Same Glitch, Different Color
Same Glitch, Different Color surrounds the conceptual practice that photographers Juan Brenner and José Castrellón have developed separately over the years, and have brought together through a synergetic showcasing of their work. The exhibition brings their work together into communion – more so than a mere conversation – as they reflect on the nature of their collective identities as individuals born and raised in their respective territories of Guatemala and Panama. Both artists engage in a method of self-analysis through the documentation of that which surrounds their everyday lives, constantly recalling the histories from which they draw to provide insight into a contemporized understanding of their respective cultures.
While both work on identifying the leftovers of imperialism in their separate territories, they focus on distinct temporalities. Brenner’s work depicts diverse cultural manifestations in the
Guatemalan highlands: contemporary hybridizations of indigenous practices, looking into those that have survived attempts of indoctrination against all odds, as well as that which exists as a consequence of coloniality in the region. Castrellón tackles more recent interventions in Panama, intuitively drawing parallels between Panama City, Panama and Panama City, Florida, and explores leftover socio-cultural notions that are present as a result of decades of American presence in the isthmus. Although their investigations have developed through different approaches, territories, and temporalities, they go over similar questions pertaining to the uncomfortable palimpsest of historical events that have shaped what is present in the region today.
What they had assumed to be differing concerns in their individual photographic work succeeded in being both thematically and formally related, a truth that is less of a coincidence and more the result of a parallel history shared by their countries. Informed by collective reflection, conversation, and friendship, the work of one artist is framed alongside the work of the other within a diptych, intimately merging their separate practices into one: an act of co-metabolization of the past. The work presented in this exhibition poses new questions that push for further inquiry on that which has played an essential role in the definition of the Central American identity. They depict their quotidian observations with a sharp eye for registering vestiges of colonial and imperialistic imagery that lives on, firmly planted and rooted in their respective landscapes, spread on the asphalt, erratically sketched all over the collective’s mind map.
Exhibition catalogue published by Pomegranate Press.