Anton Cabaleiro | Ñew York

Anton Cabaleiro | www.antoncabaleiro.com

Anton Cabaleiro

Ñew York: Latin American and Spanish Artists in New York City

AMA | Art Museum of the Americas

Bio

Anton Cabaleiro (born 1977 in Spain) received a MFA in Computer Arts from the School of Visual Arts, New York; a MS in Landscape Design from Columbia University, and a PhD in Art, Design and Technology at the Complutense University, Madrid. Past exhibitions include the Bronx Museum Biennial, New York; Armory Show, New York; New York University, New York; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Times Square Public Space Projects, New York; Under the Bridge Festival, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art of Vigo, Spain; the Andalusian Center of Contemporary Art, Spain; ARCO International Fair of Contemporary Art, Madrid; The Cervantes Institute, Beijing; Marisa Marimon Gallery; Marlborough Gallery; and the Loop International Fair of Video, Barcelona.

Artist Statement

The Empire State Essays is an animation video series which represents two opposite ideas of New York. 


On the one hand, it’s the idealized New York, a trompe l'oeil product that has been presented and propagated (sometimes like a backdrop and other times like main protagonist) through mass media, such as movies, TV, music and the literature. 


On the other hand, there are scenes taken from daily life, based on experiences in the Big Apple. They show a very personal and intimate daily routine, mostly lonesome, repressed and frustrating, that both contradict and complete the first idea, the one of a shinning New York, full of glamour and opportunities. 


As it's known, New York is the “Empire State” of the US, and it plays a predominant role in the rest of the world. The Empire State’s repercussions vary from the expansion of English as first language throughout the world, to a cityscape made out of mountainous quantities of accumulated garbage and the social and ethic pressures. 


This series follow propagandistic mechanisms. Extremely aesthetic, the essays contain tense messages that contradict their apparent beauty and innocence. They give to the viewer a chance to review a routine that tends to be overlooked due to its repetitive nature, which can be both beautiful and horrifying.

Manuel Molina Martagon | Ñew York

Manuel Molina Martagon | manuelmolinamartagon.com

Manuel Molina Martagon

Ñew York: Latin American and Spanish Artists in New York City

AMA | Art Museum of the Americas

Bio

Manuel Molina Martagon (b 1981 Puebla) is a multimedia artist working in video, photography and performance. Molina Martagon holds a Bachelor in Mass Media and Communication from UPAEP and a MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York. His work has been exhibited in Mexico, United States, Spain and Cuba. His videos have been featured in festivals like Proyector Madrid, Region 0 The Latino VideoArt Festival, YANS & RETO and Festival Internacional de Video Arte de Camaguey. His work is currently exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and Galería de Arte Contemporáneo y Diseño Espinoza Iglesias en Puebla. Molina Martagon has also been a recipient of multiple international awards and grants, such as a Fulbright Scholarship, Santander-UPAEP para Estudios de Posgrado, Beca complemento SEP, Alice Beck Odette scholarship and Fondo Estatal para la Creación Artística de Puebla FOESCAP. Molina Martagon is currently collaborating in the New New Yorkers program at Queens Museum of Art.

Artist Statement

The two videos [in Ñew York] come directly from my everyday experience of living in New York. American Sculpture is a performance that takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 20 minutes I learned the American sculptures of the XIX century collection from a Met catalog. Each sculpture was performed several minutes by heart. American Sculpture is a work that addresses the different functions that a museum has as public space, ranging from a mausoleum to a tourist attraction. Based in endurance, memory and chance, the performance is open to random interactions. In If I come back to life I want to be an American dentist, I chewed only with one side for several days, due to a cavity. The extra work helped to wake up a wisdom tooth. My insurance didn’t cover the expenses and I couldn´t afford a dentist. This situation happened four weeks before spring break… So I resolved to go to a dentist in Mexico. It was just 4 weeks. The result of this process is a beautiful piece, my first organic sculpture: a symbol of coming of age and human endurance.

Sol Aramendi | Ñew York

Sol Aramendi | www.solaramendi.com

Sol Aramendi

Ñew York: Latin American and Spanish Artists in New York City

AMA | Art Museum of the Americas

Artwork

Ñew York features three photographs by Sol Aramendi. Aramendi says of her work:

"I choose to look through the lens in order to see. The language of photography helps me understand how I position myself in the world, where I’ve come from and where I might go next.

In my pictures I am exploring psychological impressions of my life of 'Being Solo' in New York. I construct scenes that translate the processes and obsessions I go trough my life here with the uncertain hope of bringing some light of understanding to my obscure self."

© Sol Aramendi. "Welcome to My Hood" (2011). Image Courtesy of Praxis Gallery.

Bio

Sol Aramendi is a New York based Argentinean artist working in photography and installation. Sol has merged her artistic work with Social Practice. She is the founder of the Project Luz Photography Program for New Immigrants (http://www.facebook.com/projectluz). Using photography as a tool of empowerment, creating a dialogue of understanding, connecting people with communities and their creativity.

She was featured at El Museo del Barrio's 2011"(S) Files," the museum's sixth biennial of art created by Latino artists living in NY. Sol’s work has been shown widely in New York, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Los Angeles, Tolouse, Barcelona, Madrid, Utrecht, and Split.

Her first studio was at the legendary 5pointz building in Queens, NY where she interacted with a large and diverse group and actively participated of Urban culture. This empty building is now her canvas.

Art + Impact: Part 2

Common Place, currently on display on the 2nd floor at AMA, is a sociological photography exhibition created by Justine Graham and Rubie Rumié.

As our website describes: "the exhibit portrays the evolving subordinate relationship between Latin American housekeepers and their housewife employers, reflecting issues of gender, power, class and race.

Comprised of photographs, videos, and surveys of 100 women between the ages of 19 and 95, this project merges art and sociology, and explores new sensorial and emotional experiences in an attempt to discover affinities and differences among participants, separating itself from the bias and stereotypes present in hierarchical relationships. Common Place (Lugar Común) challenges conventional methods of portraiture and proposes new social constructs."

Common Place | Justine Graham and Ruby Rumié

When you first encounter the exhibit, you are not just confronted with, but pretty much slapped across the face (in a good way) with a charged social issue in South America. As someone who has never been to South America, I had a very similar first reaction seeing the work to most people I observe visiting the museum. Without reading any text or being taught anything by anyone, you immediately come to understand the relevance, importance, and how obviously underrepresented this subject must be in contemporary Latin American society. The pictures here on this blog and our website can not capture the experience of being completely inundated with these images that fill an entire room our museum.

The exhibit offers no opinions. Though the art speaks volumes in and of itself, it is without judgement or agenda. I have led some tours through the museum and I have found the experience very rewarding, particularly for this exhibit. I've seen people's eyes water up (some in loving memory of the housekeepers they grew up with, others in sadness over their personal conflict over the subject). People's reactions completely vary, ranging from curiosity to joy to revulsion. Despite what a person's reaction may be, a conversation always gets started and heated debates between visitors are common. 

Part of mission here at AMA is to create dialogue about current social issues. This exhibit presents a issue going on in parts of South America, yet is very accessible to anyone. We can all relate to the idea of “evolving subordinate relationships” we encounter in our daily lives. Though some might argue that the idea of presenting two social classes on the same level “has been done”, I have personally never seen it done in such a simple, artful, and accessible way.

Common Place | Justine Graham and Ruby Rumié

The selection of exhibits is critical to pursuing our mission as a museum. Art, as seen in Common Place, can wield great power in communicating ideas surrounding human rights, development, social class, the environment, and so on.

Next up: Educational Outreach

Art + Impact: AMA

While AMA is not a household name (yet), we actually do a lot of really interesting things outside our gallery walls.

Aside from showcasing amazing art from the Americas, we are also charged with the task of creating a positive impact in the world through our museum's mission as well as our being a part of the Organization of American States (OAS), whose core values are to promote human rights, democracy, justice, and security (if you don't know what the OAS is, you should look it up, it's a pretty cool institution). Our efforts in this area range from the choices we make in selected art for exhibitions to international programs to keep at-risk youth off the streets. Much of these efforts are less visible to the public, but I am going to use this platform to help shed some light on the "behind the scenes" work we are engaged in.

Not a bad neighborhood, huh?

To begin this new series, I'd like to go back a bit and talk about Tent Life: Haiti, a photo exhibition by Wyatt Gallery (a person, not a place). The show took place in the OAS | AMA F Street Gallery at 1889 F Street, NW. Though our gallery space is less known then our museum, we've been receiving quite a bit of positive press on our (usually photography) exhibitions there. Tent Life was no exception. Gallery traveled to Haiti to document the life of displaced Haitians following the devastating 2010 earthquake there.

from "Tent Life: Haiti" by Wyatt Gallery

The series of photographs range from the uplifting to the down-right depressing; however, what binds them together is a candid sense of perseverance. As the Washington City Paper put it, "is it appropriate to find transcendence in photographs of abject poverty?" It's not the kind of work that says "look at these poor, helpless people" nor does it say "look how great they're doing under horrifying conditions", rather it comes across as a well-crafted documentary and calls on the viewer to enter - and empathize with - another human being's experience. During the exhibition, and after, a book with the same title as the exhibit was - and is still - being sold to raise money to support relief efforts in Haiti and all proceeds from the book go to Haiti. The book is really beautiful, contains all the photos from the exhibit, and more photos that we didn’t have room for. (This isn’t a sales pitch, I promise. I bought one for myself. Ok, maybe a bit of a sales pitch, but it’s totally worth it.)

Exhibits like Tent Life: Haiti serve to accomplish many aspects of our mission. We are bringing talented, contemporary artists to Washington, DC, bridging cultural gaps between different cultures of the Americas, as well as promoting a positive impact in the world by creating greater awareness of social issues in our global community. The selection of artwork is probably the most basic of ways the museum accomplishes our mission.

 Next up: One of our current exhibit, Common Place...

Ruby Rumié | Contemporary Art from Chile: Common Place | Artist 2 of 2

Ruby Rumié | www.rubyrumie.cl

Ruby Rumié

Contemporary Art from Chile: Common Place

AMA | Art Museum of the Americas

Artwork

As described in the last post, Rumié's current exhibit on the second floor of AMA, Common Place (Lugar Común), was created together with artist Justine Graham - both of whom are based in Santiago, Chile. The exhibition portrays the evolving subordinate relationship between Latin American housekeepers and their housewife employers, reflecting issues of gender, power, class and race. Comprised of photographs, videos, and surveys of 100 women between the ages of 19 and 95, this project merges art and sociology, and explores new sensorial and emotional experiences in an attempt to discover affinities and differences among participants, separating itself from the bias and stereotypes present in hierarchical relationships. Common Place challenges conventional methods of portraiture and proposes new social constructs.

Video Installation from Common Place | Photograph by Christopher Cunningham

Adriana Ospina, AMA's education coordinator, says of the relationship between housekeepers and their employers in Latin America: "It can very well be a love-hate relationship, the housekeeper can know everything about the housewife, but she needs to respect their boundaries. The exhibit examines the domestic and social dynamic behind the relationship and it opens up a can of worms."

Bio

Ruby Rumié was born in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Since 2005, she has lived and worked between Cartagena de Indias, and Santiago, Chile. She studied painting, drawing, and sculpture at The School of Fine Arts in Cartagena, David Mansur Academy in Bogota, and has participated in numerous workshops with artists such as: Maria Teresa Hincapié, Eugenio Dittborn, Fabian Rendón, and Jean Pierre Accoult. From 1989 to 1996, she worked using a hyper-realistic painting technique to portray portraits of the native people of Cartagena de Indias. After breaking away from the Academy, she started to work with a clear focus on social and territorial heritage, during which she questioned the commitment of the artist to society. 

Her most recent exhibitions include, “Wholesale and Detail”, which addresses the issue of intangible memory through El Cardonal Market in Valparaiso (2009), as a landmark of jobs threatened by the presence of modern hypermarkets. “Gestemani: subject/ object”, a multimedia project about a neighborhood being displaced by real estate development (2003- 2008), exhibited in The Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, The Animal Gallery in Santiago, and The Affordable Art fair in New York. “The Real Things” exhibited within the framework of new curatorial projects of the Caribbean region for the Ministry of Culture, curated by Néstor Martinez Celis. 

Since 1995, she has made multiple posters and prints such as the book, “The Visit”, with serigraphs from 15 Colombian artists, “The Last Letter to a Kidnapped Man”, with 1000 copies for the Boehringer Ingelheim company, the Centennial Commemorative poster “The Gift”, for the Mayor of Cartagena, and finally the poster “The Short Circuit “made for the Institute of Cultural Heritage, to celebrate the festival of the independence of Cartagena de Indias. 

As a teacher she has carried out workshops and diploma courses with institutions such as the Banco de la República and the university Jorge Tadeo Lozano. She recently participated as a teacher in one of three cultural initiatives for social entrepreneurship in the city of Cartagena, created by The American Development Laboratory of the Technological University of Bolivar. 

Justine Graham | Contemporary Art from Chile: Common Place | Artist 1 of 2

Justine Graham | www.yapoproject.cl

Justine Graham

Contemporary Art from Chile: Common Place

AMA | Art Museum of the Americas

Artwork

Graham's current exhibit on the second floor of AMA, Common Place (Lugar Común), was created together with Colombian artist Ruby Rumié - both of whom are based in Santiago, Chile. The exhibition portrays the evolving subordinate relationship between Latin American housekeepers and their housewife employers, reflecting issues of gender, power, class and race. 

detail from Common Place | Photograph by Christopher Cunningham

Comprised of photographs, videos, and surveys of 100 women between the ages of 19 and 95, this project merges art and sociology, and explores new sensorial and emotional experiences in an attempt to discover affinities and differences among participants, separating itself from the bias and stereotypes present in hierarchical relationships. Common Place challenges conventional methods of portraiture and proposes new social constructs.

Bio

Justine Graham (Nice, France, 1976.) is a photographic artist and cultural producer based in Santiago, Chile since 2005. She holds a Masters in Urban Studies, London School of Economics in 2001, Bachelor in Culture & Politics, Georgetown University, 1999, and photography foundation studies at Parsons School of Design, Paris 1995. Justine Graham worked in London as Projects Director for cultural organizations linked to urbanism and architecture from 2001 to 2005. In 2005 she founded YAPO Project in Santiago, Chile, a cultural laboratory dedicated to exploring social, spatial and cultural issues of identity through multi-disciplinary projects (www.yapoproject.cl). She is Photography Professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile’s School of Design. 


Graham is also currently exhibiting her first solo show in one of Santiago’s premier contemporary art spaces (Sala Gasco), which can be seen here. There's also small "making-of" video of this installation ( of more that 8,600 postcards!) and can be viewed here.


Recent exhibits include: Common Place (Lugar Común) (with Ruby Rumié, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC 2011), An Imaginary Atlas of Santiago de Chile (Sala Gasco Arte Contemporáneo, 2011), Ripping (with Ruby Rumié, Centro de Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 2010), Lugar Común: 100 women (with Ruby Rumié, Museo de Artes Visuales, Santiago, 2010), Geography of Work: Photographs of Chilean Workers (Museo de Bellas Artes, 2008). She recently published her first 400-page book, Atlas Imaginario de Santiago de Chile, documenting 6 years of Santiago’s informal urban landscape.