Sofía Reyes—Alucinación

›Alucinación‹by Sofía Reyes (*1982, Bogotá, Colombia) is a collage, a visual essay composed out of fragments that speaks to and about the banality of events. In her own words: »this exhibition feels like many things at once, a portrait, a document, a test, a love letter, a diagnosis, a cry for help.« Often, Sofía’s work is created from an expanded understanding of what a self-portrait is, and in ›Alucinación‹ she explores the idea of individual identity being constructed through a fleeting unstoppable stream of data, images, thoughts... all deprived of any moral or ethical mediation or consideration. Although this may sound as a cynical or nihilistic approach to reality, it is more about a particular expression of innocence: deprived of cuteness, and closer to what we could call a cold tenderness. 

A hallucination is defined as »something that you see, hear, feel or smell that does not exist«; in the context of this exhibition, the term can be better understood as a particular mode of perception, one that removes transcendence from events and questions the limits of the categories we use to compartmentalize the lived experience: reality, fiction, simulacra, intoxication, etc. Life just happens all the time; there is no need for seeking profound meaning beyond sensorial experience. 

Currently there is a renewed interest in surrealism in contemporary art, and this exhibition could be understood as part of that turn. But Sofía Reyes’ work is not partaking in some sort of romanticized idea of the subconscious, or of a dream like state as grounds for the production of transcended meaning. ›Alucinación‹ is better understood as a statement on the velocity of everyday life, an unstoppable succession of happenings and data that dissolve the barriers between the subject and what it consumes.

A flow of normalcy, where everyone is doing the same in different manners: nobody is that special or we are all very special.

›Alucinación‹ is the first presentation of Reyes’ work in Europe.