*Leyla Cárdenas Campos . 2023-
solo exhibition
Galería Casas Riegner
February 13 – April 12 2014
"In her most recent exhibition gathered under the title El tiempo lo aguanta todo (Time holds it all), Cárdenas photographs urban remains right before their disappearance, in an attempt to reveal the spectrum of time and explore its sediments. Her artworks featuring images of remains of buildings reflect on “the decay of the image” and its inability to represent the object or moment to which it refers.
The instance of producing an image that involves a deconstructive gesture is manifested in [Permutations (Study # 1], an artwork displaying the fragmented image of an abandoned Republican house placed over rubbles; and in Carrera 7 con calle 12, vista sur, a sculptural piece based on a photograph referencing the Bogotazo riots of 1948. The project on view is a profound reflection on the inevitable voids left by history. Since the artist regards photographs as insufficient historical documents, she therefore takes up the task of exploiting the limits of the photographic support by projecting it into space and often disintegrating it, so as to speculate about the layers that are hidden behind its surface.
The parallel established between the visible fragment and the void is comparable to the role played by imagination and myth in a historical narrative. History constructs a façade that both discloses and conceals layers of time; in other words, history builds itself from the inside out."
