AExpo 2025-2026: Gothic and Speculative Art Framed as Critical Discourse from Latin America

Now accepting submissions, AExpo—a year-long cultural platform curated by Atmostfear Entertainment—will launch in October 2025 with a series of multidisciplinary activities taking place across multiple venues in Colombia and potentially abroad. Among its core components is a structured exhibition program dedicated to gothic, dark art, fantasy, horror, ritualism, mysticism, and diasporic identity.

Through solo and group shows, the exhibitions will present works in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, digital art, and mixed media. Designed to foreground artistic practices often situated at the margins of institutional discourse, AExpo aims to create a space for conceptual rigor and aesthetic inquiry. While the initial exhibition site remains unconfirmed, the program is intended to operate internationally, offering a flexible curatorial framework for artists whose work explores symbolic depth, speculative narrative, and emotional complexity.

Distinct from conventional art fairs, AExpo’s exhibition program is curated as an extension of a broader cultural infrastructure designed to support critical artistic inquiry. Developed in-house by Atmostfear Entertainment, the program contributes to a year-long platform that blends curatorial practice with public engagement, publication, and professional development. Artists selected for inclusion will not only exhibit their work through solo and group shows, but will also benefit from integrated visibility efforts—including placement in AExpo’s online shop and coordinated press support. These measures reflect the platform’s commitment to advancing both the public reach and institutional recognition of conceptually rigorous work produced within underrepresented aesthetic traditions.

AExpo’s Founding Vision and Mission

Established as a continuation of Atmostfear Entertainment’s cultural and academic trajectory, AExpo was developed to provide a curatorial structure for artistic practices often excluded from mainstream institutional contexts. With a decade-long editorial presence focused on countercultural expression and underrepresented narratives across music, visual art, and speculative theory, Atmostfear Entertainment now extends its scope through a year-long exhibition program. AExpo does not operate as a commercial fair but as a critically curated initiative aimed at fostering interdisciplinary discourse through visual and symbolic practices that challenge dominant aesthetic frameworks.

Conceived and executed independently under the direction of Atmostfear Entertainment, the initiative addresses a growing demand for an international platform where symbolically layered, emotionally complex, and formally experimental work can be presented within a structured curatorial framework. AExpo’s approach positions dark art, gothic surrealism, and genre-defying dystopian practices in sustained dialogue with allegorical, esoteric, abstract, and speculative traditions. The curatorial strategy encompasses both visual and digital media, highlighting works that engage narrative complexity, philosophical inquiry, and cultural hybridity. By privileging conceptual rigor over stylistic trends, AExpo aims to articulate an institutional model that foregrounds practices situated at the intersection of affective intensity and intellectual depth.

Announcement of the Open Call for Artists

The open call for submissions to AExpo’s inaugural exhibition series is now open, marking an initial step in shaping the curatorial direction of the platform. Open to both emerging and established artists worldwide, the open call invites work that engages meaningfully with AExpo’s thematic focus—Gothic, Dark Art, Fantasy, Horror, Ritualism, the Uncanny, and Diasporic Identity—through material practices grounded in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, digital art, and mixed media. Rather than functioning solely as a selection mechanism, the open call is positioned as a curatorial gesture—one that will help define the cultural scope and conceptual tone of a multi-venue, long-term initiative. This first cycle of exhibitions will establish the foundational character of AExpo as a platform for symbolically rich, critically engaged artistic production.

The review process will prioritize submissions that demonstrate conceptual clarity, thematic alignment, and visual coherence. While the open call is open to both national and international artists, eligibility is limited to works in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, digital art, and mixed media. Submissions will be evaluated based on their engagement with symbolic language, emotional intensity, and the broader critical orientation of the platform. Consistent with AExpo’s curatorial principles, the selection process avoids privileging aesthetic novelty for its own sake, focusing instead on proposals that contribute to a cohesive and intellectually layered exhibition. In doing so, AExpo positions itself as a rigorous platform for underrepresented practices, committed to curatorial dialogue, cultural specificity, and conceptual depth.

Thematic Scope and Artistic Focus

AExpo’s curatorial direction is shaped by a constellation of conceptual frameworks rather than functioning as fixed genre categories; these orientations serve as entry points for artists to examine complex relationships with corporeality, belief systems, displacement, and technological transformation. The exhibition diverges from market-driven or stylistically superficial trends, favoring works that engage symbolically and critically with their subject matter. Within this structure, participating artists are encouraged to explore tensions between mythic forms and contemporary realities, addressing themes such as mortality, ritual, post-human embodiment, and imagined futures.

The inclusion of these curatorial frameworks articulates AExpo’s broader aim to challenge prevailing assumptions about what constitutes legitimate subject matter within contemporary art discourse. By foregrounding metaphysical inquiry alongside socially grounded narratives, the exhibition supports practices that examine grief, memory, and instability through historically informed, immersive, or experientially layered formats.

Particular emphasis is placed on works that reimagine archetypal imagery—such as fractured bodies and symbolic remains—through the lens of contemporary anxieties surrounding ecological disruption, technological estrangement, and fragmented identity. Selected pieces often merge organic and synthetic elements, invoking thresholds between past and future, human and nonhuman. Rather than promoting a unified aesthetic, the curatorial orientation privileges conceptual precision and cultural positioning, providing space for artists to examine the symbolic and psychological structures that endure beneath surface legibility.

Venue and Spatial Intent

While the specific venues for AExpo’s 2025 exhibition series have not yet been confirmed, organizers have indicated that the program is being developed with flexibility in mind to accommodate a range of material and presentation formats. As this marks the first in a series of exhibitions planned across multiple locations, the curatorial team is evaluating spaces that can support both solo and group presentations. Emphasis is placed on accessibility, modular design, and environmental control, ensuring that selected venues allow for adaptable installation strategies and digital display infrastructure suited to the project’s formal and technical requirements.

The venues selected for AExpo’s 2025-2026 exhibition series are expected to accommodate both wall-mounted and object-based works in formats that support curatorial adaptability. Across each location, the exhibition design will emphasize spatial neutrality and coherence, allowing for the consistent presentation of painting, sculpture, digital compositions, and large-format works within the evolving thematic direction of the series. With this approach, AExpo signals its orientation toward cross-disciplinary engagement, cultivating environments that support conceptual clarity, visual coherence, and emotional resonance across all participating exhibitions.

Cultural and Intellectual Positioning

AExpo has been conceived not only as an exhibition program but as a site for discursive engagement, where artistic production intersects with cultural analysis and critical theory. The curatorial framework is designed to position exhibited works as contributions to broader conversations on identity, memory, futurity, and symbolic meaning, rather than as isolated visual experiences. This approach informs the platform’s overall structure, integrating scholarly methodologies into the curatorial process and reinforcing the role of visual art as a vehicle for sustained intellectual inquiry.

AExpo’s intellectual premise begins with the reframing of dark aesthetics—often marginalized as decorative, sensational, or subcultural—as legitimate frameworks for philosophical inquiry and cultural critique. The exhibition prioritizes work that addresses subjects such as death, decay, displacement, and the rupture of the human condition as sites of conceptual urgency, rather than as motifs of gothic novelty. This approach draws on art historical precedents including vanitas, European symbolism, and postwar surrealism, alongside contemporary frameworks such as Afrofuturism, cybernetic theory, and post-humanist discourse.

These reference points situate participating works within a broader lineage and reinforce AExpo’s orientation toward conceptual complexity rather than genre classification. In this context, darkness functions not as a stylistic affect but as a critical method—one through which artists examine instability, ambiguity, and transformation with formal precision and thematic depth.

Aesthetic and Institutional Relevance

The emergence of AExpo parallels a broader resurgence of institutional engagement with symbolically driven and speculative visual practices. Recent exhibitions such as Obscura BCN in Barcelona and the ongoing programming at Melbourne’s Beinart Gallery reflect a shift in how museums and galleries approach visual languages rooted in Gothic, horror, and the uncanny. These initiatives have contributed to reframing such work as conceptual clarity and historically grounded, rather than merely subcultural or sensational. By aligning its curatorial priorities with thematic alignment, emotional resonance, and formal complexity, AExpo enters this expanding field with a distinct editorial perspective shaped by its Latin American base and interdisciplinary orientation.

What distinguishes AExpo within this expanding landscape is its geographic and institutional positioning. Founded and curated in Colombia, the platform introduces a regional perspective to conversations often shaped by North American and European narratives. Its curatorial approach draws on localized understandings of cultural hybridity, political memory, and speculative narrative—contexts particularly resonant within postcolonial and diasporic frameworks. This specificity enhances, rather than narrows, the exhibition’s international relevance by offering a structure attuned to both marginality and critical inquiry. AExpo’s integration of rigorous curatorial standards with an open thematic scope positions it as a platform that is regionally grounded, structurally inclusive, and globally responsive—advancing dark and speculative art as a field of cultural production with intellectual and historical legitimacy.

Forward-Looking Ambitions

AExpo is structured to evolve as a recurring platform for contemporary artistic production that engages with radical aesthetics and interdisciplinary inquiry. Rather than adhering to a fixed cycle, its format remains adaptive—expanding across editions while maintaining a consistent curatorial logic. Each iteration is conceived not as a standalone event but as part of an ongoing process that accumulates visual, thematic, and intellectual continuity over time. Through this extended model, AExpo aims to provide sustained infrastructure for artists and researchers working in conceptually driven, culturally situated, and critically underrepresented practices.

Future editions of AExpo are expected to incorporate expanded programming, including artist panels, scholarly lectures, workshops, and collaborative research initiatives. While the inaugural edition is centered in Latin America, plans are in place to extend the platform’s geographic footprint through regional partnerships, satellite exhibitions, and institutional collaborations that reflect its global thematic scope. Preliminary discussions are underway with academic departments, independent curators, and publishing projects aligned with the exhibition’s intellectual framework. Through this evolving model, AExpo seeks to function not only as an event, but as a sustained curatorial initiative—capable of adapting structurally while maintaining its commitment to conceptually rigorous and contextually grounded artistic practices.

Conclusion

As it initiates its first cycle of exhibitions, AExpo introduces itself as a platform grounded in the premise that darkness—often dismissed as theatrical or peripheral—constitutes a vital lens for critical inquiry in contemporary art. The project is designed to support artistic practices that operate outside dominant institutional frameworks, particularly those rooted in symbolic systems, speculative forms, and unresolved cultural narratives. Rather than conforming to traditional exhibition formats, AExpo offers a curatorial structure that prioritizes conceptual rigor and thematic nuance, proposing an alternative framework for how value, visibility, and cultural legitimacy are negotiated in the field.

Far from serving a merely procedural role, AExpo’s open call functions as an integral part of its curatorial authorship—one in which participating artists are invited to shape both the content and conceptual framing of the platform’s inaugural series. Darkness is not treated as thematic ornament, but as a method of inquiry into the complex intersections of emotion, history, and cultural disruption. The initiative positions artistic contribution as central to its evolving structure, redefining how symbolically charged and cross-disciplinary practices are assembled, interpreted, and supported. In doing so, AExpo establishes a framework through which the obscure, the arcane, and the unresolved can be examined with critical intent.