"Vida y Milagros del Hombre Invisible" (detail)
Installation. Photo: Luz Letts
1996



by Luis Lama

Act of Faith

The story of the invisible man is the project presented by Peru to the 23a. Bienal Internacional de Sâo Paulo. The result is due to the creativity of Eduardo Tokeshi, an artist who in his career has adopted different paths; all of them imbued with a conceptual quality linked to our approach to life, our usages and, more specifically, to our people's deepest beliefs.

Tokeshi is one of the artists which best represent contemporary art in Peru. His work feeds on sources that bring images that may come from popular art or multimedia, colonial art or Internet. This iconography can be placed between the radical ends of playfulness or separation, love and death, and we can find between the two the ambiguity that enriches a work which tends increasingly to become a kind of emblem of our illusions and collective obsessions.

This edition of the Bienal Internacional de Sâo Paulo raises specific requirements that give a prevalence to the other senses and not to the senses of touch and sight, the traditional protagonists of the fine arts. Therefore, we accepted the challenge with our invisible man. What could be better than that? The artist only allows us to perceive the clothes that dress the body which is, in a certain sense, the apotheosis of the usage of ex-votos in Latin-American art.

After Tokeshi's work it will be hard for any artist to use these same symbols again without making a reference to the artist from Peru because from now on they belong to the realm of popular faith, as he appropriates these images to create these gray clothes which have a silver texture that withholds a body that only the fantasy of the spectator is able to define.

The installation which has this invisible man leaning against a wall is somehow the witness of faith and opens room for reflection on memory and time as the artist uses Polaroid photos whose images disappear with light and that seem to grant, as to the warrior, the right to rest. That is the reason why Tokeshi created two horizontal works placed on the ground and dedicated them to him. They are pieces made up of foam on whose surface he places ex-votos methodically. The eyes of the images in both cases look at the people from the ground.

Therefore, the installation leads to a reflection on what we are and on that which we believe, on our hopes and sorrows and, above all, on the ability of young Peruvian art to address such an undefinable feeling as faith.

Luis Lama is President of the Asociaci?n Internacional de Crìticos de Arte (AICA) - Peru Branch




Chronology
Born in 1960 in Lima. Concluded in 1980 his studies on Architecture and Urbanism at the Universidad Nacional Federico Villareal. He graduated in 1986 from the Pontificia Universidad Cat?lica del Perö. He teaches Art History in Facultad de Arte de la Pontificia Universidad Cat?lica del Perö and Escuela de Arte Corriente Alterna, Lima.


Solo exhibitions

1995
Obras Recientes, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru; Sue~o y Realidad, Galerìa Casa Peynado, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
1994
Pinturas y Dibujos, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru; Los Desmayos de la Raz?n, Sala Luis MiroQuesada Garland, Centro Cultural de la Municipalidad de Miraflores, Lima, Peru; Obras Recientes, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru.
1992
Matasue~os, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru.
1991
Ultimos Refugios, La Galerìa, Lima, Peru.
1989
La Biografìa, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru.
1988
Solo Nubes Veo para Ti, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru.



Group exhibitions

1996
Sal?n Internacional de Estandartes ES96, Centro Cultural Tijuana, Mexico; Homenaje a Juan Acha, Museo Josë Luis Cuevas, Mexico; IV Sal?n de Dibujo - Selecci?n, Instituto Cultural de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Realismo Mzgico, Galerìa del ICPNA de Miraflores, Lima, Peru; Artistas Peruanos, Galerìa 2Vs, Lima, Peru.
1995
IV Bienal de Dibujo Arawak, Museo de Arte Contemporzneo, Santo Domingo, Repöblica Dominicana; 27ême Festival International de la Peinture, Chéteau-Musëe de Cagnes-sur-Mer, France; Unesco Prize, Maison de l'Unesco, Paris, France; Horizontes Paralelos, Sala de PetroPeru, Lima; Identidad, Galerìa Extramuros, Lima, Peru; Biombos, Galerìa Cecilia Gonzales, Lima, Peru.
1994
Entorno de Materiales, Galerìa Trapecio, Lima, Peru; Papel Soporte y Materia, Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; Homenaje a Winternitz, Galerìa Segesta, Lima, Peru; Amistades Peligrosas, Centro Espa~ol del Peru, Lima, Peru; "Tous les ètres humains naissent libres et ëgaux...", Galerìa Observatoire 4, Montreal, Canada; XI Bienal de Arte de Valparaiso, Valparaìso, Chile; Luz Letts, Eduardo Tokeshi, Galerìa Paseo de la Matriz, Montevideo, Uruguay.
1993
Prohibido para Mayores, Centro Cultural de la Municipalidad de Miraflores, Lima, Peru; Pintura Peruana Contemporznea, Cabildo de Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay; Arte del Nuevo Perö, Casa Viola, Assunçâo, Paraguay.
1992
Pintores Peruanos Contemporzneos, Secofi, Mexico City; Peru Ieri e Oggi, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy; Peru: Tierra Viva, Galerìa del Instituto de Arte Corriente Alterna, Lima, Peru; Arte Correo, traveling exhibition, Galerìa del Banco de Comercio, Lima, Peru; Arte de Nuestro Tiempo, Convento de San Francisco de Lima, Peru; Dibujo sobre Tela, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru.
1991
Pintura Peruana Contemporznea, Embajada del Perö, Montevideo, Uruguay; Peru Precolumbian and Contemporary Art An Encounter, Galerìa del Fondo Monetario Internacional, Washington DC, United States; Nueva Pintura Bolivariana, Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia; Cambio de Piel, Galerìa Trapecio, Lima, Peru; El Elogio de la Madrastra, Centro Cultural de la Municipalidad de Miraflores, Lima, Peru.
1990
Festival Internacional Okinawense, Kurasoe, Okinawa, Japan; Five Mayor Young Latin American Artist, Fota Gallery, Alexandria, United States; 21 Peruvian Painters, Museo de Arte Moderno de Latinoamërica, Washington DC, United States; Arte Peruano Contemporzneo, La Galerìa, Quito, Ecuador; 8 de los 80, Galerìa Thaddaeus, Lima, Peru; Juego para Adultos, Galerìa 2Vs, Lima, Peru; 3 Propuestas, Galerìa Trapecio, Lima, Peru; Pintura y Escultura, Casona de San Marcos, Lima, Peru; Arte y Empresa, Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; Los Noventa, Galerìa 2Vs, Lima, Peru; Desnudo Desnudo, La Galerìa, Lima, Peru.
1989
IX Bienal Internacional de Arte de Valparaiso, Chile; ?Colombia Vive!, Museo de Museos, Colsubsidio, Bogota, Colombia; II Bienal de Arte de Cuenca, Equador; Pintura Peruana Contemporznea, Fundaci?n Guayasamìn, Quito, Ecuador; Arte es Integraci?n, 90 Aniversario de la Imigraci?n Japonesa en el Perö, Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru.
1988
I Bienal de Arte "Oeschle", Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; Encuentro de Arte Joven, Galerìa Praxis, Lima, Peru; Trìptico, La Galerìa de Barranco, Lima, Peru; Abstracciones, Galerìa 2Vs, Lima, Peru; Dibujo sobre Tela, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru; Blanco sobre Blanco, Galerìa 2Vs, Lima, Peru; Muestra Inaugural, La Galerìa de Barranco, Lima, Peru.
1987
J?venes Valores, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru; Nuevos Pintores en el Perö, Centro Cultural de la Municipalidad de Miraflores, Lima, Peru; III Bienal de Trujillo, Casa Ganoza, Trujillo, Peru; Algo Va a Pasar, Centro Cultural de la Municipalidad de Miraflores, Lima, Peru; Arte Abstracto, Alternativas y Posibilidades, Galerìa 2Vs, Lima, Peru; II Concurso Nacional de Artistas J?venes, Southern Peru-ICPNA, Arequipa, Peru.
1986
I Concurso de Dibujo Repöblica Argentina, Auditorio del Banco Continental, Lima, Peru; II Sal?n Nacional de Dibujo, ICPNA, Lima, Peru; J?venes Valores, Galerìa Forum, Lima, Peru.
1985
Concurso de Artes Plzsticas, Fundaci?n Banpeco, Lima, Peru.
1984/86
Arte Actual, Feria del Pacìfico, Lima, Peru.



Awards

1996
Sal?n Internacional de Estandartes ES96, 1st place, Tijuana, Mexico.
1995
27ême Festival International de la Peinture, honorable mention, Chéteau-Musëe de Cagnes-sur-Mer, France.
1987
II Concurso Nacional de Artistas J?venes, 1st place, Southern Peru-ICPNA, Arequipa, Peru.
1986
II Sal?n Nacional de Dibujo, 1st place, ICPNA, Lima, Peru; I Concurso Nacional de Dibujo Repöblica Argentina, 2nd prize, Lima, Peru.



Collections

Museo de Arte Moderno de Latinoamërica, Washington DC, United States.
Museo de Arte Moderno de Cuenca, Ecuador.
Museo de Arte Contemporzneo del Banco Central de Reserva del Perö, Peru.
Municipalidad de Okinawa, Japan.
Forum Asociados, Lima, Peru.
Pinacotëca del Banco de Crëdito del Perö, Lima, Peru.