NO BLACK / NO WHITE (NO AND)
2017 Grants & Commissions Exhibition Program
CIFO Art Space, Miami | September 7th - November 5th 2017
No black / No white (no and) will exhibit works from the 2017 Grants & Commissions Program awarded recipients. The exhibition, the title of which references a statement written by John Cage in 1953 in response to Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings (1951), presents works that reflect the reality faced in Latin America today. Now more than ever, perspectives of the geopolitical, social, economic, and cultural structures of Latin American art production and its place in the market are placed within a global context. No black / No white (no and) will exhibit the work of the nine award recipients from six countries, divided into three categories: the Achievement Award, given to Mexican-American multi media artist Daniel Joseph Martinez; Mid-Career Artists—Richard Garet (Uruguay) and Fredy Alzate (Colombia); and Emerging Artists—Ilich Castillo (Ecuador), Alana Iturralde (Puerto Rico), Juan Carlos Osorno (Colombia), the duo Celia & Yunior (Cuba), Katherinne Fiedler (Peru) and Ulrik López (Puerto Rico).
The aesthetic of the works presented by this year’s artists are indicative of current issues in Latin America and is made evident by Achievement Award winner, Daniel Joseph Martinez, an LA-based artist whose Mexican-American roots allow for an exploration of violence on a global scale. With previous works being shown alongside new pieces created for this exhibition, the mini-retrospective grasps ideas that expand the field of identification and create a new cartography. Some of his works that address the issues of black/white in a more direct manner, for example, the museum tags he created for the 1993 Whitney Biennial that read “I Can’t Imagine Ever Wanting to be White”, will also be presented in the exhibition.
The work of mid-career Award winners Richard Garet and Fredy Alzate investigate contemporary realities in both urban structures and isolated communities respectively. Garet’s work approaches how people deal with sound when living in a city. By placing his work within the walls of the exhibition space, he creates an interactive piece where the audience must approach the wall to hear what is going on “on the other side”. Alzate’s large-scale sculptures replicate voids left by mining done in the outskirts of cities throughout Colombia and allude to the relationship between nature and the economic and political dimension created by human action.
Other projects by Emerging Award winners include an arrangement of reappropriated found objects by Ilich Castillo, which forces viewers to question the representation of a material’s use, an installation of ceramics and embroidery by Alana Iturralde, which examines and studies the process of art making, an investigation on the various departments at the University of Havana by duo Celia & Yunior, a 3-channel video installation depicting the erosion caused by mining practices in archaeological sites in Peru by Katherinne Fiedler, both fine drawings and sculptures by Juan Osorno created to imitate historically failed human inventions which bring to light the need for both progress and failure, and Ulrik López’s decorative brick column which invites viewers to closely observe the sculptures inside, and indicator of the isolation of the Caribbean Islands.
During this exhibition, the Foundation will also debut the publication No black / No white (no and) – On Latin American Art in the 21st Century on October 20, 2017, which includes a selection of historical works from CIFO’s Grants & Commission Program Award recipients, as well as essays by renowned art historians José Roca and Cuauhtémoc Medina. A CIFO Talk in collaboration with the New World School of the Arts is also scheduled for that day featuring guest speaker Daniel Joseph Martinez Achievement Award recipient.
Special thanks to our program sponsor:
