Eugenio Espinosa: Going Blind Faith
November 3 – December 22, 2013
Blackston
New York, NY, USA

Blackston is pleased to present Going Blind Faith, Eugenio Espinoza’’s first solo exhibition in New York.

In this exhibition Espinoza presents recent sculptural works that embody the artist’s interest in using simple means to construct a system based on contingencies that emphasize dissonance and equilibrium. The wall pieces in the gallery employ painted and manipulated aluminum sheets layered and balanced, seemingly precariously, on household shelf brackets of varying sizes. Other painted oil on aluminum works lean against the gallery’s walls – balancing at a single point or against the length of one wall. The six gray metal cubes in the center of the gallery are spare testimonies to a focus on repetition and space in the artist’s practice.

Painted monochromatic brushstrokes and grid-like patterns emphasize the hybridization of painting and sculpture, yet each surface remains somewhat unfinished, raw, and devoid of seamlessness. These sculptural works confirm their existence as objects yet embrace a grit that rejects a straightforward acceptance of their aesthetic condition or whole. The choice of supports assails the apparent simplicity of the pieces – and possibly their direct appeal. Each work in the exhibition provides its own counterpoint to resolution, and in this tension a new dynamic is created. As a result, the experiential qualities of the works emerge to both enhance and reject their deceptive simplicity, collapsing aesthetic notions and evidencing the artist’s considered practice.

In the rear of the gallery a minimal black and white painting references the lineage of Espinoza’s practice: iterations of the artist’s black and white geometric paintings have continuously appeared in his canon since his seminal piece “Impenetrable” – a painted black and white grid floor canvas suspended parallel to the floor of an entire room at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, Venezuela in 1972.

The “Impenetrable” (in the permanent collection of the Tate Modern, London) was Espinoza’s response to a strong orthodoxy in geometric abstraction prevalent in Venezuela at that time and is and was celebrated as a groundbreaking and radical conceptual piece, taking the orderliness of geometric form into the wild territory of the experiential.

Since the late 1960s, Espinoza has perpetually challenged, explored and embraced art historical conventions in his prodigious output of installations, photography, paintings, drawings and sculptures. Espinoza’s practice evidences a profound and rigorous conceptual exploration of modernist traditions (Minimalism, Arte Povera, Geometric Abstraction) and an equally powerful conceptual and physical reworking of his own oeuvre and challenging aestheticism.

In conjunction with this exhibition a catalogue has been produced with essays by Gean Moreno and Jesus Fuenmayor, Director and Curator of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation.

Eugenio Espinoza was born in 1950 in San Juan de los Morros, Venezuela and lives in Archer, Florida. He has exhibited extensively in the United States and internationally in museums and galleries. His work is in the permanent collections of the Tate Modern, London, U.K., the Fine Arts Museum of Houston, TX; Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA; Museo de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo, Brazil; Museo de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela; Galeria de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Caracas, Venezuela; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Bogota, Colombia; Fundacion Gego; The Cisneros Collection, New York, NY and the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL, among others. He received a Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2011.

Jorge Cabieses: IGNOTO
November 20 – December 27, 2013
Lucía de la Puente Gallery
Lima, Peru

Jorge Cabieses develops his work in an ongoing exploration new supports, surfaces, images. Intervenes melamine plates and industrial plastic pallets using old lithographs. Transits and appeals primarily to the geometry as a tool for cancellation in some cases and in others, using the same geometry as a single image and thus as solo protagonist.

For some years, the artist has been synthesizing images in geometries, questioning the representation of the image. Often claims the essential, shape and color.

Pure line and chromatic condensation can alienate the sense of replacement, risking of disappointing the spectator. In IGNOTO, Jorge Cabieses, get to know the unknown, connecting these two concepts in his work, the unknown as the exploration of new surfaces, and knowledge, which is the result of its own process.

Jorge Cabieses (Lima, 1971) studied at the School of Fine Arts Corriente Alterna and formed part of the collective PERU FACTORY. He was a finalist in the contest “Passport for an artist” (2001, 2002 and 2005), Phillips (2001,2002) and Telefónica Foundation (2001). He was selected to the Cisneros Foundation Scholarship CIFOs, 2011, and selected for the project Abstraction in Action by Cecilia Fajardo-Hill Curator, Collection Sayago & Pardon. His work is part of Fontanals Cisneros Collection.

Since 2003, has made a series of solo exhibitions, including the most recent: “Mirabilia” L’imaginaire Gallery of the Alliance Française, Lima, 2013, “Surface”, Sala Luis Miro Quesada Garland, Lima, 2012, “Concrete ” Galeria Lucia de la Puente, Lima, 2011,” Screen “, Enlace Gallery, Buenos Aires, 2008, among others.

He has participated in international art fairs such as The Armory Show, Galeria Lucia de la Puente, New York, 2013; Parc, Galeria Lucia de la Puente, Lima, 2013; ArtLima, Galeria Fernando Pradilla, Lima, 2013; Pinta, Galeria Fernando Pradilla, London, 2013; FIA GB-ARTS Gallery ,Caracas, 2013; ARTBO, James Karpio Gallery Bogotá, 2011-2012; Scope Miami James Karpio Gallery, 2011-2012; The Armory Show, Galeria Lucia de la Puente, New York, 2011; Pinta, Galeria Lucia de la Puente, Pinta, Ideobox Gallery, London, 2011; Arteamericas, Miami Galería Enlace Arte Contemporáneo, 2007-2008; ArteBA, Galería Enlace Arte Contemporáneo Buenos Aires, 2007-2008; ArtBO, Galeria Enlace Arte Contemporaneo Bogotá, 2007.

Has been part of numerous group shows: 30 years James Karpio Gallery, Costa Rica, 2012; “Obras seleccionadas” 2da Bienal de Grabado, ICPNA, Lima, 2010; Chile Triennial, Santiago, 2010; Triennial of Contemporary Art – ITCA. Praga, 2009; Ojo latino, Benetton Collection, Santiago de Chile, 2009; “Develaciones – Tendencia”, Berlín, Polonia, Viena, 2007-2008; Miradas de fin de Siglo “Pop / Popular”, Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI), Lima, 2007; Miradas de fin de Siglo “Transito de Imágenes” Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI), Lima, Perú, 2007; Resistencias, Casa de América, 2003; among others.

Click here to view Jorge Cabieses on Abstraction in Action.

Ricardo Alcaide: Incidental Geometry
October 31 – December 14, 2013
Josée Bienvenu Gallery
New York, NY, USA

Josée Bienvenu is pleased to present Incidental geometry, an exhibition by Ricardo Alcaide. In this project, Alcaide addresses his interest for geometric abstraction, modernist constructions, and social dynamics in urban centers. His new body of work oscillates between the poetic and the political, juxtaposing playful and stern elements.

In Intrusion, Alcaide conceptualizes aesthetics that refer to vernacular and modernist architecture, along with the geometric abstraction that marked his academic background. In this group of over painted images of Modern mid-century interiors, the geometrical shapes subtly deconstruct the carefully designed rooms. These incidental openings, thickly painted planes of colours, alter the dynamics of the interiors, invading the space and creating a new reality. Alcaide attempts to hinder the pictorial and symbolic reality of these immaculately designed spaces with a foreign and striking element which appears to be floating in the space like an abandoned shelter. A group of sculptures Fabric, Paper, Plastic, Book made of found and recycled materials finds temporary shelter on a metallic shelving structure which alludes to the city’s vertical and geometric urban landscape.

Ricardo Alcaide was born in 1967 in Caracas, Venezuela, he currently lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. Select solo exhibitions include: Una Forma De Desorden Invasivo, Galería Lucia de la Puente, Lima (2013);Intrusiones, Galería Tajamar, Santiago de Chile (2013); Prototipo Vernacular, Oficina #1, Caracas,Venezuela (2012); A Place To Hide, Baró Galería, São Paulo (2011). Select collections include: LIMAC Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Lima; Colección Fundación Cisneros, Caracas; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Venezuela; Galeria de Arte Nacional GAN, Caracas; Zabludowicz Collection, London.

Click here to view Ricardo Alcaide on Abstraction in Action.

Artist Rendering. Photo courtesy of the artist.

The site specific installation made with intervened encyclopedia covers by Omar Barquet will be on display at PINTA New York at PINTA Editions in the Abstraction in Action booth.

-Omar Barquet

Omar Barquet (Mexico, b. 1979) holds a degree in Fine Arts from the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving “La Esmeralda” (INBA), Mexico City. He has exhibited in various national and international cities such as New York, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Lima, Miami, Basel and Mexico City. His artistic practice encompasses installations, collages, engravings, and other techniques. Barquet has had residencies in Brazil.