Abraham Cruzvillegas "Inequality Reexamined. Summer 2010"
Hunter College Bertha & Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery
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The ACE group, an MA and MFA student curatorial collective at Hunter College, is pleased to present the exhibition Inequality Reexamined. Summer 2010. This show features a selection of sculptures by the well-known Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas that explore issues of instability and change through the use of found objects and perishable materials. As part of the Hunter College Art Galleries programming, the ACE group was invited to organize an exhibition in the Leubsdorf Art Gallery’s 68th Street-side window for the summer. The group selected Cruzvillegas because he often utilizes materials that undergo a significant transformation in his work. For this project, the windows become the site of change and hosts objects in-process, rather than a finite work of art.
Conceived specifically for the Leubsdorf Gallery windows, Cruzvillegas’ project incorporates the seasonal conditions of the space, the display-like aspect of the street-side window as well as the building’s modernist architectural grid. The artist provided the organizers with a set of instructions: the sculptures consist of discarded and found lumber, used skateboards, and plant roots—potato, ginger, and the dahlia flower. These roots shrink, sprout, and organically change over time. Each sculpture is constructed without nails or glue to hold the components together. They are precariously balanced: once the weight of the root changes, the structure might lose its balance and collapse.
The sculptures visualize the theme of self-construction, common creativity, economic survival, and development. Cruzvillegas often explores these themes in his work, in particular in his recent projects autoconstrucción: The Film and autoconstrucción: Performance, which were presented in Los Angeles (2009) and Mexico City (2010) respectively. By choosing to use discarded lumber and used skateboards, the artist references provisional housing and other modes of construction employed in areas of economic deprivation—where everything becomes a material resource and can be used for functional or aesthetic purposes. By using perishable roots, the artist questions formal notions of the “completed” work of art, in favor of objects that exemplify the process of their own change and the dialectics of inequality.
Abraham Cruzvillegas was born in Mexico City in 1968. He was part of Gabriel Orozco’s workshop from 1987 – 1991. Since 1987, Cruzvillegas has exhibited extensively including participation in the 25th Sao Paulo Biennale in 2002, the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, and the Cali Biennale in Colombia in 2008. In 2009, he was the artist in residence at the Wattis Institute of CCA in San Francisco. He is a recipient of numerous awards, such as a 2010 – 2011 DAAD in Berlin.
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Schedule
from June 25, 2010 to September 04, 2010