6×6 is the IDB Staff Association’s (SA) first project of collective artists through the IDB Staff Association Art Gallery and the Country Offices (COFs). With 6×6, we intend to link the cultures, thoughts, and aesthetic concepts common in member countries of the IDB through a shared material and technique. This initiative, in addition to creating interactive opportunities among the artists, offers them a new space for international exposure. While differing in a variety of elements which distinguishes them, these nations also share an intrinsic and intimate connection to their land and origin.
Clay is an element that equates the soil with which our planet is made and substantially precedes our own existence. This soil has been not only the means of sustenance for humanity through cultivation, but its uses have evolved over time — from the construction of housing to the creation of everyday objects, while at the same time being the material that we have used to cast gods, monuments, and works of art. Clay has been, and still is, the eternal companion of humanity, creating an ambiguous fusion of the utilitarian, the functional, the creative, and the magical.
Nowadays, ceramics are part of our lives in every sense of the word, allowing us to build almost all things imaginable. Its ubiquitous presence is not only visible in the utensils of our daily lives, but it is also the material that protects the space shuttle. Its versatility allows us to create three-dimensional shapes, and its colors are all but limitless, in addition to an infinite number of textures attainable effects. In the hands of a skillful, creative individual, clay is the ideal material to turn dreams into reality.
In this sense, 6×6 is a creative challenge that not only facilitates the artists’ absolute freedom, but also opens a new path to express their artwork. At the same time, we hope to launch a new challenge for the viewer who, accustomed to large formats of information, will need to interact with a small ceramic tile that today has been transformed into a unique work of art. More than just an object, it may also manifest a whole conception of life, creation, or existence.
We believe that with this project we are opening a window measuring 6″x6″ that grants entry to the various artistic languages of 25 countries and 60 artists, where each has had the freedom to express – without limitation, through the use of a single substance and a common format – their distinctive ideas, concepts, and approaches, and in so doing, rather than creating distances, bring us together in a shared love of the material, the clay, the soil.
Ezequiel Taveras
Artist and Curator
Mónica Medina-Porro
Arts-Programming
IDB Staff Association