AVANT.DEV CREATED AS A SAFE PLACE; SHOWING FINE ARTS, TECHNO, AND CREATIVE PARADOXES OF METAMODERNISM

At the beginning of 2019, Avant.Dev began as a dialogue and expression project providing a space for people who didn’t have it at the beginning of the pandemic. Bringing the rave label to the contemporary art scene, they focus on nuances from fine art and high-tech. Avant.Dev has been moving between sound, matter, and thought with the support of creative and divergent souls, which makes it a pioneering space in Mexico City.

Tania Ramos, economist, researcher, and cultural entrepreneur, who in recent years has focused on research and promotion of inclusive public policies; and Erick González, a computer specialist with a solid background in Fine Arts, Cultural Behavior, Social Commitment, and Technological Innovation; who are founders of the gallery.

Concept

The gallery begins as a dialogue between art, cryptocurrencies, and techno raves. At that time in Eastern Europe, multiple social movements were taking place in terms of repression of the LGBT community, especially in certain countries where art spaces, galleries, clubs, and recreation areas; were being besieged by the police.

Consequently, the  Space of Urgency movement was created, in which the need arises for a group of people who are part of the entire electronic music scene in Europe, to generate events and conferences that would bring people closer offstage, to listen to the dialogues on, for example, how to make public policies or what to do so that their voice reaches a congress. Avant.Dev is the first Latin American project to be part of this network.

When making a parallel on the situation in Mexico, they learned that it is similar to the political and social context. So they began to have workshops in which they share the legal status of artists, how they operate, what their alliances are, generate contacts, and they try to obtain residence for artists.

We have been tracing signals through cones of possible futures, exposing new paradigms of thought, and marrying modes of engagement with experiences that propel a new art-historical narrative towards a sustainable and dissonant heterotopia.

Erick González

Avant.Dev was conceived with visions of divergent, resonant, and artistic collectives projects drawn from online platforms, virtual communities, contemporary art institutions, LGQBT movements, and the underground electronic-techno scene.

The Focus 

The gallery has a media arts focus because, in relevant terms, all industries must experience a media art transformation. The practices that are around the arts, such as architecture, coding, and design; embrace new tools, new technologies, and new processes. Consequently, that information is transferred. They are artists who live connected to a digital community.

Sometimes it is thought that they are very different planets and that they do not coexist with each other; Therefore, the vision of the gallery is that contemporary art, sculpture, and media art can coexist and complement each other.

Relevant social emergencies

Tania and Erick, as founders of an art space in Mexico, face the urgent challenges of a vague legal context, discrimination, weather disasters, violence, and a lack of optimism. “We always feel that the more we make plans that materialize in the state of our sociopolitical context, the more critical our community integration becomes.”

It is a constant commitment to listen and understand the narrative of our realities, affections, and interests.

When you talk about art and culture in underdeveloped economies, like Mexico, it sounds very far from the daily life of 70% of the population that lives in poverty. That is why it is necessary to have safe and accessible spaces like Avant.Dev that pushes the environment to understand more, all the creative processes behind it.

Tania Ramos

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One of the main objectives is to be able to evolve the narrative, which in Mexico is very necessary. Especially with very important minorities. Inclusion and gender perspective; are the core topics of Avant.Dev and that is where they want to continue to move and open more dialogues toward those subjects. It is currently exhibited in its space Immanentes posibles: fabulaciones cerámicas curated by Mariana Lagunes. An exhibition that brings together sculptural pieces and assemblages with various types of clay, finishes, and materials that you can visit until December 4.

Visit Avant.Dev’s Instagram

Adress : Ensenada 107 B, Hipódromo Condesa, CDMX


  • TEXT: Erika Malo

  • TRANSLATION: Brenda Turral

  • PHOTOS: Alejandra Patrón & Valeria Lailson

Fecha de Publicación:
22/03/2023