TERRUÑOS

May 17th - September 30th 2023
Instituto Cervantes New York
New York, USA

Following the recent presentation of two international commissions of Inma Barrero’s work in New York (March 2023), and Kyoto (April 2023), the Instituto Cervantes New York is pleased to host Barrero’s first US solo exhibition opening on May 17th during Frieze Week New York 2023.

Presenting Barrero’s first solo exhibition in a public US institution, the Instituto Cervantes has offered up its celebrated space to welcome Barrero’s new body of work. Spanning both indoors and in the garden of the Insituto Cervantes, the exhibition, curated by Dr. Barbara Stehle, brings together a group of over 15 new works, including Barrero’s latest series of sculptures, a site-specific outdoors installation in the garden, and a short film featuring worldwide known choreographer, Blanca Li.

A trained ceramicist, Barrero’s practice is driven by experiments, exploring and celebrating forms and glazes from diverse cultures and traditions, with the conscious intention to push boundaries and the desire to create a new language. Through her work, Barrero makes the audience journey inwards  while constantly bringing our awareness to pressing thematics and the role we each hold within - most recently, the water crisis in her work “Be the Drop that Shapes the Wave” (New York, 2023), and the violent use of physical separation in “Breaking Walls” (Kyoto, April 2023). For her solo show at the Insituto Cervantes, Barrero continues to explore this language, this time around the themes of Motherhood and Earth. Through Barero’s process of breaking, weaving and reconstructing, these sculptures emerge as new elements in the world, conveying both a sense of freedom and strength.

“Perfection does not interest me. What I am looking for is expression.”
—Inma Barrero, Artist

“Barrero’s work has reached a new power of expression with her latest body of work.  The works in “Terruños” speak of fractures, natural as well as cultural. Barrero does not see breaking as the end of the process, to the contrary, she sees in it a possible way forward, a transformative process.”
—Dr. Barbara Stehle, Curator of “Terruños”

Over the past few years, Barrero left her New York City home and studio to live in Kyoto, Japan and to go back to her native Spain. These years were filled with reflection and change, and laid fertile ground for the artist. The new body of work unveiled this Spring at the Instituto Cervantes is a result of Barrero’s alchemical experimentations and profound introspections during a transformative period. The fragments in her work refer to the broken aspects of our lives, social, personal, spiritual.

The title of the exhibition, Terruños, evokes the artist’s personal geography, the many places she lived in and journeyed through.  The palette and matter call on the artist’s heritage: the Azulejos and architecture of southern Spain, but also the Japanese techniques and the many soils she loves and respects. Terruños is a courageous testament to fragility and resilience, and an invitation for us all to journey introspectively, assessing our own relationship to Earth and what, given the chance, we would make from broken pieces - both metaphorically and in real life.

“Brujerías”, 2023 · Sculpture and concept by Inma Barrero. Directed and interpreted by Blanca Li.

First unveiled in Kyoto for Kyotographie in April 2023, Terruños will present for the first time in the USA  Barrero’s video installation “Brujerías”. The artist conceived this piece about feminine transformation, where the movie becomes the art piece. The act of breaking the delicate sculpture becomes the art. A negation of the ultimate destruction, where fragility and strength come full circle. Made from broken pieces, Barrero’s work shines a new light on the significance of diversity and coexistence, and the importance of traditions, culture and community.

For more information about the show read more here.

About Inma Barrero
Inma Barrero is an artist with an object and installation-based practice. Barrero’s iconography and experimental research with ceramic is influenced by her Spanish upbringing, the Latin American continent and her experience living in Japan. Her latest body of work reflects her preoccupation with the fragility of life and spiritual approach to body and mind. 

About Instituto Cervantes New York
Instituto Cervantes is an institution founded by the Spanish government in 1991 with the aim to spread Spanish and Hispanic-American culture. More information ny.cervantes.es

About Dr. Barbara Stehle
After earning her PhD in Contemporary Art History from the Sorbonne, Barbara Stehle worked for the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Now based in New York City, Stehle curates, writes and lectures on the arts and architectural field. She teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and is the founder of Art Intelligentsia.