Chantal Peñalosa

The complex was built to attract Hollywood productions that involved cowboy stories and its location was convenient for those U.S. producers who wanted to take advantage of the lower costs and laxer regulations on the Mexican side of the border. By the time the location was ready, however, the Western genre was already in decline. Only a few low-budget films were shot at Cine Pueblo, as well as a couple shorts. The set was then completely abandoned.

At the same time, the gestures that were once found in archetypal Western characters were integrated into everyday life through the bodies of U.S. immigration agents, Mexican drug traffickers or, perhaps without even realizing it, our own gesturality when moving through public space, or in children’s games.

Peñalosa traces a hypothetical diagram of attitudes that emerged from fiction and persist in the social imaginary in the form of spectral gestures. This installation consists of a video recorded in the ruins of Cine Pueblo that recreates stereotypical Western scenes, but through the absence of bodies. There is also a series of sculptures defined by the negative spaces produced when adopting cinematic poses. The artist also includes the codification of these corporealities and movements using the Laban choreographic notation system. With Atlas Western, Peñalosa demonstrates the performance of the corporeal codes defined in locations such as Cine Pueblo.

 

In her practice, Peñalosa investigates the temporality and experience of living on the border, using repetition to speak to individual and collective memory. She forms part of a generation of artists from the north of the country whose discourses and interests depart from those of the artists of the center. This project forms part of the MUAC’s interest in periodically reviewing the production of young artists, locally and internationally, with the goal of providing a platform for exploration for the new generations.