Opening: In the Era of the Gods: The Ancestral Footprint of Enrique Tábara

The Permanent Mission of Ecuador to the OAS, the Embassy of Ecuador in the United States, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Art Museum of the Americas and the Enrique Tábara Foundation invite you to the opening reception that will take place on the occasion of the exhibition
In the Era of the Gods:
The Ancestral Footprint of Enrique Tábara
on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 from 5:30-7:30pm
at the OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas
201 18th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20006
IN THE AGE OF THE GODS: THE ANCESTRAL FOOTPRINT OF ENRIQUE TÁBARA
Pre-Columbian cultures inspired exciting periods in the art of Enrique Tábara (1930-2021). Today, the OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas exhibits this testimony of how in his youth and at the end of his life Tábara established an unbreakable connection with his ancestral past. His origins lie within this past, and it involves him.

In 1964 José Gómez Sicre invited him to exhibit at the Pan American Union in Washington D.C., through a letter to which the artist responded accepting immediately. That epistolary exchange starts this exhibition.

It gives account of the time when Tábara was preparing to return to his native country, Ecuador, after nine years in Europe. In those years he was aligned with Spanish Informalism. Then, progressively, his work rich in texture would incorporate symbolic references linked to his origins.

At the beginning of the sixties, an intellectual event, both mystical and esoteric, occurred in his mind, prompting him to write, in 1961, a “Manifesto.” The document is shown, in this exhibition, for the first time.

It becomes the voice of Tábara. It warns us that we will face surreal images that challenge us before we can ask: what do they want to tell us?

Tábara feels an affinity with ancestral deities, and he is convinced of the presence of extraterrestrial beings: intermediaries who, since ancient times, transmit advanced knowledge to man.

This is also the time when Tábara painted Tiahuanaco, exhibited sixty years ago at the Pan American Union, today the Organization of American States (OAS), as part of the OAS art program that was a precursor to the present-day AMA, and which now once again occupies a central place at the AMA. The work revalues ​​the pre-Columbian worldview.

After exhibiting in Washington, back in his homeland, Tábara continued to work tirelessly. In his last years he produced the Colección Latinoamérica body of works. He wanted to exhibit them abroad, but left this world before he could do so, leaving a reflection about his latest paintings. He stated: this is a tribute to our ancestral cultures.

By putting Tábara's two creative phases in dialogue, temporarily distanced within his plastic production, we discover his persistent desire: to redeem the timeless pre-Columbian symbolic construction.

Host or Publisher AMA | ART MUSEUM of the AMERICAS