Category: documentation

Chantal Peñalosa presented an audio-visual performance building upon research into the painted murals in the Mexican Cultural Institute’s historic 16th Street MacVeagh Mansion. Originally constructed in 1910 as a summer home, the building was re-designated as the official Embassy of Mexico in 1921. This same year Guatemalan painter Rafael Yela Günther arrived in Mexico where he met prominent painter Diego Rivera in the early years of the Mexican muralist movement. In 1925, Yela Günther was commissioned by the Mexican government to design a series of murals for the Mexican Embassy’s Dining Room, connecting the grand Beaux Arts style architecture to the cultural and stylistic traditions of Mexico. The decision also reflected an interest of the time in indigeneity on the South American continent.

Yela’s original murals were eventually painted over. Later, other murals were added with more nationalistic scenes composed by Roberto Cueva del Río, a student of the Rivera mural style of painting that was well-established by this time. This second generation of murals remain in the building to this day and display a cross-section of Mexico’s national history. The scenes range from depictions of the mythological founding of Aztec culture, the arrival of Christopher Columbus, rural and agricultural festivities to Mexico’s modern industrialization. As a whole, del Río’s murals celebrate the continuity of old Mexico and the new.
Peñalosa invited the public at the Mexican Cultural Institute to engage with these competing historical depictions in a 30-minute performance that employs sound, visuals, and movement.

Chantal Peñalosa studied Fine Arts at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California and the University of São Paulo. Peñalosa’s research-based practice is inspired by small gestures and interventions in everyday life, which are meant to expound upon notions of labor, waiting and delay. Repetition is a crucial element in her process, functioning as an allusion to the absurdity, weathering, and alienating effects of work. She was awarded the Acquisition Prize in the XIV edition of the Biennale of the Northwest and was awarded FONCA fellowships in the Young Artists category (2013-2014 and 2015-2016). In 2014 she participated in the 4th edition of the Bancomer Program for young artists at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. Most recently, her work has been shown at Casa del Lago in Mexico City and at AIR Antwerpen.

A special thank you to Gustavo Morales and Alberto Fierro Garza (MCI of D.C.) and The White Page.

With the support of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C., the Embassy of Mexico in the United States, and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation.

FD13 residency for the arts presents:
Artist talk with Adriana Lara moderated by Sandra Teitge “Club of Interesting Theories”
Monday, 22 May 2017, 6 pm

Cleopatra’s 
110 Meserole Ave
Brooklyn, New York 11222

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The “Club of Interesting Theories” is an ongoing series created and led by Adriana Lara consisting of graphics applied on different objects. The series’ title functions as the label to refer to ‘interesting theories’ as immaterial products. What becomes ‘interesting’ according to today is in constant change. Either religious, political, philosophical or scientific, theories considered interesting are the ones that keep the world changing. Theories navigate through the present without necessarily being noticed, their transcendence is only evidenced through their surroundings. Once the theory becomes objectified through this work, one as a viewer may become aware of this absence of information.

Each work features a different graphic motif generated by a system of intersected shapes . This system was conceived as a generative one, which offers on the one hand a hypothetical view of how theories are elaborated, on the other, these graphics work as symbols for potential meaning. 

In Washington D.C. taking the larger context of the interdependent and complimentary Mexico-US relationship as a point of departure, Lara presented a series of graphics from her system in dialogue with a sequence of readings of texts by Mexican writers, academics, students, and artists, who research U.S-Mexican relations in the fields of economics, geography, demographics, natural resources, culture, history, national security, etc. The texts have either been written for this occasion or are excerpts of existing academic papers, pieces of journalism and philosophy.

The Club opens the opportunity to present and discuss relevant theoretical works, as well as the Mexico-US relationship in general, alongside an artistic counterpart that attempts to integrate thought into the reading of an artwork. The work of the participating authors are published in a booklet together with the artist’s abstract graphics, which are assigned to each of these theories.

As a part of the project, Lara presented a series of 7 oil paintings titled “Interesting Theories“ which are numbered in correspondence to the written theories.

In parallel to the exhibition, a reading performance took place in the Music Room of the Mexican Cultural Institute and illustrated how the theories merge and overlap with each other whilst creating new shapes. The audience ws invited to listen to excerpts of the theories and reflect upon the corresponding forms created from this generative system.

https://vimeo.com/218500076

Adriana Lara “Club of Interesting Theories” at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington D.C.

in collaboration with FD13/Sandra Teitge

The “Club of Interesting Theories” is the upshot result of a long term project. Lara has been working with a graphic generative system, which she proposes as a potential visualization of the processes of theory-making and thought-production more generally.

Taking the larger context of the interdependent and complimentary Mexico-US relationship as a point of departure, Lara presented a series of graphics from her system in dialogue with a sequence of readings of texts by Mexican writers, academics, students, and artists, who research U.S-Mexican relations in the fields of economics, geography, demographics, natural resources, culture, history, national security, etc. The texts have either been written for this occasion or are excerpts of existing academic papers, pieces of journalism and philosophy.

The Club opened the opportunity to present and discuss relevant theoretical works, as well as the Mexico-US relationship in general, alongside an artistic counterpart that attempts to integrate thought into the reading of an artwork. The work of the participating authors were published in a booklet together with the artist’s abstract graphics, which are assigned to each of these theories.

As a part of the project, Lara presented a series of 7 oil paintings titled “Interesting Theories“ which are numbered in correspondence to the written theories.

In parallel to the exhibition, a reading performance took place in the Music Room of the Mexican Cultural Institute and illustrated how the theories merge and overlap with each other whilst creating new shapes. The audience was invited to listen to excerpts of the theories and reflect upon the corresponding forms created from this generative system.

CLUB DE LAS TEORÍAS INTERESANTES

Manuel de Landa, Deleuze, Diagrams and the Genesis of Form #40
David Lara Catalán, La Astucia Del Imaginario Social #41
Pedro Jiménez, Liberal Theory, Plurality and the Zapatista Experience #42
Héctor Guillén Romo, México: de la sustitución de importaciones al nuevo modelo económico neoliberal #43
Fidel Aroche/Marco Antonio Marquez, An Economic Network in North America #44
Lilia Domínguez/Laura Vázquez, Skilled migration to the US (work in progress) #45
Pablo Kalmanovitz, Strategic unpredictability #48
Gustavo Mauricio Bastien Olvera, La seguridad nacional de México ante el crimen organizado y sus efectos sobre el desarrollo humano: el caso del tráfico ilícito de armas de fuego #49
Paola Virgina Suárez Dávila, Post-Punk In Concert: The Digital Art Circuit #47
Sabine Pfleger/Joselin Barja, Resignifying the Northern Border #46
Ariadna Estévez, The (Necro)Policies Of Spatial Injustice In The US-Mexico Border: Disposability Pockets And Forced Depopulation #50
Sandra Alarcón, Piratas en la Aldea Global #53
Camelia Tigau, Medical Migration: The Case For A Knowledge Circulation Theory #51
Amaia Orozco, Global Care Chains/Cadenas globales de cuidados #52
Fernando Gómez Candela, La Derrota #54

FD13 presents: Moriah Evans. Be my Muse. Yeah Maybe.

(in collaboration with Kampnagel Hamburg / in parallel to Common Time at the Walker Art Center)

Wed, 8 February & Thurs, 9 February 2017, 11am – 5pm
Friday, 10 February 2017, 11am – 3pm

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“Right now, I’m focusing on organ donation. I’m fascinated by it but I’m not focusing on the medical and legal complicated ethics surrounding organ donation. I think it’s more of a tool in terms of thinking about an ecosystem of relationships between people, and boundaries between private and public, intimate space and public space, creating performance structures that enable a simultaneous display of a private gaze and a public gaze, private and public self and how these things move. They are never in a simple space; they are like labels. The organ donation is a good tool for the kind of proximity that people have to my body, to how they may or may not look at my body, to the movements I do, some of which are more aesthetically pleasing, appealing and easy and gratifying to watch, others, which are coded in a more abject way, a more difficult or disobedient body. I feel like it’s a topic that gets people to locate their own flesh in a conversation, jumps in to big questions, philosophical questions between material and immaterial issues of body versus spirit or: “Is a personality contained in the flesh?” or “Who owns our body? Who regulates them and what part makes this or that?” and so on. The questions surrounding organ donations, how is it regulated by society and how could we have a casual conversation about it, not as experts or people who have not experienced an organ donation, are interesting to me.” (Excerpt from an interview with Sandra Teitge)

 

Everyone can find happiness and change their life. This is the inexorable mission of life coach Dragana Bulut. The former choreographer and dancer practices the life-changing potential of a new form of art.

Thank you to The White Page for hosting us. Thank you to Bruno Freeman for holding down the fort.

“Life is meant to be fun… not just on weekends! What would your life be like if you lived it to the fullest? Take a moment to imagine it! – – – You are not sure where to turn and what to do next? Within the little time we have together during this occasion I can provide you with programs to help you clarify what it is that you want, and give you the tools to achieve those desires. Trust me, you have the power within yourself to realize all your potentials. You are the only one who can make yourself happy. I will help you to live your best life and practice The Art of Happiness!”

Dragana Bulut is an artist of happiness whose mission is to guide, teach, coach, and empower people to use their thoughts and feelings as a guide to leading a life full of harmony, love and happiness. After working as a choreographer and performer Bulut shifted her carrier into the field of life coaching. Her strength in coaching is in the area of creativity, self esteem and creating happiness irrespective of what is happening in her clients’ life, which helps in manifesting one’s true desires.

Bulut’s FD13 residency (12 September – 3 October 2016) is made possible through support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding (TMU).
Thank you to Cameron Gainer for hosting the residents.

Pass It On is a performance realized as an auction, which deals with the question of authorship, the relation between the material and the immaterial, and the value of an artistic object.

The rules of the auction and the registration form were available before the beginning. By registering the public received a bidding number and became a potential owner of the items that were presented at the live auction. 

https://vimeo.com/164280720

In conjunction with FD13 residency for the arts, Ligia Lewis shared an excerpt of the research for Minor Matter as a solo with dancer Jonathan Gonzalez at White Flag Projects in Saint Louis, MO.

Minor Matter will be performed by three dancers when it premiers later this year at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin.
Grounded in an ongoing investment in affect and embodiment, Minor Matter takes the “minor” position to be understood racially, sonically, and thematically as it’s translated into aesthetic experience. In the score dancers negotiate themselves in relation to sight and phonic play, while exploring the limitations of signification and the fallacy of neutrality.

Supported by the Goethe Institut Chicago.

https://vimeo.com/157862426