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17/11/2010

Disponible - a kind of Mexican show

San Francisco Art Institute - SFAI, San Francisco

Curators: Hou Hanru and Guillermo Santamarina

Disponible–a kind of Mexican Show, has been organized in San Francisco as a part of the celebration of the bicentennial of Mexico's independence and centennial of the republican revolution. This project, resulting from the long-term dialogue between the co-curators, represents a deepened collaboration and exchange between the art communities on both sides of the border that are at the core of SFAI's exhibition program, in the contexts of "New Models of Production," "Pacific Perspectives," and "Acting out in the City."

Co-curated by SFAI's Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs Hou Hanru and by Guillermo Santamarina, an independent curator based in Mexico City, this exhibition takes its name from the empty advertisement billboards with Disponible (+ phone numbers) that are seen over the skyline across Mexican cities. Meaning at once available and potentially changeable or disposable, the word disponible interestingly, and quite accurately, reflects the reality of Mexican society in perpetual transition from post-colonial revolution to its current negotiation with globalization. The Mexican population and society are in a constant state of actively engaging social and economic progress and modernization. Simultaneously, Mexico is involved in a permanent inquiry into defining its common destiny while wrestling with radically diverse cultural, historical, political, religious, and ethnic contexts formed by complex and hybrid origins. These continually transforming identities have created a fabulously dynamic and intense, sometimes violent, social reality.

This exhibition seeks to reflect on two major tendencies in the current creative scene—social critique and witty design solutions—as two mutually entangled and reinforcing strategies developed in response and resistance to the complex reality of life in modern Mexico. Disponible articulates the dimensions of social critique and confrontation with conflicts and violence, while also presenting various active and inventive solutions to the challenges of the reality of contemporary life. These tendencies are also intimately related to the realities of San Francisco and California, where dialogues between both sides of the border have never been interrupted.

Phase 1 of the exhibition includes works by Edgardo Aragón, Manuel Rocha Iturbide, Mauricio Limon, and Hector Zamora. In Edgardo Aragón’s Matamoros the artist recreates his father’s journey from Oaxaca to Tamaulipas as a drug trafficker. Manuel Rocha Iturbide’s sound installation I play the drum with frequency transforms a drum set into a laboratory to study the interactions between vibrations of the drums membranes and the metallic structures of the cymbals. Mauricio Limon’s video Bizco Merolico Chorus includes vendors from the Mexico City subway repeating their sales pitches, thereby organizing their voices in a kind of baroque chorus. Hector Zamora creates a new site-specific installation in the Walter Gallery.

Phase 2:
February 9 – March 26, 2011
Artists: Arturo Hernández Alcazar, Natalia Almada, Teresa Margolles

SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs are supported in part by the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund with additional support provided by the McBean Family Foundation, the Consulate General of Mexico in San Francisco and AeroMexico.

Press Contact:
Bob Gamboa, tel (415) 749-4507, e-mail mediarelations@sfaii.edu

Opening reception: Thursday, 18 November 2010 from 5:30 to 7:30pm
The opening reception will be followed by a lecture with curator Guillermo Santamarina at 7:30pm in SFAI's Lecture Hall.

Walter and McBean Galleries
800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133
Hours: Tuesdays–Saturdays, 11:00am–6:00pm
Free and open to the public

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