Christian Bendayan “Indios Antropófagos” “Anthropophagous Indians” Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition

Christian Bendayan, Indios Antropófagos - Anthropophagous Indians, Biennale Art Venice

Christian Bendayan, Indios Antropófagos At the Peruvian Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, artist Christian Bendayan presents “Indios Antropófagos”, an exhibition subtitled “a garden butterfly in an urban jungle”.

A staging that is both a setting in the abyss between the wild and threatening nature of the Amazon and the modern world.

Christian Bendayan shows us an Amazon penetrated and disfigured by urban planning, invaded by today’s world with its dangers, its risks of levelling and annihilating the traditions and culture of the Amazonian Indians.

Christian Bendayan, Indios Antropófagos Indians presented as anthropophagous savages that must be saved thanks to civilization, as in nineteenth-century Western tourist postcards that merged cheerfully, exoticism, eroticism and the savagery of the Amazon tribes.

In his paintings exhibited in the Peru Pavilion of the Biennale, Christian Bendayan uses the symbol of the butterfly, the ephemeral animal able to symbolize the current situation of the Amazon.

The butterfly also represents symbiosis mimicry with the surrounding nature that protects it from predators and helps it survive during its short life.

Christian Bendayan, Indios Antropófagos In Christian Bendayan’s paradisiacal Amazon, butterflies are transgender, nature is penetrated by our real, artificial world, where original sin has already been consumed for a long time...

In her painting “Indios Antropófagos”, her cannibal amazons are naked in an urbanized jungle.

They are totally uninhibited; their bodies are painted with tribal symbols, while we see them sensually attached to each other, brandishing their spears with sharp points but fluorescent shafts, while taking a selfie with their mobile phone.

Christian Bendayan, Animal Power, Biennale Art Venice

Christian Bendayan, Animal Power In front of this erotic-warrior painting, Christian Bendayan: “Animal Power” represents a butterfly with a human shape, transgender.

The Animal Power is spread out on a garden courtyard with a tiled floor lined with balusters and lamp posts.

This half-animal, half-man, half-woman being seems lost.

He looks at us without understanding where he is, completely out of step with what surrounds him.

He has just escaped or was born from the pool in the centre of the courtyard.

A pool filled with a viscous, black liquid, oil? The sky is full of heavy clouds.

Is it the end of the world, of a world?

Christian Bendayan “Indios Antropófagos” Anthropophagous Indians

Painting - Oil on Metal (295 x 485 cm) 2019 Biennale Art Venice

Christian Bendayan, Indios Antropófagos

Christian Bendayan “Animal Power”

Painting - Oil on Metal (295 x 485 cm) 2019 Biennale Art Venice

Christian Bendayan, Animal Power