Isolation Interviews Alberto Ríos De La Rosa
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ISOLATION INTERVIEWS ALBERTO RÍOS DE LA ROSA ISSUE 12 ISSUE 12 Continuing the Isolation Interviews: a new series of weekly artist and curator profiles highlighting current concerns, accompanied by a selection of available works. We know that these are precarious and uncertain times for everyone and with so many people staying at home, self-isolating or social distancing, we want to be able to continue sharing some of our favourite art and artists with you. The Isolation Interviews are a weekly series of conversations with artists and curators that will explore how these new circumstances are affecting their practices, projects and productivity. We’ll hear how they are finding solutions - and even opportunities - and what their plans and hopes are for the future. Brooke Benington is committed to supporting and creating opportunities for artists. We believe that this is needed now more than ever. Most artists are self-employed, often supplementing their income by working as technicians, fabricators, assistants, teachers and a whole host of other jobs. Now, many have very suddenly lost a vital source of income. With this in mind, we are accompanying each Isolation Interview with a curated selection of work by that artist, available for purchase. Thank you for your continued support. Stay safe and look after one another. Lily & George Directors, Brooke Benington 3 LEFT Untitled by Jannis Kounellis at Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas or activated with all members from projects? Have you been able to find You’re based in Mexico, currently y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, one of the the community to demand for better ways to adapt and continue despite the in Mexico City. How is the artistic hospitals in the city that treats COVID opportunities before the country’s restrictions? community in the city coping? Are there patients. Ministry of Culture, an office that has signs of people finding creative ways to be been short in developing a substantial and Even though I was trained as an art productive, make and share their art? Likewise, @ObreraCentro and artist comprehensive economic contingency historian at the highly academic Courtauld Marcos Castro has produced Dibujes aid package to regenerate the creative Institute of Art in London, I quickly learnt The artistic community in Mexico City para Colorear, two colouring books industry amidst the pandemic. that I wanted to develop my curatorial is both resourceful and resilient. It is a with drawings from both emerging and process hand in hand with the artist’s thriving community that has adapted consolidated artists in the country, a practice. quickly to the hardest circumstances and powerful tool to help people with anxiety Could you tell us a bit about your has learnt to produce in precariousness during lockdown. Besides dozens of curatorial practice, how you usually This process is born directly with the for a long time. It is also a solidary creators, curators, academics and galleries operate and how if at all the current artists’ conversation and their work in the community that supports itself and others that present virtual studio visits as well situation has impacted on you and your studio, studying their approach to both with new initiatives and ways to continue as online conferences and interviews with production, virtual exhibition and every day, various artists have organised ABOVE selling; fostering the development of new themselves to sell and promote their work Your age and my age and the age of the sun by Ugo Rondinone at dynamics within these hard circumstances. online or via Instagram in enterprises like Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido @sssoporte, @arteporlatangente or @ Oaxaca, Mexico Several strategies and actions have tajotaller with auction schemes and other LEFT been taken by artists groups to support innovative designs to display and present Installation view of Tepetate by Francisco Muñoz at Casa Wabi - the local society in all possible ways. I their work. On the commercial front, nine Santa María, Mexico City can think of Carlos Amorales’ studio galleries launched #Plataforma2020, an that crafted hundreds of face masks in online selling platform that aims to reduce conjunction with his gallery kurimanzutto, the negative economic impact of the these were given to the most vulnerable lockdown by presenting works together workers in the city. Other tremendous and sharing the sales profits while action came from curator Mauricio donating 10% to similar initiatives. Maillé who led a team that organised @ fotospormexico, an initiative that sold The artist community in Mexico is photographs by more than 150 artists and also very active politically. In the last whose income was donated entirely to the months, some fronts have been created 4 5 ABOVE Your age and my age and the age the narratives and materials they engage shells or feathers and their interactions and broadcasting, parallel to other forces of the sun by Ugo Rondinone at with. Not only I enjoy working with them, with the classical bronze, marble, copper You were the curator at the world- like the gallery, the studio, the museum Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido Oaxaca, Mexico I also engage in a professional deeper or iron in the search for new discourses famous Casa Wabi residency for several or the university. Residencies have also relationship that allows me to complement that engage with sculpture as a medium years and you have recently accepted proven to be powerful tools and centres BELOW Installation view of Silogismos de the academic reasoning I build around the and tool related to power, history writing, a position as Director of Operations for social change and community driven la Construcción at StudioBlock artwork. I have focused my practice in fetishism and memory. That being said, I at SFER IK Museion which also has a actions in the country. M74, Mexico City working alongside emerging artists in the was preparing a large emerging sculpture ABOVE residency programme at its core. What country; first at Fundación Casa Wabi with exhibition dealing with these issues Installation view of Tepetate by role do you think residencies can play in When we began working at Casa Wabi Francisco Muñoz at Casa Wabi - its space at Santa María la Ribera, where together with English curator and historian Santa María, Mexico City contemporary art practice? Are there any back in 2014 (led by artist Bosco Sodi), I curated ten solo projects between 2017 Isaac Simon that has been postponed to other residency programmes you admire we realised we were pioneers in the BELOW and 2018, and later as an independent 2021 into a new venue to be confirmed. The Pure Necessity by David either in Mexico or internationally? country in crafting an architecture and curator with exhibitions at both commercial Claerbout at SFER IK Museion, arts centre with a program that put Tulum, Mexico galleries and artist-run spaces. Residencies must be recognised as together artists from all over the world You are a prominent voice advocating a crucial growing force in the art with members of 12 different towns at In the last two years I have been studying for contemporary Mexican artists. Are professionalisation, production, exhibition the Oaxacan coast. People found hard the various sculptural methods and there any artists who you are particularly narratives that are taking place around excited about right now and what is it the country. I am driven by the direct about them that has caught your eye and relationship and experimentation with less your imagination? orthodox materials like red clay, concrete, aluminium, wax, glass, the organic like Following my research on current sculpture related practices in the country, I have been working closely with artists Ernesto Solana, Luis Urculo, Yolanda Ceballos (in collaboration with Pequod Gallery ), Tomás Díaz Cedeño (in collaboration with Peana Gallery), Paula Cortazar (in collaboration with Machete Galeria) and Adeline de Monseignat, whose samples of their work you can see with this interview. 6 7 to understand that a community project section will intervene the palaeontology is causing and will continuously cause in did not involve using the communities hall with 3D printing technology all social, economic and cultural aspects as labour force; it has been all about sculptures. of society in the nearby future, we must creating new tools via experiences, also recognise our aptitudes as a species to workshops and a multiplicity of initiatives overcome these challenges, learning from that have engaged in a cultural exchange Over the past months we have seen our own history and memory. but also in a personal and social growth communities - both artistic and otherwise in both sides of these experiences. I am - coming together (while apart) and During this contingency we have all tremendously happy to see the foundation finding new ways to collaborate, cooperate turned to art, music, theatre, dance and is continuously growing alongside the and rise above the difficulties. Are you literature, attesting their inner quality communities they work with and the hopeful for a post-COVID-19 world as catalyser for social regeneration. I trust artists that enrich their programs. where we might see this spirit continue? in the arts and culture strength to lead Are there things about how the art world the way for a spiritual and creative I am currently working with Martha has operated historically that you would renovation after this “great pause”. But Pellat in creating