“Sandra Gamarra: At the Same Time (al mismo tiempo)†featuring works by Madrid-based Peruvian artist Sandra Gamarra created specifically for the museum. The exhibition extends throughout the first floor main entrance and exhibition area and is currently on view  through Sunday, October 16, 2011. For her exhibition at the Bass Museum, the artist has created new paintings based on photographs taken of visitors looking at works in the museum’s Taplin Gallery, alluding to a spiritual relationship between the maker, the work, the viewer and the point at which they meet in the museum.
Sandra Gamarra draws inspiration for this exhibition from her fascination of the parallels between artistic and mystical experiences. In an ongoing series of paintings entitled The New Worshipper and The Apostles, Gamarra suggests that art museums are sites for pilgrimage and worshipful contemplation. Â According to Gamarra, observing works of art is, before any political or philosophical reality, an act of faith.
Sandra Gamarra is best known for instigating the fictional Lima Museum of Contemporary Art in 2002, an imaginary collection of paintings with accompanying merchandise based on her hand-painted reproductions of works by her contemporaries.  Gamarra’s method of appropriation raises questions about issues of authenticity and the status of replicas.  Her work is currently in the collections of MoMA; MUSAC, León; Tate Collection; and MALI, Lima and has been featured in such exhibitions as There is Always a Cup of Sea to Sail in, XXIX São Paulo Biennial (2010); Pipe, Glass, Bottle of Rum: The Art of Appropriation, MoMA, NY (2008); and Emergencies, MUSAC, León, Spain (2005). Sandra Gamarra was born in Peru in 1972. She currently works in Madrid, Spain.
A Â Review by Cecilia Paz of the work by Sandra Gamarra.
I feel Sandra’s work is full of semiotics which is the belief that human efforts to communicate-whether verbal or symbolic-are based in signs and that these signs have meaning beyond what is readily apparent. I feel the artist has shown us that she has created her own world in which these symbols have meaning to her, although she feels her message resonates which a much wider audience in its nature. Do we worship items of art at museums? Do we make pilgrimages to see these particular works? Do we venerate them as we do in our religious philosophies or not? These are questions Gamarra is asking the viewer. She implies with her titles such as Fatima, that the viewer is going en route to a holy place and expecting to worship and experience something considered other wordly. Can we compare works of art to objects that we venerate in spiritual ceremonies or gatherings? Sandra is certainly posing the question and adding complimentary works such as At the Same Time for support as they are placed alongside Fatima in the Bass Museum’s lobby.
Fatima, the large triptych, suggests that it is an altarpiece to be placed in venerable arena. The onlookers in the side panels and immediately in front of the sculpture in the central panel of the paintings are kneeling and in awe of what the sculpture may potentially do to answer their wishes. The sculpture depicted in Fatima is seen as a magnetic place which may provide solace and comfort to a weary believer. The onlookers are a devout few.
With At the Same Time, Gamarra reinforces the idea that the these paintings are the support of the main “altarpiece” and although depicted in them are small sculptures on 8 x 10 canvases, they are indeed there to certify that Fatima has devout followers which remain silent, yet are solid.
Fatima by Sandra Gamarra (Triptych), Bass Museum
At the Same Time by Sandra Gamarra-Bass Museum
The works in the small red room gallery at the Bass, feature more of Sandra Gamarra’s works and these are also titled, At the Same Time and they are photos turned into paintings of onlookers at the Bass Museum’s large paintings in the adjacent gallery and galleries throughout the museum. Gamarra has a strong command of oil paint accompanied with good draftsmanship and can probably outpaint many. She is highly skilled and thoughtful in her use of techniques thought to have been only implemented by past masters like the use of chiaroscuro where there is the use of dramatic light and shadow (a technique used by the other Michelangelo, Michelangelo da Caravaggio, Caravaggio as he is known best.) Technically, she is an illustrator and figurative painter which is a rare find combined into one and is a compliment to the artist as she is able to control her audience as the paintings string us along for a wondrous look into Gamarra’s world.
At the Same Time by Sandra Gamarra-Bass Museum
Cecilia Paz at Sandra Gamarra's Exhibit-Bass Museum of Art
