This exhibition by Luz Helena Caballero “En otro orden” (In other order) challenges us in the same way as the works of late 20th century painters and those who followed them. This is the dilemma of painting as a medium.

As photography emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century, it took over centre stage from painting as the ultimate artistic medium– as up to then art had been synonymous with painting – and began to explore its new role in the practice of art. At times this expression was
sufficient in itself, and at other times photography underwent a process of hybridization and combined with other production techniques, above all in respect of the images and strategies of the industrial society. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then but even today, the preoccupation persists with examining the relationship between painting and the other media such as photography and video, which today play key roles in contemporary visual culture and our everyday experience of life.

Perhaps the deepest crisis to face painting occurred in the 1970s, with the tyranny of installations, performance art, “new technologies” and conceptual art which in the end reduced art to just an idea. Art is nevertheless evergreen and it’s latest renaissance happened in the 1980s when painting experienced an enthusiastic revival, comparable with what we are experiencing today, although the experience of art today is much more diverse, open to a universe of multiple possibilities and able to exist comfortably alongside today’s artistic institutions. Above all, “En otro orden” focuses on contemporary visualization through painting. Enabled by the proliferation of industrial processes in our everyday life, using mass production techniques such as applying paint to resins and then, using techniques more related to the magic of photography, duplicating the painted images in shadows which are projected into space. These are the continuous structures which populate our cities and countryside, which Luz Helena says are to be found all around us, in oil fields, shedding light, supporting buildings, and also in her notes and her exercise books which she has been keeping for years we see images which she has taken and reproduced– as she says – using light to “paint them”. In this way, visualization, photography, structures and painting are blended together to create a moment, to capture the atmosphere of our media and postindustrial culture.

In this projection of light and shadow and the overlapping application of paint which inhabit the exhibit, Luz Helena seems to want to consider the intimate relationship that has been established over recent years between painting and photography, the medium that seemed about to swallow it up during its time of crisis, and the way that painting has had a particular influence on the conception of contemporary photography.

This exhibition also makes reference to the crazy double life that painting leads today, still existing in a concept that we have not been able to avoid, that of “high” and “low” culture. Thus industrial design coexists with design that is more appropriate to the decorative arts and design, with their