Without Intention, Purpose, or End | Antonio Ballester Moreno

From December 1, 2017, through April 11, 2018

 

One of the recurring themes in the work of Antonio Ballester Moreno is the notion of innate creativity: the virtue of creative intelligence that we eventually lose, as we grow older, in the face of standardized conventions.

 

Ballester Moreno is interested in analyzing the mechanisms by which we relate to our natural and social environments. Artisanal work –working with one’s hands– is inevitably linked to an individual context: as something generally synthetic, it is intimately connected with the person who performs it. It is a useful creative task that brings together the ways of feeling of a community.

 

For Sin intención, propósito o finalidad (Without Intention, Purpose, or End), Antonio Ballester Moreno visited various artisans’ workshops in Guadalajara and gathered a selection of utilitarian ceramic work: in Tlaquepaque, Cerámica Suro, the pottery workshop of the Lucano brothers and the flowerpot and planter workshop of the Ramírez family; in Tonalá, the pottery workshop of the Farías brothers and the jar and pitcher workshop in the Colonia El Rosario; and finally, in Zapopan, the pottery stalls across from the Mercado del Mar.

 

For months preceding the opening of the exhibition, an open invitation was extended to help to decorate this traditional pottery and ceramic work in the workshops of the MAZ. Many different groups participated: in additions to art students and the personnel of the museum itself, there were civil associations such as FM4, a mutual support group of the ISSSTE for patients with breast cancer, groups of primary school students, and various neighbors and merchants of the zone. With creative freedom, using the materials at their disposal, the participants helped to create the works on display here.