Monochrome Undone
SPACE Collection

Curated by Cecilia Fajardo-Hill
October 24, 2015 – April 1, 2016
SPACE, Irvine, CA

Artists: Ricardo Alcaide, Alejandra Barreda, Andrés Bedoya*, Emilio Chapela, Eduardo Costa, Danilo Dueñas, Magdalena Fernández, Valentina Liernur, Marco Maggi, Manuel Mérida, Gabriel de la Mora, Miguel Angel Ríos, Lester Rodríguez, Eduardo Santiere, Emilia Azcárate, Marta Chilindrón, Bruno Dubner, Rubén Ortíz-Torres, Fidel Sclavo, Renata Tassinari, Georgina Bringas, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Thomas Glassford, José Luis Landet, Jorge de León, Bernardo Ortiz, Martin Pelenur, Teresa Pereda, Pablo Rasgado, Ricardo Rendón, Santiago Reyes Villaveces, Mariela Scafati, Gabriel Sierra, Jaime Tarazona, Adán Vallecillo, Horacio Zabala.

The monochrome as a focus in the SPACE Collection began in a spontaneous form and soon became a systematic field of research. This exhibition is about the contemporary monochrome in Latin America. The monochrome is one of the most elusive and complex art forms of modern and contemporary art. If we think about its origins or meaning, we find that the monochrome is many contradictory things. The monochrome is neither a movement nor a category; it is not an “ism” or a thing. It may be painting as object, the material surface of the work itself, the denial of perspective or narrative, or anything representational. The monochrome may be a readymade, a found object, or an environment—anything in which a single color dominates. The monochrome can be critical and unstable, especially when it dialogues critically or in tension with modernism. This exhibition is organized into four different themes: The Everyday Monochrome, The White Monochrome, The Elusive Monochrome and The Transparent Monochrome. These themes have been conceived to create context and suggest interpretations that otherwise might be illegible.  These may overlap at times, pointing to the multiplicity of content in many of the works. The unclassifiable and variable nature of the monochrome in Latin America today is borne of self-criticality and from unique Latin contexts, to exist within its own specificity and conceptual urgency.

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El monocromo, como enfoque de SPACE Collection, comenzó de forma espontánea y a poco se convirtió en un campo de investigación sistemático. Esta exposición trata sobre el monocromo contemporáneo en América latina. El monocromo es una de las formas de arte más elusivas y complejas del arte moderno y contemporáneo. Si reflexionamos acerca de sus orígenes o su significado, nos encontramos con que puede albergar muchas cosas contradictorias. El monocromo no es un movimiento ni una categoría; no es un “ismo” ni una cosa. Puede ser la pintura como objeto, la superficie material de la obra, la negación de la perspectiva o de todo lo representativo o narrativo. El monocromo puede ser un readymade, un objeto encontrado, un cuadro o un ambiente: cualquier cosa definida como una superficie cromáticamente uniforme donde un solo color predomina. El monocromo puede ser crítico e inestable, especialmente cuando se dialoga críticamente o en tensión con el modernismo. Esta exposición está organizada en cuatro temas: el monocromo cotidiano, el monocromo blanco, el monocromo elusivo y el monocromo transparente. Estos temas han sido concebidos a fin de crear un contexto y sugerir interpretaciones que de otra manera podrían ser ilegibles. Éstos pueden superponerse a veces, apuntando a la multiplicidad de contenidos en muchas de las obras. La naturaleza indeterminada, inclasificable y variable del monocromo en Latinoamérica hoy en día es producto de la autocrítica y de los contextos propios, para existir dentro de su propia especificidad y urgencia conceptual.

• Projects

Artists: Emilia Azcárate, Leyla Cárdenas, Danilo Dueñas, Bernardo Ortiz, Adolfo Bernal, Carlos Bunga, Feliza Bursztyn, Beatriz Eugenia Díaz, Fernando Fragateiro, Rosario López, Delcy Morelos, Aleex Rodríguez, Carlos Rojas, Luis Roldán, Rosemberg Sandoval, José Antonio Suárez Londoño and Icaro Zorbar.

Why Abstract Art? (¿Por qué el arte abstracto?)
May 7 – June 11, 2015
Casas Riegner
Bogotá, Colombia

Group show.

• Happenings

Artist: Danilo Dueñas

The painting fallen, and the collapse of Rome
March 18 – April 25, 2015
Galerie Thomas Schulte
Berlin, Germany

“The painting fallen, and the collapse of Rome“ is Dueñas’ second one person show with the gallery after succeeding impressively with his installation in the gallery’s Corner Space in 2012.

• Happenings

Artists: Aitken, Francis Alÿs, Miguel Amat, Stanley Brouwn, James Brown, Ryan Brown, Carlos Bunga, Daniel Buren, Sergio Camargo, Mario Carreño, Natalia Castañeda, Carla Chaim, Lygia Clark, Dadamaino, Sandu Darié, Willys De Castro, Iran do, Leonardo Drew, Danilo Dueñas, Eugenio Espinoza, Qin Feng, José Gabriel Fernández, Magdalena Fernández, Fernanda Fragateiro, Mario Garcia Torres, Theaster Gates, Gego, Gunther Gerszo, Jaime Gili, Fernanda Gomes, Alberto Greco, Sara Grilo, Arturo Herrera, Karl Hugo Schmolz, Alfred Jensen, Donald Judd, William Kentridge, Jannis Kounellis, Liz Larner, Jac Leirner, Sol Lewitt, Guido Llinas, Anna Maria Maiolino, Raul Martinez, Sarah Morris, Helio Oiticica, Gabriel Orozco, Alejandro Otero, Claudio Perna, Liliana Porter, Carlos Puche, Eduardo Ramirez Villamizar, Dorothea Rockburne, Carlos Rojas, Osvaldo Romberg, Ana Sacerdote, Espirito Santo, Mira Schendel, Harald Schmitz Schmelzer, Gunter Schroeder, Gabriel Sierra, Lolo Soldevilla, Jesús Soto, Eduardo Terrazas, Erwin Thorn, Fred Tomaselli, Richard Tuttle, Adan Vallecillo, Adrián Villar Rojas, Alfred Wenemoser, Pae White.

Impulse, Reason, Sense, Conflict -Abstract Art from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection
December 3, 2014 – March 8, 2015
CIFO Art Space
Miami, FL, USA

The exhibition includes 105 pieces by 72 artists from different generations and latitudes, who share their interpretations and philosophies of abstraction. The exhibition was organized by CIFO.

Impulse, Reason, Sense, Conflict explores abstraction as an aesthetic category instead of as a movement or art trend.  Since its inception abstraction has provided a series of models that remain paradigmatic and exemplary  in today’s art production. The exhibition is divided in four areas:

Abstract Impulses dedicated to the rupture with mimetic representation and its concomitant representational crisis with the subsequence substitution of the represented object by the structural elements of painting itself (color, line, etc.) On this section the artists represented will include Mario Garcia Torres, Theaster Gates, Andreas Gursky, Anna Maria Maiolino, Sarah Morris, Reinhard Mucha, Helio Oiticica, Liliana Porter, Karl Hugo Schmolz, Fred Tomaselli, Adrián Villar Rojas, and Pae White among others.

Laboratory of Reason refers to the questioning of the nature, essence and even the existence of art implied in abstration. Instead of asking “what is beauty?,” this section questions art’s existence to the extreme of declaring it dead. Artists included on this section are Doug  Aitken, Lygia Clark, Dadamaino, Olafur Eliasson, Fernanda Fragateiro, Fernanda Gomes, Arturo Herrera, Donald Judd, William Kentridge, Liz Larner, Jac Leirner, Gabriel Orozco, Osvaldo Romberg, Gabriel  Sierra, and Alfred Wenemoser among others.

Uncommon Senses relates to the integration and crossover of other art forms. With the introduction of different materials, media and art forms such as theater, music, dance and literature, abstraction demanded an approach that required the use of multiple senses, both from its makers but also art’s viewers. Francis Alÿs, Stanley Brouwn, Sergio Camargo, Willys De Castro, Qin Feng, Gego, Alberto Greco, Jannis Kounellis, Sol Lewitt, Dorothea Rockburne, Mira Schendel, Erwin Thorn, and Richard Tuttle are some of the artists in this section.

Spatial Conflicts touches on abstraction as a radical change in the conception of spatiality that substituted the Rennaisance perspectival notion of space. Abstract art promotes a real experience. In this section, we showcase Antonio Asis, Carlos Bunga, Daniel Buren, Mario Carreño, Iran do, Espirito Santo, Eugenio Espinoza, Sarah Grilo, Gunther Gerszo, Alfred Jensen, Alejandro Otero, Jesús Soto, Eduardo Terrazas, and Erwin Thorn among others.

Image: Miguel Amat, Series: Capitalismo y Vanguardia, 2006-2010. Photo by Oriol Tarridas.

• Happenings

Artists: Danilo Dueñas, Alfredo Jaar, Jonathan Lasker, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Fabian Marcaccio, Michael Müller, David Reed, Leunora Salihu, Albrecht Schnider and Stephen Willats.

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
November 22, 2014 – January 17, 2015
Galerie Thomas Schulte
Berlin, Germany

Group exhibition

Image: Alfredo Jaar, “Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness”, 1995

• Happenings

Artist: Danilo Dueñas

Como Es
August 28 – September 27, 2014
Casas Riegner
Bogotá, Colombia

For over three decades, artist Danilo Dueñas has been experimenting with abandoned materials and found objects for the creation of pictorial constructions that offer multiple interpretations. Adjusting harmoniously to their exhibition context, Dueñas’ uncanny installations manage to question, evoke and destabilize the viewer.

Dueñas’ most recent solo exhibition titled COMO ES (As It Is), elucidates the artist’s astounding ability to experiment with forms and materials. On this particular occasion however, this experimentation process is induced by the artist’s profound reflection on the human condition, which stems from his personal reading of Saint Augustine’s teachings. According to Possidius, Augustine’s biographer, while on his deathbed the Saint wept over his sins upon studying the penitential psalms which he had posted on the walls of this room. Inspired by the specific circumstances leading up to Augustine’s death, and by the presence of sacred words visualized on the saint’s wall, Dueñas revitalizes and expands his utilization of text dating back to the 90s, by emphasizing its formal power and grandeur. Recalling the functional nature of the medieval artistic object, the words “HOLY GHOST”, “SCRIPTURE”, “COVENANT” and “PSALM”, written out in black adhesive vinyl along several walls of the gallery, become the leading actors of the exhibition thanks to their enormous scale, austere form and visual and cognitive impact.

The visual alteration of the exhibition context and the harmonious and often unsettling presence of found objects such as used books, discarded pedestals and rusted architectural elements, all of which seem to be faded and warn out, comprise a powerful one room installation imbued with the artist’s personal religiosity. This artful orchestration of heterogeneous elements however, is brought into existence thanks to Dueñas’ profound ability to grant new life to abandoned spaces and objects.

Danilo Dueñas was born in Cali, Colombia in 1965. He has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions including: Sense of Mendicity, Alejandra von Hartz, Miami, USA (2013); A Door Repeated and the Wardrobe Fell Corner Space, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Germany (2012); Flying, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2012); Beuys y más allá – El enseñar como arte, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, Colombia (2011); La vitrina abierta, Lugar a Dudas, Cali, Colombia (2010); y A Flight (Un vuelo), Casas Riegner, Bogotá, Colombia (2009). In 2011, Dueñas took part in the Artists-in-Berlin Program, Berliner Künstlerprogramm, one of the most renowned international programs offering grants to artists in the Visual Arts. His work can be found in important art collections in Latin America including: Museo de Arte Moderno de Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional (Bogotá, Colombia); Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas (Caracas, Venezuela); and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Sofia Imber (Caracas, Venezuela).

• Happenings

Danilo Dueñas: Art Kabinett at Art Basel Miami Beach
December 5 to 8, 2013

Galerie Thomas Schulte
Art Basel Miami Beach
Booth C18
Miami, FL, USA

Danilo Dueñas composes his constructive paintings by assembling found, often discarded materials and intervening, when necessary, with paint, without limiting himself to a given format. He explores the surfaces and transforms them by suppressing or adding color, by sanding them down or by adding collage elements. For the Art Kabinett, Danilo Dueñas presents a selection of new works in different media, such as collages and works on paper.

Click here to view Danilo Dueñas on Abstraction in Action.

• Happenings

Danilo Dueñas: Sense of Mendicity
October 10 – November 22, 2013
Alejandra von Hartz
Miami, Florida, USA

“Painting has always been for me a venture into a known land. Known land is that land of layers. Yes, layers like the land. Where a layer determines what is on top and is determined by what is underneath. Only painting as a problem of stratigraphy is of interest because it is here where change will produce an awakening.

An awakening into a new problematics, the problematics of the deferring image. Image as quantum of deferral and deferral as quantum of the insolent voice of before. What better to drive painting than the before. Before understood as man before man and before God. May the young deliver; then again, may the old rise to the sky.”

—Danilo Dueñas, Berlin, 2013

Alejandra von Hartz Gallery is pleased to present the solo exhibition Sense of Mendicity by Danilo Dueñas. This is the Colombian-born, Berlin-based artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. It will feature a site specific installation and new works. Dueñas works with found materials, intervening and assembling them into complex constructions in which the minimal, the sculptural, the pictorial and the monumental coexist, albeit, tensely. Through a thoroughly experimental process, he creates new poetics, activated by an acute awareness and a sensitive reaction to the space that contains the work. Meaning and time are also present, as well as art history and its incidence, in permanent questioning of his own and contemporary art practices.

Danilo Dueñas was born in 1956 in Cali, Colombia. He has been a Professor at the University of Los Andes, the National University of Colombia and the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogotá since 1990. In 1995, he participated in the exhibitions Mesótica and Transatlántica, curated by Carlos Basualdo at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in San José de Costa Rica and the Alejandro Otero Museum of Visual Arts in Caracas, respectively. In 1999, he was the recipient of the Johnnie Walker in the Arts Prize granted by Paulo Herkenhoff, Oswaldo Sánchez and Ana Sokoloff, or his installation “Espacio Preservado II”, presented at the Luis Ángel Arango Library. In 2001, two simultaneous retrospective exhibitions of his works were held at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá and the Museum of Art of the National University of Colombia, curated by María Iovino.

In 2003, another retrospective exhibition was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas curated by Carmen María Jaramillo. In 2006, he was the international guest at the Caracas FIA and in 2008 he presented “Dentro del espacio expositivo” at Periférico Caracas, curated by Jesus Fuenmayor. In 2011 he was one of the guests of the DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogramm. His works are also represented in the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. He is part of the Artist Pension Trust Mexico. Recent exhibitions include “At Actium and a tribute to John McCracken,” 2011 at DAAD Galerie, Berlin, “A door repeated and the wardrobe fell,” 2012 at Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin and a solo presentation of his work at the abc- art berlin contemporary 2013. Danilo Dueñas lives and works in Berlin.

Click here to view Danilo Dueñas’ on Abstraction in Action.

• Happenings

On painting

A wall, the painting, the floor, the ceiling, the mist in the room.

The organ, the flute, the hemlock.

The truth, the specter, the real.

What is it that lives?, said the hare to the tortoise, is it the hemlock or the rose? The rose said, it is me, I shall always live, whilst the room shall grow and the sound shall ring in our ears. But my life shall never cease. Please testify to this never-ending truth and you too, shall live as me.

Traducido del inglés

Sobre la pintura

Un muro, la pintura, el piso, el techo, la neblina en la habitación.

El órgano, la flauta, la cicuta.

La verdad, el espectro, lo real.

¿Qué es lo que vive?, dijo la liebre a la tortuga, ¿es la cicuta o la rosa? La rosa dijo,

soy yo, siempre viviré, mientras que la habitación crezca y el sonido repique en nuestros oídos. Pero mi vida nunca terminará. Favor de testificar a esta verdad sinfín y tú también vivirás como yo.

Selected Biographical Information

Education / Training

• Derecho, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.

Prizes / Fellowships

• 2011: DAAD Berliner Kunstler programm, Berlin, Germany.
• 2003: Finalista Premio Luis Caballero, Planetario Distrital, Bogotá, Colombia.
• 1999: Premio Johnnie Walker en las Artes, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá, Colombia.
• 1993: Primer Premio, VI Salón Regional, Corferias, Bogotá, Colombia.
• 1993: Beca Nacional de Creación, Colcultura, Corferias, Bogotá, Colombia.

Solo Exhibitions

• 2012: “A door repeated and tha wardrobe fell”, Thomas Schulte Galerie, Berlín, Germany.
• 2011: “At Actium and a tribute to John McCracken”, DAAD Galerie, Berlin, Germany.
• 2008-2009: “El Salón de actos, “La tormenta de Constable”,”Plataformas verdaderas”, “Poblaciones”, Colegio de la Sagrada Familia, 41 Salón Nacional, Cali, Colombia.
• 2008: “Dentro del espacio expositivo”, Periférico Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela.
• 2003: “Local (tllaqpc)”, Premio Luis Caballero, Galería Santa Fe, Bogotá, Colombia.
• 2003: “Local (BOG-CCS)”, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas Sofía Imber, Caracas, Venezuela.
• 2001: “Sin las palabras circundantes”, Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá, Colombia.
• 2001: “Sin las palabras circundantes”, Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional, Bogotá, Colombia.
• 1993: “Enchape”, Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional, Bogotá, Colombia.

Group Exhibitions

• 2013: “Latin American Art at Hunter, From the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros”, Hunter College, New York, USA.
• 2013: “A door repeated and the wardrobe fell”, abc art berlin contemporary, Berlin, Germany.
• 2011: “Beuys y mas allá – el enseñar como arte,” Versión Colombia, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá, Colombia.
• 2008: “Correspondences, Contemporary Art from the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros”, Wheaton College, Norton Massachusetts, USA.
• 2008: “Geografias (in)visibles, Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano en la Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros”, Centro León, Dominican Republican.
• 2006: “Parallel Economies”, Wertz Contemporary, Atlanta, USA.
• 2005: “Cuerpo Plural, Abstraccionismos en la colección Maccsi”, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas Sofía Imber, Caracas, Venezuela.
• 2005: “Diálogos, Colección Cisneros”, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Colombia.
• 1995: “Mesótica- the america non representativa”, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo, San José de Costa Rica.
• 1995: “Transatlántica- the america-europa non representativa”, Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas, Venezuela.

Publications

• 2013: Turme aus Alten Turen by Katrin Schirner.
• 2011: So malerisch kann Schrott sein, by Julia Gwendolyn Schneider, in: taz.die tageszeitung, Berlin.
• 2011: Kunst ist alles andere als Schrott, by Markus Woeller, in: sounds like me. com, Berlin.
• 2011: Schaut auf dieses Land, by Sebastian Frenzel, in: Monopol Magazin, Berlin.
• 2011: Boceto, Trampa e Instalación, by Sylvia Suárez, in: Beuys y más allá, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá.
• 2009: Urgent, Various venues, Cali, Colombia, by Jens Hoffmann, in: Frieze.
• 2008: Moebius Strips por Gean Moreno, in: Art Nexus issue 73.
• 2006: Hey, something is happening out there! Natalia Gutiérrez, in: Arte al Día, Bogotá, 2006.
• 2006: Velocidades por Eugenio Espinoza, in: Art Nexus issue 61, Miami, 2006.
• 2005: Ilegibilidad por Eduardo Serrano, Alianza Colombo- Francesa, Bogotá.
• 2003: Local (BOG-CCS), El lugar del pensamiento por Carmen María Jaramillo, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber, Caracas.
• 2003: Duración por María Iovino, Universidad Eafit, Medellín.
• 2002: Instalador by Jaime Cerón, Fundación Incertidumbre, octubre, Bogotá.
• 2001: Sin las palabras circundantes by María Iovino, Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional, Bogotá.
• 2011: Sin las palabras circundantes (Cronología), by María Iovino, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá.
• 1998: A través del Espejo por Carmen María Jaramillo, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá.
• 1998: Soporte por Carmen María Jaramillo, Centro Cultural William Shakespeare, Bogotá.
• 1993: Enchape by José Hernán Aguilar, Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional, Bogotá.
• 1992: Todo simplificado by Eugenio Espinoza, Galería Sotavento, Caracas.
• 1991: Adulterado by José Hernán Aguilar, El Tiempo, Bogotá.

Collections

• Colección Sayago y Pardon, Los Angeles.
• Colección Marie-Josée Kravis, New York.
• Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas- New York.
• Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Sofia Imber.
• Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas.
• Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional, Bogotá.
• Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá.
• Museo de Arte Moderno de Rio de Janeiro.
• Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali.

• Artists