ART BASEL BOOTH R17 O M R Córdoba 100, colonia Roma. México D.F. 1
Artists Matti Braun, GER 1968 Jose Dávila, MX 1974 Yann Gerstberger, FR 1983 Artur Lescher, BR 1962 Jorge Méndez Blake, MX 1974 Gabriel Rico, MX 1980 Troika, UK 2003 James Turrell, USA 1943
JOSE DÁVILA Guadalajara, Mexico, 1974 Lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico The work of Jose Dávila reflects upon the legacy of major movements in art and architecture in the twentieth century. Informed by his training as an architect, Dávila approaches the crucial contradictions between form and function. Located between homage, imitation, and critique, the artist references modern architecture, urbanism, and milestones in mid-century and contemporary art, pointing to both their forecasts and failures. Dávila claims that a moving structure maintains a sense of order in what seems unstable but still belongs to the realm of chaos. Different to other artistic processes in which the material is changed or manipulated, Dávila s new work, Joint Effort, does not depend on modifying the material s original state, but rather on its reorganization. In this way, the artist s role is more that of a catalyzer, who facilitates the processes between already existent forces. The dialogues Dávila activates depend on a series of variables and objects: the space in which he works, the materials, the textures, the weights, and the way these weights interact with each other, along with the materials that bind them together. Selected Exhibitions: Mecánica de lo inestable, Galería OMR, Mexico City (2018). Sense of Place, LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, Los Angeles, USA (2017/18). Die Feder und der Elefant, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany (2017). BALTIC Artists Award 2017, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, UK (2017). Every Blind Wondering Ends in a Circle, Blueproject Foundation Barcelona, Spain (2017). Jose Dávila: EL OBJETO Y EL ENTORNO, Museo Jumex, Mexico city, Mexico (2016). The Elephant and the Feather, Marfa Contemporary, Marfa, US (2016). Selected Collections: Albright-Knox Museum. Coleccion DKV. Collection Inhotim. Colección FEMSA. Collection Krauss. Colección Teixeira da Freitas. Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Jumex Collection. La Caixa Foundation. The Marciano Art Collection. MUAC (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo), Mexico. MUDAM, Musee D art Moderne Luxembourg. Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico. Reina Sofía Museo Nacional de Arte. Coleçao Pereira.
Homage To The Square, 2018 Stainless steel frames, epoxy paint and wire 90 x 90 cm
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Included in his most recent exhibition at OMR, Dávila s sculpture, The Act of Perseverance, is based on the arrangement and overlapping of common construction materials such as boulders, metal, steel, concrete and marble, kept in perfect balance addressing the neverending struggle against the force of gravity. The Act of Perseverance, 2018 Quarry, volcanic rock, and ratchet strap 173 x 75 x 40 cm
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Joint Effort, 2018 Mirrors, boulders, and ratchet straps 150 x 302.5 x 298.5 cm
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Topologies of Projection, 2018 Archival pigment print 208 x 222 cm Edition of 4, +1 AP
Dávila s photographic cutouts attest an interest in the indeterminacy of viewing as consuming, when the proliferation of images is constantly testing our sense of place or time as viewers in order to construct history. By piercing or cutting out the central subject in documentary photography, he compels the viewer to imagine, as an act of creativity, that which appeals to the common universal memory. This series of works opens up into independent research lines: Cowboys based on works by Richard Prince; Topologies of Identity, private life, or light; buildings you must see before you die; moments of equilibrium; works by Roy Liechtenstein or Picasso - and in the new work presented at this year s Art Basel, reflexions on sculptural artworks including Duchamp and Flavin. O M R Córdoba 100, colonia Roma. México D.F. 13
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GABRIEL RICO Lagos de Moreno, Mexico, 1980 Lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico Gabriel Rico s work is developed in a zone in which one object crisscrosses with another in the inter-objective configuration space. By using his fascination with philosophical analogies and scientific disciplines, Rico creates pieces that fragment the composition of the contemporary human and evidence the geometric imperfection in nature using the gedanken experiments like beginning. Rico s work aims to refer to a reflection on the nature of the materials used to produce them and their arrangement in the final composition. Gabriel Rico been influenced by the sciences that study form and space; He considers himself a believer in matter, an ontologist with a heuristic methodology - sometimes using technological tools and scientific models as metaphors for collective memory. Deconstruction and recontextualization are methods by which he continues the development of his investigation in areas such as knowledge materializations and the fragility of space. Selected Exhibitions: One Law for the Lion &The Ox is Oppression, Galerie Perrotin, NYC (2017). PROXIMIDAD, The Power Station, Dallas, USA (2017). DEAD, DEAD, LIVE, DEAD, ASU Art Museum, Tempe, USA (2017). The Queen Falls, Galería OMR, Mexico City (2017). VIS VIVA, Gyeonggi Creation Center, Asnan-do, South Korea (2016). +52. Paísajes recientes, Fundación Calosa, Guanajuato, Mexico (2016). Selected Collections: Korean Ceramic Foundation (KOCEF). Patricia Marshall Collection. ArtNexus Foundation, Colombia/USA. Associated Collection Centro de Arte Tomas & Valiente / Museo Reina Sofía, Frans Mesereel Centrum (FMC), Belgium. Private collection Patrick Charpenel, Mexico.
I, 2018 Glass, brass, feathers, rock, various balls & bone handle knife 116 x 205 x 128 cm
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The principle of these pieces is to achieve a syncopated rhythm from the elements that compose them. They are pieces that consider the abstraction generated by a metric in the accommodation of the elements, as a principle for the uncertainty that is presented at the time when the mind begins to visualize the different forms between them - and after a few moments observing it, the different materials of which they are made are evidenced. It is a visual game between the image generated by first impression when seeing the piece and the last image you saw - as if the process of observation itself was the one that discovered, little by little, the aesthetic benefits of the elements that are used in the sculptures. O M R Córdoba 100, colonia Roma. México D.F. 18
Doce, 2018 Wooden meat, porcelain bird, shell, plastic grapes, glass bottle, brass, horse shoe, ceramic plate, branch, neon, leaf 60 x 190 x 4 cm
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JORGE MÉNDEZ BLAKE Guadalajara, Mexico, 1974 Lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico From the beginning of his career, Jorge Méndez Blake has explored the connections between literature and fine arts, developing a large and varied body of work that alludes to the great masters of universal literature. In his work, Méndez Blake develops a visual language to engage classical literature through installations, drawings and interventions based on a multifaceted concept of the library. Not just a repository of accumulated information, the library is seen to have infinite formal possibilities, a living institution whose purpose is the preservation of books and the dissemination of knowledge. Selected Exhibitions: A Message From the Emperor, Marfa Contemporary, Marfa, Texas (2017). Apollinaire s Misspell and Other Calligrams, Meessen De Clercq, Brussels, Belgium (2017). Derniers usage de la littérature, Frac Franche-Comté, France (2017). Du verbe à la communication, Carré d art, Nîmes, France (2017). NGV Triennal, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (2017). The Queen Falls, Galería OMR, Mexico City, Mexico (2017). Ventana Poniente, Galería OMR, Mexico City (2016). Selected Collections: Jumex Collection. Colección Televisa. Colección Coppel. Colección Suro. National Gallery of Victoria, Australia. Museo Amparo. r/e Collection. 21C Museum. Fundación Calosa. MUAC (Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo), Mexico. Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. Deutsche Bank Collection. Sayago & Pardon Collection.
A series of paintings based on Xavier Villaurrutia s book Nostalgia de la muerte (1938) in which the poet includes seventeen Nocturnos. Each panel uses all the letters and punctuation symbols of a specific Nocturno, transforming the original poem into a composition based in an imperfect grid. Desmantelando a Villaurrutia (Nostalgia de la muerte. Nocturno de la alcoba), 2018 Acrylic on linen 152.3 x 122 cm
The neon series, The Adages of Erasmus, a selection in Latin out of the more than 3,000 adages compiled by Erasmus of Rotterdam. This selection alludes to its timely relevance in reference to war and abuse of power. For more than 30 years, Erasmus gathered approximately 3,000 classic and popular adages. Published in 1540, Adagiorum Chiliade became one of the most popular books in the first half of the 16th century, until it was prohibited like all Erasmus artworks by the Council of Trent in 1562, as was included in the Index of Forbidden Books (Index librorum prohibitorum). Adages of Erasmus (Power and War), 2018 Neon 9 pieces of varying dimensions
Adages of Erasmus (Man is Wolf to Man), 2018 Neon 8 x 96.21 cm
Adages of Erasmus (Man is a God to Man), 2018 Neon 8 x 87.6 cm O M R Córdoba 100, colonia Roma. México D.F. 25
This drawing portrays the cover of the book News from Nowhere, published by William Morris in 1890. The book describes a utopic Socialist society, based on common property, democratization of the production mediums and the integration of art, nature and work. The lights inside the house on the cover ( Kelmscott House, from where the name of Morris editorial came from, Kelmscott Press) suggest to urgently ponder on ideal societies, work and Marxism. Back in the House (News from Nowhere. William Morris), 2018 Colored pencil on paper 200 x 140 cm
YANN GERSTBERGER Cagnes sur Mer, France, 1983 Lives and works in Mexico City Gertsberger s series of textile tapestries depict narratives inspired by patterns found in Mexican popular culture, art history and nature. These works are produced with an original technique conceived by the artist: he glues fibers of cotton (mops, originally) onto vinyl to form colorful surfaces, mixed with industrial fabric, preferably patterned or textured that he finds in markets in the city. The cotton fibers are dyed by hand, using a mixture of natural mexican dyes such as cochineal, and industrial ones like Citocol, the most basic dye that can be found in the supermarket. Yann Gerstberger builds through his tapestries and paintings a vernacular vocabulary referencing the Fábulas Pánicas of Jodorowsky, the fantasy of the tropical seen from Europe, postgraffiti and the history of abstraction and its repertoire of ambiguous and mystical shapes. For this year s Art Basel, we are pleased to present a site-specific mural by Yann Gerstberger. Measuring 11 metres in length, the mural will act as a background for the tapestry works to be displayed. Selected Projects & Exhibitions: Attaraya, Sorry We re Closed, Brussels, BE (2018). Dwelling Poetically: Mexico City, a Case Study, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Southbank, Australia (2018). Black Palms, Salon Acme, Mexico City (2018). TT52, with Trudy Benson, Lyles and King, New York City (2017). Travis, Michael Jon Gallery, Miami, (2017). Gravillons, with Julien Goniche, Tonus, Paris, (2015). GUERRE DU FEU STYLE, Sorry We Are Closed, Brussels, BE (2014). Collections: Pérez Art Museum, Miami. Kamel Lazaar Foundation.
Untitled, 2018 Textile tapestry 250 x 220 cm
Untitled, 2018 Textile tapestry 250 x 220 cm
Untitled, 2018 Textile tapestry 250 x 220 cm
ARTUR LESCHER São Paulo, Brazil, 1962 Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. Artur Lescher s works attest to his constant experimentation with materials, their physical qualities and objectual characteristics. Through his works, the artist makes constant reference to natural elements, which when reproduced impeccably by means of industrial processes, reveal and deny these real allusions. Every work that I do starts from a set of formal grammatical relations, which is to say that the choice of materials, the ways they relate to each other and the mechanisms they interact with. The engineering of the work is very important. This all serves a purpose that may become clear during the process of construction. The awareness that these relations evoke beyond formal relations is something that I pay close attention to, in doing the work I seek to leave the discourse clear. -Artur Lescher Selected Exhibitions: Alignments, IK LAB, Tulum, Mexico (2018). Porticus, Palais d léna as part of FIAC 2017, Paris, France (2017). Inner Landscape, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Punta Del Este, Uruguay (2016). Provisório Permanente-Lux, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil (2016). Universo, curated by Fábio Faisal, Carbono Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil (2015). The Nostalgia of the Engineer, Galería OMR, Mexico City, Mexico (2014). Selected collections: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Instituto Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro. Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. Museu de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection.
Itze, 2017 Aluminum and anodized aluminum 220 x 12 cm Edition of 5, +2 AP
Arturo, 2017 Brass and multifilament threads 180 x 30 cm Edition of 5, +2 AP
TROIKA Troika was founded in 2003 Live and work in London, UK Troika is a London-based studio known for their experimental practice that employ a cross-disciplinary approach, intersecting between sculpture, architecture, and contemporary installation. With a particular interest in perception and spatial experience, many of Troika s works employ technology and draw inspiration from fundamental scientific, optical and mechanical principles. Exploring the intersection of rational thought and observation, they consider the changing nature of reality and human experience. Selected Exhibitions and Projects: Borrowed Light, Barbican Centre, London (2018). Coder le Monde, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018). Compression Loss, Galería OMR, Mexico City, (2017). Glitches, Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam, (2017). Corridor III: Valdemar DaaViborg Kunsthal, Viborg, DK (2017). Art Light, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London (2017). Everyday Abstract, Vejle Museum of Art, Vejle, DK (2017). The Hum, Caustic Coastal, Salford, UK (2017). Drawing Biennial 2017, Drawing Room, London (2017). ARTEFACT EXPO: The Act of Magic, STUK, Leuven, BE (2017). Everything Is and Isn t at the Same Time, Galerie Huit, Hong Kong (2016). Limits of a Known Territory, NC Arte, Bogotá, CO (2017). Selected collections: Israel Museum. The Art Institute of Chicago. MoMA. British Council Collection. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. M+, Hong Kong. Jumex Collection. Drake Collection, Wassenaar, NL. Collection of Rafael Nieto Loaiza.
Reality is Not Always Probable, 2018 21,542 10mm White Dice 162.4 x 121 x 4 cm O M R Córdoba 100, colonia Roma. México D.F. 38
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Reality is Not Always Probable is constructed from tens of thousands of white dice and is generated, line by line, by manually emulating the rules of a simple computer binary program. Its title references a quote by Jorge Luis Borges and men s disquiet towards a lack of controllable or predictable events and the belief that complete knowledge is impossible. The works originate from the artists interest in the human experience of digital production and the shift away from the material towards the virtual, the networked, the digital towards a new everyday reality, in which the material and immaterial are increasingly interchangeable, compressed and flattened into one plane of experience, as if all of life could be reduced to 1s and 0s. It is part of a recent series of works in which Troika adapt systems and methods, such as computer algorithms or mathematical sequences, that are borrowed from the virtual backbone to our physical world. Using everyday materials such as copper and high tech tape or, here, dice to simulate digital sequences, these works are physical reenactments of what is increasingly invisible. They reflect on the ways how the digital world increasingly reaches out into the physical one. The use of dice refers back to the historical use of dice as a means of determining fate, chance and luck. In restricting the visible numbers on the dice to 1 and 6, Troika have reduced the random potential of numbers to a binary outcome. Reality is Not Always Probable, 2018 7mm White Dice 63 x 45.5 x 2.8 cm
Virtual Failure, 2018 50,000 colored dice 498 x 100 x 1.6 cm
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Virtual Failure is a suspended tapestry-like construction made of thousands of coloured dice. The work was constructed by manually assembling the dice according to algorithmic rules. These self-imposed rules were inspired by a mathematical concept and evolutionary algorithm first discovered in the 1940 s and that became the precursor to the digital computer and, at its time, was meant to simulate ungraspable amounts of data and unlock the mysteries of all life form. The work originates from the artists interest in the human experience of digital production and the shift away from the material towards the virtual, the networked, the digital. It is part of a recent series of works in which Troika adapt systems and methods, such as computer algorithms or mathematical sequences, that are borrowed from the virtual backbone to our physical world. Using everyday materials such as copper and high tech tape, or as seen here, dice to simulate digital sequences, these works are physical reenactments of what is increasingly invisible. They reflect on the ways how the digital world ultimately reaches out into the physical one.
MATTI BRAUN Berlin, Germany, 1968 Lives and works in Cologne, Germany Matti Braun s work is characterized by a constant negotiation between concrete references and general allusions, between poetic ephemerality and an uncanny sense of visceral immediacy. Braun has harnessed his interests to post-colonial discourse and notions of globalization: most of the works suggest the migration of goods, skills or ideas. This interest, combined with feverish research, allows Braun to move rapidly between motifs of trans-nationalism from 19thcentury textile trading to the 20th-century Négritude movement. Yet, for all its expansiveness, the logic of these quick-fire references is very contemporary: the associative textuality of the Internet and modern communications technology. This new group of tableau-like works that result from experiments with pigmented concrete creates an intentional reversal of relations between inside and outside. The underlying narrative logic is not intended to explain the significance of the individual pieces but instead to demonstrate their polysemy. Braun s work is about the inability of objects to contain the meaning with which we burden them, drawing attention to the multiplicity of interpretations with which our personal and cultural histories imbue perception. Selected Exhibitions: R.T./S.R./V.S., Rubin Museum of Art, New York (2017). Singale Sugat, BQ, Berlín (2017). Sol Bol, Galería OMR, Mexico (2016). Matti Braun, Kunstverein Heilbronn (2016). Salo, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany (2010) Salo, La Galerie, Contemporary Art Center, Noisy-le-Sec, France (2010). Selected Collections: Bundeskunstsammlung / Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Cranford Collection, London. KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki. Kadist Foundation, Paris. The Dallas Cowboys Art Collection.
Untitled, 2017 Concrete, ironoxide pigments, varnished steel 70 x 60 x 1 cm O M R Córdoba 100, colonia Roma. México D.F. 46
Untitled, 2017 Concrete, ironoxide pigments, varnished steel 70 x 60 x 1 cm
JAMES TURRELL Los Angeles, California, 1943 Lives and works in Los Angeles, California, USA For more than half a century, James Turrell has worked directly with light and space to create artworks that engage the viewer with the limits of human perception. Informed by his training in perceptual psychology and a childhood fascination with light, Turrell began experimenting with light as a medium in the mid-1960 s. In 1977 Turrell began a monumental project at Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in northern Arizona. Turrell has sculpted the dimensions of the crater bowl and cut a series of chambers, tunnels and apertures within the volcano that heighten our sense of the heavens and earth. While Roden Crater is not yet open to the public, Turrell has installed works in twenty-two countries and in seventeen US states that are open to the public or can be viewed by appointment. Agua de Luz, a series of Skyspaces and pools constructed within a pyramid in the Yucatán, and forthcoming projects around the world, from Ras al-khaimah to Tasmania, integrate many of the principles and features embedded within Roden Crater. Selected Exhibitions: LightScape: James Turrell at Houghton, Houghton Hall, Norfolk, UK (2015). James Turrell: A Retrospective, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, IL (2014). James Turrell: A Retrospective, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, AUS (2014). James Turrell, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, US (2013). James Turrell: The Light Inside, MFAH Houston, US (2013). James Turrell. A Retrospective, LACMA, Los Angeles, US (2013). Selected Collections: Bank of America Collection. Brooklyn Museum of Art. Château de Rochechouart. Chicago Art Institute. Contemporary Art Museum, Los Angeles. Corporation Benness, Naoshima, Japan. Fondation Cartier pour l Art Contemporain. Fondation Dia Art. Fondacion La Caixa. Fondation Skystone, Flagstaff, USA. Los Angeles County Museum of Art - LACMA. MoMA. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Roden Crater Fumarole Space and Walkways, 1995 Lithography (4-part folder) Ed. 5/20 37.5 x 40.5 cm Each Roden Crater, located in the Painted Desert region of Northern Arizona, is an unprecedented largescale artwork created within a volcanic cinder cone by light and space artist James Turrell. Representing the culmination of the artist s lifelong research in the field of human visual and psychological perception, Roden Crater is a controlled environment for the experiencing and contemplation of light. While minimally invasive to the external natural landscape, internally the red and black cinder has been transformed into special engineered spaces where the cycles of geologic and celestial time can be directly experienced. Roden Crater is a gateway to the contemplation of light, time and landscape. It is the magnum opus of James Turrell s career, a work that, besides being a monument to land art, functions as a naked eye observatory of earthly and celestial events that are both predictable and continually in flux. Constructed to last for centuries to come, Roden Crater links the physical and the ephemeral, the objective with the subjective, in a transformative sensory experience.
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