Smiling in Chaos

Curated by Gonzalo García Gaitán, Ismael de Anda III, Carlos Beltrán Aréchiga

Artists: Alejandro Sánchez, Aska Irie, Boris Pérez, Carlos Beltrán Aréchiga, Carlos Blanco, 

Carlos Castro, Carolyn Castaño, Fernando Diyarza, Gary Cannone, Gonzalo García Gaitán, 

Ismael de Anda III, Javier Caraballo, Javier Vanegas, Juan José García, le frère, Olga Huyke, Snežana Saraswati Petrović, Steven Wolkoff

 
Smiling in Chaos is an exhibition that revolves around the theme of humor and the ability of artists to intertwine in their works, various forms of humor as a means to provoke laughter and fun in the face of the challenges of current times with the contribution of affirmative absurdity and laughter, potentially reducing the stress of life. 

Smiling in Chaos is a collaboration between Si Nos Pagan Boys, a Colombian collective of artists who infuse art with fun and humor, together with Los Angeles based artists who also use humor and levity in their work as a form of resistance. Humor is a territory without passports. In this exhibition, Colombian- and Los Angeles-based artists explore together how laughter—from absurdity to satire, from play to irony—becomes a common language that blurs borders and questions identities. It is not a naive humor, but one that reveals the cracks of everyday life, allowing us to see beyond a circumstance, a challenge, an adversity or even a trauma of some kind.

Humor has an alchemical power. Humor can disrupt preconditioned thought patterns and introduce new possibilities. It can turn difficult moments into brilliant spectacles, transform frowns into smiles and despair into hope. Its value lies in its ability to transcend and elevate the human spirit. Here, laughter is not an end, but a method: a way to dismantle hierarchies, to laugh at power and, above all, to rediscover ourselves in the collective. Between Colombia and Los Angeles, between memory and the present, humor is revealed as an act of freedom. Because, in the end, laughing together is also a way of resisting.

As part of the international exchange exhibitions between Durden and Ray, Los Angeles and Si Nos Pagan Boys, Bogotá, Colombia, Smiling in Chaos is an exhibition that will be presented at Durden and Ray, in Los Angeles and as a new exhibit in Bogotá, Colombia, during the Bogotá Art Fair and the Bogotá Biennial, bringing together artists from Los Angeles and Colombia.