NYAB Event - Bari Kumar & Mondongo "Material Witness"

Bari Kumar & Mondongo "Material Witness"

Bose Pacia

This event has ended.

Material Witness presents the works of Los Angeles-based Bari Kumar and the Buenos Aires-based collective, Mondongo. The initial meeting of the artists was a truly happenstance event and the impulse to create a visual conversation between their works has been strong from the first discovery of their separate projects. This exhibition is comprised of large scale “paintings” constructed with various non-traditional substances. Both Bari Kumar and Mondongo alike have independently explored theories of voice and representation of materials and subjects in their works. By using materials that are intrinsically linked to the message of the work the objects become complicit with their message. The works themselves become both the perpetrator and the perpetrated creating a vacuum of intense representation.

Born in Vakadu in Andhra Pradesh, India in 1966, Bari Kumar studied at the Rishi Valley School in India founded by the philosopher J. Krishnamurthi and thereafter, obtained a BFA in Graphic Design from the Otis/ Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles. He has participated in group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally. Bari Kumar currently lives and works in Los Angeles and Hyderabad, India.

The Argentinean artist collective, Mondongo, is comprised of Juliana Laffitte (1974), Manuel Mendanha (1976), and Augustina Picasso (1977). After working independently for many years the three began collaborative work in 2000 and have widely exhibited internationally. They have been included in solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Madrid, and London. The collective has also collaborated with Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçon. Mondongo live and work in Buenos Aires.

[left image: Mondongo "detail of Enter Rios Landscape" (2010), right image: Bari Kumar "detail of Karna" (2009)]