In the context of the Kapsel exhibition “Oscar Murillo: Going Forth: The Institute of Reconciliation,” Gabi Ngcobo, curator of the forthcoming Berlin Biennale, speaks with Oscar Murillo. The conversation provides insights into the historical, economic and social fields of association of Murillo’s art and introduces the artist’s varied work processes and collaborative projects.

In just a few years, Oscar Murillo (*1986 in La Paila / Colombia) has developed one of the most exciting positions in contemporary art. Primarily based in painting, he radically transcends this framework by integrating videos, drawings, printing techniques, sculpture, as well as elements of installation and performance art, into his work, thereby conveying an immediate and physical quality.
In Murillo’s installations, the viewer finds himself in the middle of a precisely choreographed and high-energy field of tension characterized by the interaction of work and play, production and consumption, creation and appropriation, center and periphery, and the relationship between matter and transcendence.



Since the early 2000s, Gabi Ngcobo has worked in collaborative artistic, curatorial and educational projects on an international level. She is a founding member of the two Johannesburg-based collective platforms, NGO (Nothing Gets Organized) and CHR (Center for Historical Re-enactments, 2010-14). NGO deals with processes of self-organization beyond established structures, uniqueness, contexts and formats. Looking at current issues, CHR explored how historical legacies in contemporary art are addressed and processed.



Most recently, Ngcobo co-curated the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, which was exhibited at the 2016 Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion in São Paulo, BR, and A Labor of Love, 2015, at the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main.