calendario eventi  :: 

X

1/6/2012

Jill Magid - Gustavo Godoy

Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles

Jill Magid
Failed States

Honor Fraser Gallery is pleased to announce Failed States, Jill Magid's first solo show in Los Angeles. Magid will launch her new book, also entitled Failed States, in conjunction with the exhibition.

Failed States is an exploration of coincidence and poetics amid the barriers and bureaucracy of governmental power. In January 2010, while on a trip to research the history of snipers in Austin, Texas, Magid witnessed a mysterious shooting on the steps of the State Capitol. After attempting to speak with a state employee a young man named Fausto Cardenas exited the building and—in full view of security—fired six shots from a small caliber gun into the Texas sky. Cardenas has offered no explanation for his actions. Last August, after eighteen months of incarceration, he took a plea bargain, ultimately silencing himself.

In Failed States, Magid acts as eyewitness and dramaturge, drawing connections between Fausto's futile and tragic act and Goethe's nineteenth-century epic poem, Faust. Magid portrays Fausto as the tragic hero, guiding the relationship between the lone gunman and the famed literary protagonist to a histrionic effect. Failed States investigates Fausto's abstract, almost surrealist, act as it is chronicled through an intermingling of personal and public, fact and fiction, words and actions.

Faust was originally written as a "closet drama," a play to be read rather than performed. In the installation Failed States, the script is slowly unveiled through stage directions, prints, audio, photographs, news reports, and a live feed from the sky above the Capitol steps. The exhibition will feature Failed States—the work from which this exhibition takes its name—Magid's 1993 Mercedes Benz station wagon. This car was originally purchased as Magid's family car and has been subsequently armored to withstand gunfire common in war zones. While following Fausto's case, Magid was training to be an embedded reporter in Afghanistan and learned about the "hard cars" or armored vehicles (usually Mercedes) designed to blend into local traffic. For a previous exhibition, this car was parked on the site where Fausto Cardenas had parked his car before approaching the Capitol in Austin. For her exhibition with Honor Fraser Gallery, Magid brings the car inside the gallery, embedding herself further into the drama.

Jill Magid is an artist and writer who infiltrates structures of authority and power by engaging their human side. Rather than treating these structures as subjects to challenge, she creates opportunities to draw them closer. Through dialogues and manipulations Magid finds her way in through introduction or invitation, often locating or exploiting a loophole in the system.

Jill Magid was born in Bridgeport, CT in 1973. She received her Master of Science in Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge and was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam from 2000–2002. Solo exhibitions include those at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Modern, London, UK; Stroom and the AIVD (Dutch Secret Service), The Hague, NL; Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam; Berkeley Museum of Art; Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin; and Yvon Lambert, Paris, France and New York, NY. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Bucharest Biennial; The Singapore Biennial; The New Museum, New York; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Townhouse Gallery, Cairo; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Museum of Contemporary Arts, Taipei; and Tate Museum, Liverpool, among others. Magid has performed at venues including Location One, New York; Museum Tamayo, Mexico City; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. Magid currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

To order Failed States, the book, send an email to: failedstates@publicationstudio.biz or contact the gallery directly.

-------

Gustavo Godoy
Vacant Mounds and Markers

Honor Fraser Gallery is pleased to present Vacant Mounds and Markers, Gustavo Godoy's second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Gustavo Godoy employs a more restrained and minimal approach with Vacant Mounds and Markers, bringing together a new body of cast concrete sculptures. In contrast to Godoy's previous exhibition, Fast-formal Object: Big White, which invited viewers to directly interact with his large-scale wood sculpture; the sculptures in Vacant Mounds and Markers quietly examine spiritual spaces and secular objects. Positioned at ground level, Godoy's sculptures transform the gallery into a meditative sanctuary, addressing the physicality of space as well as the ritualistic spaces inspired by secular and sacred belief systems. His concrete "mounds and markers" are reminiscent of ancient altars, minimalist sculptures, futuristic architecture, and urban demolition sites. They appear to be part of sanctified rituals, which may provide insights into the sensibilities and culture from which they've emerged. Attempting to capture the essence of a culture, Godoy not only alludes to ancient histories, but also references contemporary idols. On entering the space, viewers will encounter an unraveling of history, manifested in objects emblematic of both progress and return.

The mounds reference the pitching mound from Los Angeles's Dodger Stadium, a sacred space for Godoy. In 1981 Fernando Valenzuela, a Mexican pitcher for the Dodgers, quickly became an international phenomenon as he took his team to the World Series Championship and received baseball's most prestigious award for pitching, the Cy Young. Idolizing the pitcher as a child (and furthermore, the stadium), Godoy witnessed first hand as "Fernandomania" swept the country. For the Mexican population of L.A., the success of Valenzuela was especially meaningful considering the controversial history of Dodger Stadium. The stadium was built in Chavez Ravine, an area previously home to a vibrant Mexican American community. In the 1940s the area was particularly appealing to real estate developers, who saw the potential in the neighborhood's proximity to Downtown L.A. The residents were forcibly relocated to make room for new housing. Although the development never materialized, the land was sold to the Brooklyn Dodgers, creating a home for the newly christened Los Angeles Dodgers in Chavez Ravine. This recounting of fraught histories is prevalent in Vacant Mounds and Markers, as Godoy pays tribute to disenfranchised communities, the rise and fall of heroes, and the urban L.A. landscape.

Los Angeles is an urban jungle comprised of a stream of traffic and construction set against a landscape of ocean, palm trees and mountains. This juxtaposition of nature vs. industry can be seen in the commonplace materials that Godoy uses to build his sculptures. Maintaining a relationship with the day laborers that build our environments, Godoy's work pays tribute to the true makers of our city. His embrace of quotidian construction supplies, readily found at any home improvement store, renders the objects familiar, yet the weight and stillness of the heavy material provides a solemn, cerebral experience. These concrete forms suggest permanence; a gesture of hope that the art object can capture and maintain the essence of time and social circumstance. Through an interest in the way belief systems parallel the value placed upon art, Godoy is able to question art's ability to transcend spirituality and religion.

Gustavo Godoy lives and works in Los Angeles. He received a Master of Fine Arts at Vermont College in Montpelier, VT and a Bachelor of Arts at UC Santa Barbara, and has studied at the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design. Solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL; L.A. Mart, Los Angeles, CA; the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Happy Lion, Los Angeles, CA. Group exhibitions include the SUR: Biennial, Norwalk, CA; Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX; OHWOW, Miami, FL; the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; Circus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Centre d'art contemporain du Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-Eaux, France; Mexico Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, Mexico; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA, and Workspace, Brooklyn, NY.

Opening Sat June 2, 6-8pm

Honor Fraser
2622 S La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90034
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10–6pm

stampa

permanent link