Dada las Circunstancias
Curator: Silvia Benedetti
Artists: Valerie Brathwaite, Gabriel Chaile, Livia Corona, Renata del Riego, Pierre Dumont, Patricia Esquivias, Dolores Furtado, Trevor King, Cristobal Lehyt, Margarita Mora, and Gabriela Vainsencher
Date: September 29th - October 28th 2023
Opening Rececption: October 3rd, 6-8pm
Gallery: Abrazo Gallery
Since prehistoric cultures, the properties of certain materials - such as stones, clay, metals, and glass - have been used to manufacture utilitarian objects and buildings that are more durable than precarious. In a way, these objects and constructions defied the human life cycle, since in many cases they lasted much longer than the average life span of a human being. Dadas las circunstancias [Considering the Given Facts] presents a selection of works that narrate or reconstruct stories, experiences, situations, or traditions that the artists attempt to make endure over time. The idea is to present the tension and fragility that exists between the materials and the stories that try to last but in the end, everything fades away.
The Clemente Presents Dadas las Circunstancias [Given the circumstances]
This exhibition shares how a series of artists in their work deals with the tension and fragility that exists between the materials and the memory that try to last but in the end, everything fades away.
On view from September 29th through October 28th, 2023
At The Clemente’s Abrazo Gallery, 107 Suffolk Street, NYC
Organized by/Curated by Silvia Benedetti
Press Preview: By appointment, contact silvibenedetti@gmail.com
This exhibition will be accompanied by a series of artist talks. The Clemente will host a series in-person, and virtual programs accompanying the show including free tours.
About the Curator:
Silvia Benedetti (b. 1985, Caracas) lives and works in New York
Silvia Benedetti is an independent curator and writer primarily focused on opportunities to reassess critically and contextualize the work of peripheral creators in a global ambit. Some of her previous work experience includes curatorial and research positions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Dia Art Foundation, and Fundación Gego. Her writings have appeared in museum catalogs and publications such as Artforum and Hyperallergic. She holds an MA in Art History and Curatorial Studies from Hunter College and an undergraduate degree in Communications and Journalism from Universidad Monteávila in Caracas.
Artist's Bio’s:
Valerie Brathwaite (b. 1940 Trinidad and Tobago) lives and works in Caracas.
Valerie Brathwaite studied at Hornsey College of Art and The Royal College of Art in London and at The Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. First and foremost a sculptor, she also works in printmaking, painting and drawing. She creates forms of organic abstraction using simple sculptural volumes and sinuous lines, resembling the flora and fauna of the Caribbean. In1969 she moved to Venezuela, and since has shown her work at Periférico Caracas, Caracas (2008); Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago in Port of Spain (2010); Galería G7,Cento de Arte los Galpones, Caracas (2011); CAF Development Bank of Latin America, Caracas (2012);Oficina#1, Centro Los Galpones, Caracas (2014). Her work is in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, The National Art Gallery, the Alejandro Otero Museum, all in Caracas and The Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C.
Gabriel Chaile (b. 1985 in Tucumán, Argentina) lives and work in Lisboa
In the works of Gabriel Chaile there is a critical- poetical intersection between anthropology, the sacred and its rituals, the political, and pre-Columbian communities of South America, interpreted artistically and with a certain eccentricity and sense of humor. He studied Visual Arts at the National University of Tucumán. In 2009 he was awarded with a scholarship by Fundación YPF which allowed him to be a part of the 1rst edition of the Artist Program of Torcuato Di Tella University. In 2010 he was selected to participate of Lipac, an art program by Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas. His latest works include Mamá Luchona (Triennial: Soft Water Hard Stone, New Museum New York, 2021)Esta canción ya tuvo aplausos (ChertLudde, Berlín 2019), Genealogía de la forma (Barro, Buenos Aires, 2019), Diego, curated by Cecilia Alemani (Art Basel Cities, Buenos Aires, 2018), Sonia (El ondulatorio, La Rioja, 2018), and Proto, a movie by Gabriel Chaile (Galería Ruby, Buenos Aires, 2017).
Livia Corona (b. 1975, Ensenada, Mexico) lives and works in New York.
Livia Corona Benjamin is a Guggenheim Fellow with her project Two Million Homes for Mexico (Dos Millones de Casas para México). She is a twice honored recipient of a SNCA Endowment for the Arts, granted by Mexico’s Commission of Arts and Culture, most recently for her body of work, Nobody Knows, Nobody Knew (Nadie Sabe, Nadie Supo). Comprised of photograms, paintings, videos, and other types of pictorial objects, Nobody Knows, Nobody Knew explores the socioeconomic history and political symbolism of “grain silos for the people” — graneros del pueblo — the more than 4,000 conical-shaped structures built in rural communities nationwide by Mexico's Commission for Popular Subsistence. Corona's project considers the subsequent disuse of these silos in the wake of NAFTA, and the consequent mass migration of people from rural Mexico to the United States.
Her works have been exhibited worldwide including LACMA, Los Angeles; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Bronx Museum of The Arts, New York; Pinakothek der Moderne, Münich; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Spain; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles, Belgium; Ballroom Marfa, Texas; Fundación Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Københavns Museum, Denmark; the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA 2017 exhibition titled Home - So Different, So Appealing, and the exhibition Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art, at the Whitney Museum of American
Her works are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Portland Museum of Art, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, the William Benton Museum of Art, the Berezdivin Collection and other private collections. She is the author of two monographs, Enanitos Toreros, 2008, and Of People and Houses, 2009, and is preparing a third book on her acclaimed series Two Million Homes for Mexico.
Renata del Riego (b. 1998, Mexico City and raised in Tijuana) and lives in New York
Renata Del Riego holds a BA in Visual Arts and Sociocultural Anthropology from Columbia University. Her work explores the connection between matter and language; the written and the woven; word and memory. Using primarily natural fibers, handmade paper, cement, and stone, her approach to materials is both linguistic and physical: thread and meaning, both multilayered and encoded, both capable of being dismembered, rearranged, unraveled, and put back together. Her work is currently on view at NASL Gallery in Mexico City.
Pierre Dumont (b. 1958, Lieja, Belgium) lives and work in Caracas
He holds a degree in Psychology from Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium (1983) and a Master in Philosophy from Universidad Simón Bolivar (1996). He taught Psychology in the School of Sociology at Universidad Central. From 2012–2017, Dumont participated in a number of workshops at Roberto Mata Taller de Fotografía in Caracas and in 2018 participated in experimental photographic processes workshops at Tipia Lab in Bogota, Colombia. In 2018 Dumont founded Terra D'ombra, a laboratory for alternative photographic processes and has conducted hundreds of experiments to develop different techniques such as classic and new cyanotype, argyrotype, chrysotype, platinum-palladium, gum bichromate, and wet collodion. Since 2021, he has taught workshops on cyanotype and kallitype. His solo exhibitions include: Agua fuerte, Carmen Araujo Arte, Hacienda la Trinidad, Caracas (2023), Pierre Dumont viajero del tiempo: Parque Henri Pittier, Casa de la Hacienda la Trinidad, Caracas (2020) and Noches sin noche, Galeria Tresy3, Caracas (2018). In 2018 he received a price from the European Union in Caracas.
Patricia Esquivias (b. 1979, Caracas) lives and works in Madrid
The artist creates videos that weave found images, history, and personal anecdotes into narratives that convey her insights about contemporary culture. Her video works are conceived as a form of storytelling, where the artist’s voice is used as the narrator who talks about different subjects, both historic and every day. Esquivias’ work expresses a certain desire to explain something in a melancholic, hesitant, and humorous tone.
Patricia graduated in Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (London), and received her MFA from California College of Arts (San Francisco). The artist has shown work in the 5th Berlin Biennale, and exhibited widely internationally, including Museo de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), Royal College of Art (London) and Instituto Itaú Cultural in São Paulo. Esquivias has won several residencies and prizes, including the Generation 09 prize from Caja Madrid.
Dolores Furtado (b. 1977, Buenos Aires) lives and works in New York
Dolores Furtado is a sculptor who creates work that focuses on materiality. She uses technical research and experimentation to create forms that expose the unique qualities of her materials and views her sculptures as the documentation of process and action.
Furtado studied art at the Universidad di Tella. She has been an artist in residence with AIR on Governor’s Island, the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, and the Pouch Cove Visual Artist Residency. Furtado has also won the Jerome Foundation Fellowship. Her work has been in solo and group exhibitions at: Kingsborough Art Museum (Brooklyn, NY; 2019), Vasari Gallery (Buenos Aires, Argentina; 2018), Clemente Soto Cultural Center (New York, NY; 2017), the Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York, NY; 2017) and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires (Argentina; 2016). Furtado will develop a series of 15 medium-scale ceramic sculptures based on her previous experiments casting paper pulp. This will be her first foray into working with clay. She will make this series by creating molds of her paper sculptures and casting them in clay during her residency at the Pottery.
Trevor King (b. 1988, Butler, Pennsylvania) lives and works in New York
Ranging from large-scale installations to highly intimate objects, his artworks occur within open-ended, immersive projects that ruminate on the endurance of the human spirit in the face of time and mortality. He was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, a small mill town that experienced a greater than 58% job loss from the 1950s to the 2000s. King attributes this postindustrial landscape to his interests in sculpture and craft techniques, themes of the mundane, lowbrow, or commonplace, and the sensory experiences of stillness, vacancy, and resonance. King received a BFA from Slippery Rock University in 2011 and an MFA from the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan in 2015. He also studied in the Sculpture and Intermedia Departments at the University of Poznan, Poland in 2010. He has been an artist-in-residence at Ox-Bow School of Art, Haystack Mountain School, Sculpture Space NYC, Greenwich House Pottery, MASS MoCA, and the Hambidge Center. In 2018 he was a fellow in the AIM program at the Bronx Museum. His work has been exhibited nationally including recent exhibitions at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles, California, and STILLNESSNESS, a solo exhibition at Emmanuel Barbault Gallery in New York.
Cristobal Lehyt (b. 1973, Santiago de Chile) lives and works in New York
He studied at Universidad Católica de Chile, Hunter College and the Whitney Independent Study Program. His work has been shown at the Carpenter Center, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Fundación Telefónica Chile, Or Gallery, Kunsthaus Dresden, Artists Space, The Shanghai Biennale, The Mercosul Biennial, The Whitney Museum of American Art and Queens Museum among others. In addition, he has produced works responding to specific contexts, in cities that include Bogotá, Caracas, Mexico City, Berlin, Vienna, Barcelona, Madrid, Beijing, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro. He has been awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the Art Forum Fellowship, Harvard University. His work is in numerous collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art Santiago, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Margarita Mora (b. 1935, Mitibibó, Venezuela) lives and work in Mucuchies, Venezuela
Margarita Mora learned as a child in the family environment the tasks of preparing wool: shearing, washing and spinning. At the age of 20 she learned to weave with her father-in-law in the Venezuelan Andes. For more than six decades, has produced unique pieces and her designs range from traditional wefts to new proposals with discreet motifs, among which stand out "hands" with precise silhouettes and her masterful use of natural dyes. In 2018, she participated in the exhibition Tramas Andinas: Tradición e innovación en la colección de textiles de Barbara Brándli at Sala TAC in Caracas. Along with Dora Sánchez, she taught at the Mucuchíes school of arts and at the Escuela de Labores Arte y Oficio Moconoque.
Gabriela Vainsencher (b. 1982, Buenos Aires and raised in Tel Aviv) lives in Montclair, New Jersey
She received her MFA from Hunter College in 2016. Past solo and two-person exhibitions include CRUSH Curatorial gallery, NY, NY, A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Hanina Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel; Musée d’Art Moderne André Malraux, Le Havre, France; Parker’s Box Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; NurtureArt, NY; and La Chambre Blanche, Québec City, Canada. Her work has been included in group exhibitions including AIM Biennial 2021 Bronx Museum of the Arts, Marisa Newman Projects, NY, NY, Bergamo Modern and Contemporary Art, Italy; Kunstforening, Tromsø, Norway; Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, The Freies Museum, Berlin and The National Gallery of Saskatchewan, Canada. Residencies include Yaddo, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, Byrdcliffe Artist Residency, Woodstock (USA), Triangle Arts Association (France), and La Chambre Blanche (Canada).