Esteban Sánchez

Born in 1982 in Bogotá, Colombia
Lives and works in Cologne, Germany

“During my first years as a student I started to consolidate my interest towards thought, approached from the immateriality of the art object, and towards the gestures of immanence that awaken reflections about the surrounding landscape and even more about everything that insinuates the existence and consciousness of the other. Both interests I explore by the means of a conceptual experimentation and the use of language as a dichotomy of reality and the imagination, between the poetical and the philosophical, that pretends to reduce the distance between the contemplator and what it is been contemplated, a strategy in which diverse techniques are brought into dialogue, integrating and confronting deep meanings and speeches on existence seen as a construction of the reality and its condition with the contemporary man.

My first investigations aimed to recognize the greatness of those who have been relegated and forgotten by my country’s (Colombia) armed conflict. Subsequently, my work explores the way in which art infiltrates life and vice versa: the way in which this infiltration happens prudently and with pertinence in particular contexts. My most recent artworks have become an intuitive journey supported by senses, integrating the artificial language of the media, and place them in a dialogue with language itself. However, while doing this, I always perceive from a skeptical standpoint on whatever concerns the idea of reality (what I call subversive reality). Therefore, my objects embody icons that bring us back lost fragments and broken bonds of our memory.”

Esteban Sanchez began his academic studies and interests of Art at Pratt Institute New York, Purchase College (SUNY) and Westchester Community College (SUNY) New York, Maestro in Fine Arts from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and guest student of the postgraduate program at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). Exhibitions and performances held in Bogotá, Cartagena, Cologne, Bochum, La Habana, Porto, Bilbao, London. Esteban works as an independent artist and experimental researcher on subjects related to philosophy, art and science with special focus on the relations between media, drawing as thought, sculpture as landscape, sound as materiality and language as a dichotomy of reality and imagination. Lives and works in Cologne, Germany.

Solo exhibitions:
2011 – SUEÑOS AL VIENTO ENTRE NUEVOS CIELOS A CONTEMPLAR – Galería DOCE CERO CERO, Bogotá, Colombia
2009 – DETENERSE A RESPIRAR –  Natalia La Reina y Esteban Sánchez – Galería de exposiciones, Centro Colombo Americano Bogotá, Colombia
2009 – SUSPIRĬUM “C’est la vie” – Galería de exposiciones, Centro Colombo Americano Bogotá, Colombia

Latest Collective exhibitions:
2014 – VANISHING POINTS – Guest Projects  London, United Kingdom
2013 – THE OCEAN AND THE RIVER – Lófte. Karat – Maus Hábitos Art Residency. Oporto, Portugal
2013 – KARAT KATAR KRAAT AKTRA – Karat ist draußen. Cologne, Germany
2012 – 5° premio ARTE-JOVEN – Embajada de España, Colsanitas – La Central, Bogotá, Colombia
2012 – LEER_STELLE – C60 + Minus1Experimentallabor der KHM Köln, Urbane Künste Ruhr. Rotunde- Alter Bochumer Hauptbahnhof. Bochum, Germany
2012 – RUNDGANG 12 – Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Germany
2012 – HOW DO YOU KNOW I LIKE MUSHROOMS?, John Cage “AMERICA” –  Acht Brücken Festival. Music für Köln. Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Germany
2011 – 10 FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE LA IMAGEN Media Art – Universidad de Caldas. Manizales, Colombia
2011 – INTERMEDIOS 2 “Medios – Naturaleza – Cultura”– Seminario teórico internacional. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá
2011 – LADY ZORRO: Devoción por un ídolo –  Bastardo™: Imperio de Culto Visual, Bogotá, Colombia
2010 – MATERIAL E INMATERIALIDAD – “Procesos y Nuevas Prácticas Artísticas Contemporáneas”. Instituto Superior de Arte, Universidad de las Artes. La Habana, Cuba