power of music and its lyrical expressions. The name of the piece La Mentira comes from the song with the same name. The song tells a tale  of love, betrayal and an aftermath of deception. The lyrics reveal the painful realization of being  deceived by someone you deeply trusted, acknowledging the harsh reality that love can sometimes  be filled with lies and pretense. Similarly in the work Carlos Aires creates a deception embedded  in 100 Mexican Pesos. The lyrics of the love song merge with the image of the banknote creating  a deception to the viewer. Similarly, in Sabor a Mi, the title of the song comes from a song written  by Alvaro Carrillo, a Mexican composer. It is a love song, specifically about endless love, and the  metaphor rests on the idea of the permanence of the taste of the kiss. For this piece of work, Aires uses a magnified image from 3 Cuban Pesos where he creates a trompe l‘oeil with lyrics of the song.  

Carlos Aires obtained a bachelor in Fine Arts at the University of Granada in Spain. Upon graduating  in 1997, he moved to the Netherlands and completed his postgraduate studies at Fontys Academy  (The Netherlands), HISK (Belgium) and Ohio State University (USA). He was honored with prestigious  grants and awards, including: Edith Fergus Gilmore Award (USA), Generation2008 Caja Madrid  (Spain), Young Belgian Art Prize (Belgium), 1st Award Young Andalusian Artists (Spain), Fulbright  (USA) and De Pont Atelier (the Netherlands). He has participated in numerous exhibitions in  national and international institutions, such as: MACBA (Barcelona, Spain), Boulder Museum  of Contemporary Art (USA), Imperial Belvedere Palace (Vienna, Austria), MUSAC (Leon, Spain),  BB6 Bucharest International Biennale (Bucharest, Romania), B.P.S. 22 (Charleroi, Belgium), 5th  Thessaloniki Biennale (Thessaloniki , Greece), Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (Mexico City, Mexico),  Canada Contemporary Art Museum (Montreal, Canada). His work can be found within significant  public collections: ARTIUM (Spain), MACBA (Spain), Les Abattoirs-FRAC Occitanie (France), ARTER  (Turkey), CAC (Spain), Maison Particulière (Belgium), Ministry of Culture of Spain, Progress Art (Saudi  Arabia),National Belgium Bank (Belgium), 21c Museum (USA), MAK (Austria) among others. 

Omar Barquet 

Omar Barquet’s works predominantly refers to space, time, landscape, sound, nature and memory  investigating emotional and internal human chaos within. The particularity of his work stems from his  ability to understand the nature of space in a technical, analytical way which relates movement and  repetition, visibility and invisibility. Barquet modifies his source of inspirations in his words “in a way of  ‘collage’ for the purpose of giving the projects a synthetic language” thereby bringing an interdisciplinary  aspect to it, using a „symphony“ as a system to organize all his projects and collaborations. Barquet’s artistic practice is based on a process of collecting and recycling. Flotsam, driftwood, sea  shells, and fragments of furniture washed up on the beach—materials carrying the scars of time and  use—are characteristic of his work. Through exploring indigenous philosophies, Barquet has developed  a harmonious and inclusive idea of the matrix of all relationships within communities, both human and  non-human.  

In Barquet’s work, landscapes become loaded metonyms for human existence. In earlier works, such  as Ghost Variations and The Song Of The Mad Woman On The Seashore, shown here at the Zona Maco  2024, the artist creates installations impinging on the public space. More recently, he focused on our  private, mental space. The artist often produces works in the form of series, such as Waterfalls, Syllables and Ideograms. In this way, the works manifest their imminent instability while at the same time showing  us a perspective on a possible future. His recent work titled Syllables Series refers to his works as  anagrams or ideograms. In harmony with the Neo-Concreto movement in Brazil, which distanced itself  from the rationalist approach of concrete art, Barquet’s geometric abstractions in a contemporary  framework have an affinity with phenomenological approaches. His work, which also employs various  printing techniques, reveals a heightened complexity in its surfaces, which he works over manually.  Particular qualities, such as rhythm, silence, rawness, or density, stimulate different senses and even  synesthesia. 

Omar Barquet holds a degree in Fine Arts from “La Esmeralda”, the National School of Painting, Sculpture  and Printmaking in Mexico City, where he has lived and worked since 2000. Barquet has received  numerous awards including the Young Artists Fellowship in painting and printmaking from FONCA  (Mexico) and the MACG - Bancomer Arte Actual Grant in 2009. He has participated in various artist-in residencies, including CAPACETE in Rio de Janeiro and Casa Tomada in São Paulo, both in Brazil; also  in MAAS, NYC; Fountainhead, Miami; Tupac, Lima; Vestfossen in Norway, and Kiosko in Bolivia, among  others. His works were selected for the XV and XVI Tamayo Museum’s Painting Biennial, Mexico. He  has had solo shows at the Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City; the Museum of Contemporary Art,  Mérida; the Kunsthalle, São Paulo; the Christinger de Mayo Gallery, Zurich, amongst others. 

In 2018 Omar  Barquet started his first international public art project, a 7,500 sqft mural entitled “Oiseaux Exotiques”,  commissioned by Related Group for the Paraiso Bayviews complex, Midtown Miami. During his career  Barquet established the Second Floor Art Collective with Jose Luis Landét, Agustín González and Moris.  He also founded Grama Ruina, a trio for sound experimentation with composer Fernando Soberanes and  musician Javier Loyola. His works are part of the following collections: The Jumex Collection, FEMSA  Collection, ESPAC Collection, Jorge Pérez Collection, Sackner Collection, New Collection, JoAnn G. Hickey

Azade Köker 

Azade Köker‘s earlier works dealt mainly with the concepts of identity and belonging. The artist  proposes hybridity as an inevitable survival mechanism, which is achieved through subjectivity  based on discrepancy, transparency, and vulnerability. In her latest works, nature is negotiated as a  cultural construct. She creates images of nature inhabited by traces of human intervention, which  she then deconstructs by a repeating pattern on the surface. Through this layering and reworking of  the surface, she disrupts the perfection and legibility of the represented image and comments on the  possibilities of paintings. 

At Zona Maco 2024, selected works by Köker explore the artist‘s accustomed style of canvas works,  such as Yeşil ve Gökyüzü (Green and the Sky) and Gossip Network along with her recent paper  collages. In Yeşil ve Gökyüzü, the artist explores nature not only as a cultural construct but also as  a medium that becomes a habitat within. Aside from Yeşil ve Gökyüzü, the range of works displayed  in Zona Maco are artist’s recent works that explore the position of women in society. Köker delves  into behaviors and acts subjected to women, exposing the forms of oppressions women have faced  throughout years. In her works, titled Gossip network and This is the joy Köker exposes the mundane  acts subjected to women such as cleaning, shopping, gossiping, cooking and reproducing… Köker  sees this oppression as a form of control, exploitation, and violence. 

In her paper collage series  Karneval (Carnival), Köker explores the oppression of women, by taking a node at witch-hunts in the  early modern era, that broke women’s control over reproduction and turned the female body into  an instrument for the reproduction of the workforce. In the Karneval series, shown here, the artist  portrays female figures as witches; reminding the power of the female body.  

Azade Köker (1949, Istanbul) lives and works between Berlin and Istanbul. She used to be a  professor at the Braunschweig Technical University, Berlin, Germany. Her recent solo exhibitions  include: Murder of a Mannequin (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2021), Verblendet (Zilberman, Berlin, 2018),  Everywhere, Nowhere (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2016), Azade Köker (Proje 4L, Elgiz Museum, Istanbul,  2015), Moving Spaces (Zilberman, 2013), Human Nature (Milli Reasürans Art Gallery, Istanbul,  2007), Transparenz der Abwesentheit (Otto-Gallery, Münich, 2004), and Transparenz des Gartens  (Kunstverein, Bielefeld, 2001); and her recent group exhibitions include: Interactions (Istanbul  Modern Art Museum, 2021), At The End of the Day (OMM-Odunpazarı Modern Museum, Eskişehir,  Turkey, 2020), Nature in Art (MOCAK, Krakow, Poland, 2019), The Spirit of the Poet (Zentrum für  verfolgte Künste, Solingen, Germany, 2019), Ultrahabitat (Zilberman Berlin, 2016), Minor Heroism  (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2015), Meeting Point (Kunstverein Konstanz, Germany, 2015) and Dream and  Reality (Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, 2011).  Her works are in numerous public and corporate collections including Akbank, Istanbul; The  British Museum, London; Berlinische Gallery, Berlin; Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul;  Lebendiges Museum, Berlin; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Wisconsin; Istanbul Modern  Museum. She has public sculptures in Cuvry-Brunnen (Berlin), Bundesgartenschau (Berlin),  Menschenlandschaften (Berlin), Frechen Museum (Düsseldorf), Bremen-Nord Zentralkrankenhaus  (Bremen), Schule am Barbarossaplatz (Berlin), Schlosspark (Wolfsburg), Building of Turkish Embassy  (Japan), Altınpark (Ankara), Istanbul Stock Exchange (Istanbul) and Aspat Art Park (Bodrum).

Alpin Arda Bağcık 

Alpin Arda Bağcık questions the reality of knowledge production, especially the images circulating  in the media and the myths and conspiracy theories that are extensions of these images. In order  to underline the anesthetic effect of the media, he focuses on new world balances such as post truth and authority concepts. He emphasizes the pacification and manipulation of society by  expressions and images that lose their meaning over time, using pencil drawing and oil on canvas  techniques in his works. It incorporates familiar figures, world leaders, people who have left their  mark in history and turning points in their work by blending them with real or unrealistic stories. 

In the work Latuda that is on display on Zona Maco 2024, the artist explores the manipulation that  goes in the election systems. After a recent election in his country, Turkey, Bağcık realized that  the elected president repeats the same words again and again in his balcony speech. This led  the artist to contemplate on the power of speech. The painting re-visits the moment of President  Warren G. Harding’s presidential election speech. Analyzing Harding’s election, coming from last  place to the presidency, it was clear to the electorate that his elaborate way of speech was a form  of manipulation.  

Alpin Arda Bağcık (1988, İzmir, Turkey) graduated from the Painting Department at Dokuz Eylül  University in 2007. He currently lives and works in Istanbul. His solo exhibitions and presentations  include: Paranoid Fantasies, Real Plots (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2022), Apocryphon, (Zilberman,  Istanbul, Turkey, 2019) Apocrypha (Zilberman, Berlin, Germany, 2019), Red Prescription (Zilberman,  Istanbul, Turkey, 2017) and Ambivalence (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2015). He has participated  in various group exhibitions including: Politics in Art, (Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow,  Polland, 2022), Dry Summer (curator: Melike Bayık, Eldem Sanat Alanı, Eskişehir, Turkey),  Recurrence 2 (curator: Lotte Laub, Zilberman, Berlin, Almanya, 2021), 6 Sanatçı Öncülünü Arıyor  (curator: Hasan Bülent Kahraman, Akbank Sanat, Istanbul, Turkey, 2020), Unlock (Zilberman,  Istanbul, Turkey, 2020), The Union: A Selection from the Erol Tabanca Collection, curator: Haldun  Dostoğlu, OMM-Odunpazarı Modern Museum, Eskişehir, Turkey, 2019), Young Fresh Different 10:  One Must Continue (curator: Burçak Bingöl, Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2019), Motherland in Art  (MOCAK, Krakow, Poland, 2018), Darağaç III (Izmir, Turkey, 2018), Remote Memory (curator: Yaren  Akbal, Abud Efendi Konağı, Istanbul, Turkey, 2018), Rotary Art Competition (Proje 4L, Istanbul,  Turkey 2015), Borders and Orbits (Siemens Sanat, Istanbul, 2013), Violence (Contemporary Art  Museum, Rethymnon, Crete, Greece, 2013), and Young Fresh Different-3 (Zilberman, Istanbul,  2012). His works are part of public and private collections, a.o., MOCAK Museum of Contemporary  Art in Krakow (Krakow, Poland), 21c Museum Hotels (Kentucky, The USA), OMM – Odunpazarı  Modern Museum (Eskişehir, Turkey), Salsali Museum (Dubai, UAE) and PAPKO ART Collection  (Istanbul, Turkey). 

Larry Muñoz 

Inspired by nature, in his working process Larry Muñoz is drawn to details, little elements, and gestures.  Through sculptures, videos, and installations, the artist invites viewers to engage with organic and industrial  materials from diverse origins and explores nature in its fragility and complexity. Muñoz contemplates the  universal and particular aspects of our relationship with nature, and deals with the ways we think and relate  to the natural world.  

At Zona Maco 2024, selected works by Muñoz show his interest and artistic research on capitalism,  consumption and recycling. Loyal to the nightmare of my choice and Natural intelligence are two sculptures  made entirely of recycled materials such as wood and butterfly wings. Creating two lines with organic  material, the first line represents the ups and downs of the artists during their production processes, while  the second questions if we can call intelligence to what creates beauty in nature. 

In We Are the Asteroid a carved seed pod presents a cluster of words conveying a catastrophic event along with a paradoxical  message. Despite our collective involvement in a climate crisis fueled by a global economic system rooted  in perpetual growth with finite resources, it is also inaccurate to individually shame ourselves. Criticizing  our daily actions seems more like a distraction from what is truly required on a larger scale, and guilt can be  manipulated in dreadful ways. Broken Treasure is an ongoing series of assemblages created with predominantly organic materials that  the artist has been collecting over the last ten years. This body of work is connected to Muñoz's recent  exploration of the recycling process as a potential scam and challenges conventional notions of what a  finished artwork should resemble. Vested features a digital projection on a vintage polyester shirt. The video  projection showcases jellyfish changing colors due to LED lights. This artwork draws a parallel between fast  fashion, industrial fabric production and idealized notions about nature that we all hold. Chinese landscape  is a photograph taken in a small village in rural China during an artistic residency. What seems like a regular  post celebration image is actually a depiction of control, tradition, political surveillance and an effort to  maintain power over almost any aspect of the population by the Chinese government. Invisibility Lessons,  shows a simple Mexican deserted landscape, offering some details to discover as the viewer takes some  time to see them. 

Larry Muñoz (1982, Bogotá), has participated in several artistic residencies and his works have been  exhibited in Turkey, Mexico, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, United States, and Colombia. His solo shows are The  eternal novelty of the world (Muntref Ecoparque, Buenos Aires, 2018), Late Epiphany (Beta gallery, Bogotá,  2016), Os segredos da invisibilidade (Hermes, São Paulo Brazil, 2016). His group exhibitions include LOW TECH (Casa Hofmann, Bogotá, 2023), Ivy (Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul, 2022), Luciferinas (Casa Hoffman,  Bogotá, 2021), After the fire (Plural Nodo Cultural, Bogotá, 2019), Topofilia (Plural Nodo Cultural, Bogotá,  2018), Fuga Alba Saturniidarum (Salón Voltage, Bogotá, 2018), Multiverse (Melaká Gallery, Bogotá, 2017),  OtrO (Permanent Space, Bogotá 2017, Young Colombian Artist (Casa Cervantes, Tokyo, 2017), URRA (Del  Infinito Gallery, Buenos Aires, 2016), Natural Numbers (Beta Gallery Bogotá, 2016), I’ll call you as soon as  the sun goes down (Heiska Cultural Center, Hameenkyro, 2014. The artist lives and works between Bogotá,  Colombia, and Mexico City. 

Erinç Seymen 

In his practice, Erinç Seymen delves into the intrinsic relations in society; exploring the power,  gender and societal relations. Within his works, the artist reflects on the intersections between  the hegemonic cultures of militarism, nationalism, masculinity and heteronormativity. One of the  recurring themes in Seymen’s art practice has been the sacralised image of the Child. Seymen’s  earlier works performed various attempts to evacuate the affective-ideological intensity of this  image as a sentimentalising political instrument of reproductive futurism, militarist nationalism or  humanitarianism. Later on this image of the child evolved into toy-like objects and games.

In the work that is on display in Zona Maco 2024, titled Colony, the artist explores the popular game  billiard; the artist explores the act of the game as a form of mergence. The image is similar to that  of a billard game, where the differently colored balls are first caged and shaped into a triangle and  later on scattered away with a force of an outer ball. The work of art explores control and discipline  in a Foucoldian way; showing control as a mechanism of shaping society. By creating a control from  outside, the artist shows that different colors merge into one; becoming a solid and durable unified  object, stronger to outer forces.  

Erinç Seymen (Istanbul, 1980) graduated from Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Painting  Department in 2006 and received his MA from Yıldız Teknik University Art and Design Faculty, with  a thesis about Bob Flanagan. He participated in conferences and his articles have been published in  various magazines on topics such as militarism, nationalism and gender issues. Since 2002, he has  participated in several solo and group exhibitions in İstanbul, Ankara, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London,  Helsinki, Eindhoven and Lisbon. Some of his solo exhibitions are Homo Fragilis (Zilberman, Istanbul,  2017), Go Back To The Very Beginning (Galata Greek Primary School, Istanbul, 2017); The Seed and  The Bullet (Rampa, Istanbul, 2012), Persuasion Room (Galerist, Istanbul, 2009), Man Jam curated  by Aura Seikkula (Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, 2007); Selected group exhibitions he  participated in are: Locus Solus (Arter, İstanbul, 2021), The Child Within Me: A Selection from the Ömer  Koç Collection (Abdülmecid Efendi Köşkü, Istanbul, 2019), A Day at Hotel (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2018),  Appropriation? Case? (Yakı Kredi Kültür Sanat, Istanbul, 2018), ğ – the soft g curated by Emre Busse  and Aykan Safoğlu (Schwules Museum, Berlin, 2017), OHNE (Mekan68 Vienna, 2016), Every Inclusion  is an Exclusion of Other Possibilities II (SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul, 2015), VIVO with Ahmet Dogu Ipek,  Kerem Ozan Bayraktar (Kasa Gallery Sabanci University, Istanbul, 2015), Plurivocality, Visual Arts  and Music in Turkey (Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, 2014), Between The Lines, All Visual  Arts (London, 2013), Panorama. Landscapes 2013-1969 (Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico  City 2013), Berliner Herbstsalon (Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin, 2013), Moods: A Generation that Goes  off the Rails (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 2010), Istanbul, traversée (Palais  des Beaux Arts de Lille, Lille, 2009), I Myself am War! (Open Space, Vienna, 2008), An Atlas of Events  (Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, 2007); Along the Gates of Urban (K&S Galerie, Berlin, 2004).  Erinç Seymen lives and works in Istanbul. 

Lucia Tallová 

Lucia Tallová intertwines painting with installations, collages, and photographs, forging a material  connection between themes and techniques. Her work abstains from intuitive gestures in dominant  places, evolving into spatial realms. With collage-like qualities, her work forms new systems by  storing and rearranging materials, and manipulating residue to grant visually useless elements a  new existence. This process extends to her archive, comprising old photographs, albums, postcards,  and diverse objects, where she transforms and manipulates troublesome items into a fictional  archive, challenging the conventional lifespan of materials and giving them renewed significance.  

The central theme, in the series Mountain by Lucia Tallová, is our memory, how we preserve our  memories and how they fade away and disappear, how they can be changed or manipulated in the  course of time. The objet trouvé objects and collages are embodiments of the constant search  for and collection of old photos, books, prints and various bizarre objects. These become the  working material from which new stories, combining reality and fiction, are created. Lucia often  works with photographs of the mountains, especially the High Tatras. These are the symbols of  her home country. Another aspect of this work is the dramatic contrast and tension between the  materials used: real stone represents a rock while rocky structures printed on paper represent a  mountain. Lucia is replacing hard stone with something as fragile and delicate as paper. The stone is  sometimes much more fragile than it might seem. In the series Clouds, the clouds appear to engulf,  to swallow in tumultuous and inescapable spirals those who contemplate these reverse vertigos.  The body of the beholder seems to ascend to these painterly celestial realms. Ink and gesture  concur to make us see these landscapes of whiteness which rise from obscurity from this backdrop  of dark and menacingly foggy depths. It is a whirlwind. Spirals, swirls, contortion. From this dark  and black background there surge these gaseous condensations in the shape of masses of white  tint which spread assuming the form of blurred clouds. Clouds drenched in pigment. Painted clouds.  Clouds whose beauty stems precisely from their fabricated, fabulated pictorialness. Clouds whose  cloudiness emerges from Tallova’s brush strokes. The cloud and the skies by Lucia Tallová are  recurrent signs in her oeuvre and it is in these insignia that one must read the secret of her poetics.  (Excerpt from the text Away from Everything by Marco Antônio Vieira) 

Lucia Tallová (1985, Bratislava) is a well-established author of the young generation in the Slovak  scene, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Painting. Tallová is the winner of  several important awards: NOVUM Foundation Art Award (2021), Tatra Banka Foundation Art Award  (2016), VUB Bank, Painting of the Year (2013), Strabag Kunstforum Art Award International (2010).  She attended several artistic residencies, such as Cité internationale des arts Paris (Paris, France,  2020), Artist in Residence Karla Osorio Gallery (Brasilia, Brazil, 2019), Headlands Center for the Arts  (Sausalito, California, 2018), Regular Line Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, California, 2014) Strabag Artstudio  (Vienna, Austria, 2011). At the beginning of 2022, the State Theater Košice (Slovakia) presented the  premiere of the opera Tosca by Puccini, for which Lucia Tallová prepared a set design. In September  2022 Lucia Tallová was one of the selected artists for the 16th Biennale de Lyon. The artist lives and  works in Bratislava, Slovakia.  

Eşref Yıldırım 

Eşref Yıldırım is inspired by media representations that suggest a critique of power structures and  social taboos shaping society. He focuses on the lives of individuals who are often suffocated by  the pressures of social hierarchies, prescribed gender roles, and racism. His continuous dialogue  with painting and his choice of recycled materials become an inherent part of his attitude towards  his art practice.  

In his paintings and embroidery works he revitalizes the memory of poets and writers that he  reads. The layering technique that the artist has adopted for a long time in his paintings, makes visible the destruction time creates. Each layer makes up the portrait coming to the surface and  gives the impression of a collection of parts obtained from different faces from different times. He also recreates verses of poets and writers by hand-knitting; he spares the intellectual time needed  to create a text by dealing with a long, grueling performance like knitting, thus paying a kind of  homage to the author he is working on. As a result of the long time spent with poems, the artist  finds the opportunity to internalize the lines more intensely. He thanks the poet’s creation, which is  the result of a high concentration and serious effort, by establishing an analogy between knitting  and writing and repeating them in other ways.  

In his works which are on display at Zona Maco 2023 he creates the portrait of the poet Gabriela  Mistral and reproduces the verses of her poem titled „Apegado A Mi“. Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral  (1889 - 1957) is one of the rare women writers who got Nobel Literature Prize in 1945. She moved  to Mexico in 1922 and actively participated in the education reform. 

Eşref Yıldırım (1978, Bursa) is a visual artist based in Istanbul. He received his BA degree from  the Painting Department at Mimar Sinan University. His solo shows include: Dust and Mold  (Zilberman Berlin, 2023), Night Residuals (curator: T. Melis Golar, Bilsart, 2022), Diary of Defeats  (Zilberman Gallery, 2018), Prison for Minor Offenses (Zilberman Gallery, 2014), Salute! (Zilberman  Gallery, 2014), and Nobody’s Death (Zilberman Gallery, 2012); group shows include: Ben Yazar  Suat Derviş‘im (Eda Yiğit, Avrupa Pasajı, 2022), Geçmişi Unutmak Yaldızlı Bir Yalan (curator:  Deniz Özgültekin, Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları, 2022), Karşı Pencere (curator: Melike Bayık, KOLİ  Art Space, Istanbul, 2021), Apartman (curators: Lara Lakay & Tuba Kocakaya, Apartman No:52,  Istanbul, 2021), Our Nature, Tapa artist residancy exhibition, Barın Han, Istanbul, 2020), Unlock  (Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul, 2020), The Spirit of the Poet (curator: Jürgen Kaumkötter, Center for  Persecuted Arts, Solingen, 2019), House of Wisdom (curator: Collective Çukurcuma, Bonington  Gallery, Nottingham, 2018), Night: Collaborative Performance Proposal (Eski Datça Hotel, Datça,  2018), Confusion (organized by: Kopuntu, Milano Macao, Milano, 2017), House of Wisdom (curator:  Collective Çukurcuma, Istanbul, Berlin, Amsterdam, 2017), Survival Kit (Istanbul, Yekatering, 2017),  THE RED GAZE (Zilberman Gallery, Berlin, 2016) Transparency of Evil or Looking to the Other (Kare  Sanat, Istanbul, 2015), Prison for Minor Offenses (Sinopale 5, Sinop, 2014), Figure Out, (Dubai, UAE,  2012), In Between (İstanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture, MSGSÜ Tophane-i Amire Culture  Center, Istanbul, 2010), Borders Orbits 6 (Siemens Art Space, Istanbul, 2009). 

Sandra del Pilar 

Sandra del Pilar deals with the phenomenon of transparency, which the artist understands as  the place where the private and the political meet. With the transparent synthetic fibers she uses  in her works, she materializes dream-like scenarios from the collective and personal memory,  overrides our idea of space and time, interweaves inside and outside, the world of images and the  viewer's body and thus enables another look at the political and social events and conditions of  our time. 

In the body of works portrayed here in Zona Maco 2024, del Pilar continues to create a fluid  space with her technique of merging two scenes to one. The works titled The first glance at the  presumed conqueror, El tiempo, Martin and Yo Malintszin explore the life of Malintizn; a Nahua  woman who played a great role in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.The paintings portray  moments of Malintizn’s life. She was given as a slave to the Spanish conquistador Herman  Cortes. Later in her life, she acted as a translator and advisor to the conquistador; mediating  the relationship between Spanish and Aztecs. In the Mexican community, she was viewed as  a betrayer, a villain who abandoned her own community. Malintizn’s life has been seen as a  conflicting dilemma, a duality where she has been thrown and sold away from her society but  viewed as a traitor for surviving in the mechanism the society put her in. Del Pilar exposes this  duality and conflicting narrative surrounding a woman.  

Sandra del Pilar has completed her studies on painting at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico  City, her PhD in art history at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and a second PhD in  visual arts at the Faculty of Art and Design at the National Autonomous University of Mexico  (UNAM). She is currently a fellow of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte at FONCA in  Mexico. In Germany, Del Pilar was a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen  Volkes and of the DAAD (German National Academic Foundation), and also received funding from  the LVR (Landschaftsverband Rheinland). Her artistic work has been awarded several times both  in Mexico and in Germany. Her paintings are represented in museums, public and private galleries  and collections, as well as at biennials in Mexico, Germany, France, Belgium, China and Bolivia.  Recently, a documentary by Sergio Sanjinés about her artistic work premiered in the Cineteca  Nacional in Mexico City. Her texts and essays have also been published in international journals,  anthologies, catalogs and newspapers. She currently works and lives in Germany and Mexico.