Flag Series: Luis Romero, El Dorado (2023)

El Dorado (2023), whose first version was created in 2012, was born when the artist Luis Romero (Caracas, 1967) realized that most flags and emblems in the Americas used images that referred to idyllic representations of territory. Combining them into a Garden of Eden-like composition, Romero highlights the absurdity of this conception of the Americas as paradise, as well as imagines an ironic flag for the Panamerican dream. The black and white guard follows the style of African flags and refers to the success and losses of the continent’s national histories at the same time that it evokes the abstract constructivist and geometric spirit that defined so much of Latin American modern art history.

The Flag Series presents public artworks on 68th Street, furthering Americas Society’s engagement with the surrounding community in New York and creating new dialogues between artists of the Americas and our audiences. 

El Dorado will be on view from September 6, 2023 through May 18, 2024. 

About the artist: 

Luis Romero (Caracas, Venezuela, 1967) is an artist and curator with almost three decades of experience working in the Venezuelan cultural scene. He was co-founder of the gallery Oficina #1 (Caracas, 2005-2015); director of La Llama Foundation—Artist Residency Program (Caracas, 2000-2004); editor of the contemporary art magazine Pulgar (1999-2010). Currently, he co-directs the multidisciplinary space ABRA Caracas. As an artist, he has an extensive career that began in the 1990s, with numerous solo and group exhibitions, inside and outside Venezuela. His work is characterized by an iconographic and graphic language that takes form through various media and expanded techniques of drawing and painting. He has also curated several exhibitions and artistic events, and his work is present in public and private collections.