Sebastian Errazuriz “Tough Love”

Storefront for Art and Architecture

poster for Sebastian Errazuriz “Tough Love”

This event has ended.

Storefront for Art and Architecture presents the opening of Tough Love, a solo exhibition by Sebastian Errazuriz. Tough Love presents 15 objects that address socio-political issues and question public perception of art and design.

The work of Sebastian Errazuriz in Tough Love collapses product design and artistic practice with socially engaged positions. Tough Love unveils questions of inequality, violence, fear and terror through a series of pieces that dwell on spaces of familiarity and uncanniness and that are simultaneously appealing and atrocious. Taking as a point of departure our over-informed society, Errazuriz forces us not only to reflect, but also to reconsider our responsibilities as citizens.

Each week, short texts and visuals will be released to explain and contextualize the works on display through Storefront’s social media pages. The works in the exhibition expose some of the most controversial contemporary issues affecting the United States today, including income inequality, racism, sexual abuse, immigration reform and gun control. “Rapist”, exposes the incidence of rape on college campuses while playfully dwelling on the idolization of the attackers. By giving the work “Rapist” a price tag, the artist further exposes the costs burdening a victim. (Proceeds from the sale of the work will benefit a nonprofit supporting the legal fees for a victim of rape.) Another piece in the show, “United States of Mexico” exposes the correlation between undocumented workers and the U.S. construction industry while commenting on the hypocrisy of immigration laws. The work “Homelessness” unveils and makes visible the large amount of individuals living under the poverty level and without a roof in New York City.

“Tough Love confronts some of the most pressing issues of our time: homelessness, racism, gun control, crime, indifference…yet the power of the work resides not only in the controversial nature of the subjects at hand, but in the incisive criticism embedded within them. Each piece critiques and reflects on what drives fashion, art and design and the sublime uselessness embedded within the fashion, art and design worlds. In Tough Love, sublime uselessness is put to work. This exhibition I believe is an inflection point in Sebastian’s career where he goes against his own practice as an artist and as a designer by being something more than just both at the same time.”says Director and Chief Curator Eva Franch.

Commenting on the subject of the exhibition, Errazuriz says, “For the past few years, I have been keeping track of articles and statistics of terrible problems that somehow as a society we seem unable to solve. At the same time, I started scribbling ideas for functional artworks that could portray the different themes and invite us to take action.”

About the Artist
Errazuriz was selected as one of the top emerging designers by I.D. Magazine in 2007, and received the title of Chilean Designer of the Year in 2010. His large-scale, public artwork has received critical acclaim, and his furniture pieces are incorporated in over forty international exhibitions in cities such as Tokyo, New York, Paris and Barcelona. His design work has been incorporated in exhibitions and pop up shows at the Copper Hewitt, National Museum of Design in New York, The Vitra Museum in Weil AM Rheim in Germany, and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile. Sebastian’s work is a part of the permanent collection of Coorning Museum of Glass and several important international private collections. Sebastian’s design, fashion, and public artwork have been featured on CNN, Good Morning America, and NY1.

[Image: Sebastian Errazuriz, Rapist, 2014.]

Media

Schedule

from February 15, 2014 to April 12, 2014

Opening Reception on 2014-02-14 from 19:00 to 21:00

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