Fake It!

Opening: Thursday, December 2, 2010, 6:30 PM

4001 Berri (corner Duluth), Suite 201
Information: 514.845.7934
Free admission for Studio XX members / $5.00 for non-members
Hors d’œuvres and refreshments will be served

Exhibition: December 2 – 15 / Mon to Fri 10:00 – 5:00 PM
Free Admission

Studio XX is proud to host Fake It! an exhibition of contemporary video and installation artworks by female media artists from Mexico.

The Opening includes a screening of video works and an introduction to the exhibition by curators, Ariane De Blois and Erandy Vergara. The exhibition will remain on display at Studio XX from December 2 – 15, 2010, Monday to Friday 10:00 – 5:00 PM.

Fake It! is an exhibition that brings together Mexican artists who probe and question gender stereotypes (still) prevalent today. The feminist artworks showcased investigate, with irony, humor and/or sarcasm, female archetypes where women are reduced to sexual objects. The title of the exhibition, Fake It! refers to ideas of pretending to or simulating orgasm; furthermore, it suggests notions relating to games and the masquerade. By appropriating various typified female figures such as the pin-up, femme fatale and/or model, and disguising them in different forms, the artists featured in Fake It! deconstruct female stereotypes by employing diverse visual, narrative and aesthetic strategies. Subtly or not, and with a humoristic approach, the critical and ironic staging of the works results in a distancing that offers spectators a glimpse of social roles beyond restrictions of identity. When territories such as cultural and sexual identity as well as representation and fetishization of the body are explored by various artists, women’s desires are not left aside but included in this exploration.

Artists * Artworks:

Tania Candiani * Mattress Mantras, from the Domestic Series (2004-2005)
“Don’t Stop,” “Please, Please,” “Oh my God,” and “Yes, Yes,” are some of the phrases/mantras sewn onto this clean white surface: the mattresses. Associated with rest, dreams, security and the domestic sphere of the home, mattresses are also loaded with sexual connotations and sometimes, different types of violence. Culturally linked to the feminine universe, sewing is used in this artwork to examine the roles traditionally associated with women (housekeepers, caretakers, wives and mothers).

Born in Mexico City in 1974, Tania Candiani currently lives and works in Mexico City and Tijuana. Her artistic practice is a reflection upon contemporary aesthetic patterns. She is interested in producing objects and images which represent the perception of contemporary urban spaces and their rituals. Beyond a specific observation on the body, her approach explores the emotional state and context of persons or social groups, and simultaneously proposes researching materials and techniques. Candiani’s work has been exhibited in museums in Mexico, the United States, Spain, Poland, Lithuania and Cairo. An upcoming solo show at Laboratorio de Arte Alameda and a mid-career retrospective at Museo Carrillo Gil – both in Mexico City – feature her work, in addition to a forthcoming publication including the past ten years of her artistic production. Her work is in the collection of Deutsche Bank, the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, San Diego Museum of Art in San Diego, Alberta Du Pont Bonsal Foundation in La Jolla, Museum of Latin American Art in Los Angeles, Centro Cultural Tijuana, among others, as well as in several private collections.
https://taniacandiani.com/main/

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Ximena Cuevas * Bed (Cama) (1998)
In this video, a bed testifies to what goes on behind the closed door of a family’s bedroom.

Born in Mexico City in 1963, Ximena Cuevas is one of Mexico’s chief video artists. She has exhibited works at the 13th Videobrasil in Brazil (2001), Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico (2004), Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York (1997), Mix New York Queer Experimental Film Festival and Anthology Film Archives in New York as well as Cine Acción in San Francisco (1999), among others and in video art festivals in Canada, Germany, Spain and Venezuela. She has been granted the Rockefeller – MacArthur Award, the Eastman Kodak Worldwide Independent Filmmaker Product Grant, the Lampiada Grant and the FONCA Award. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the MOMA in New York.

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Carolina Esparragoza * Morfologic Subject (1999)
Self-portraits, lipstick and smiley faces. Anybody can be happy.

Carolina Esparragoza was born in Mexico City in 1977 where she currently lives and works. She studied Visual Arts at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado-ENPEG La Esmeralda in Mexico. Her work has been exhibited at the Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo ARCO 05 in Madrid, Spain (2005), l’Institut du Mexique in Paris, France (2004), Caja Negra, MUCA-C.U. Universidad Nacional de México (2002), Museo de la Ciudad de México (2000), among other venues in Mexico and abroad.

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Adriana Calatayud * Constructo (2005-2006)
Constructo is a series of digital photographs that explore both the cultural aspects of the canonical body and the construction of the image. Inspired by the studies of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) based on ideal body proportions, the images present a women bodybuilder while questioning gender construction.

Adriana Calatayud was born in Mexico City in 1967. She graduated as a Graphic Designer from the Visual Arts School at the Universidad Nacional de México. From 1996 to 2001, she worked at the Digital Graphics Workshop at the Multimedia Center, Centro Nacional de las Artes creating, investigating and supporting initiatives based on the image. From 2004 to 2005, she coordinated the Image and Technology Section of the video projection space Sala del Cielo at the Centro de la Imagen, Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico. From 2005 to 2008, she received the Sistema Nacional de Creadores Grant from the Fondo Nacional de Creadores. She currently works with the Jóvenes Creadores Grant Program at FONCA.
http://www.adrianacalatayud.net

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Paulina del Paso * Magic Silhouette (2001)
Following the style of the infomercial, Magic Silhouette exposes the contemporary demands imposed on women regarding their image and questions the conventions of beauty.

Living and working in Mexico City, Paulina del Paso is a media artist that navigates between narrative, experimental and documentary, between video, installation and photography. She has participated in various national and international collective exhibitions such as Betrayal in London and Mexico (2007), Instant Urbanism (Citámbulos) in Basel, Switzerland (2007), In the Air: Projections of Mexico at the Guggenheim in New York (2005), Esto es Tech-Mex at the Centro Cultural Mexicano in Paris (2004), Caida Libre at Museo Dolores Olmedo in Mexico (2001) and Sticky fingers at Galería Para-Site in Hong Kong (2001). As well as her first solo exhibition I wish I were here in London (2008), she has also shown her work in various festivals in Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, among others. She has received two national grants, Jóvenes Creadores and the Fomento a proyectos del Fonca Grant, as well as a grant from the Tribeca Film Institute and the Beca Gucci Ambulante for her first feature documentary titled La Guerrera (The Warrior).

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Grace Quintanilla * Little White Dove (Blanca Palomita) (2009)
Filmed based on a polished aesthetic and commercial look, Little White Dove presents a portrait of the artist who, through naughty smiles and looks, tries to charm and seduce the spectator. Suddenly, this game of seduction is interrupted by the shrill sound of a slap in the face and the pivoting head of the artist, followed by the stylized movement of her hair. In a short moment, the artist’s glance quickly returns to the camera to seduce again.

Born in Mexico City in 1967, Grace Quintanilla holds a Postgraduate Degree in Television and Electronic Imaging from the University of Dundee in Scotland. Her video and new media work has been shown in festivals across Europe, Latin America, the United States and Asia. In 1996, she won the National Award for Cultural Television presented by Mexican Canal 22 and the National Network of Broadcasters and Cultural TV Stations. She was the Artistic Director of the Electronic Arts and Video Festival Transitiomx_02: Nomadic Borders in 2007. She is currently the Video Art Curator, and a board member, at the Museum of Mexican Women Artists. She is a member of the FONCA National System of Artists and Creators, teaches part-time at the Arts Faculty of the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos and is the Director of the Pedro Meyer Foundation in Mexico City.

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Amaranta Sánchez * Night Cream (2002)
For the artist, the application of a simple night cream turns out to be more complicated than expected.

Born in Mexico City in 1976, Amaranta Sánchez bases her work on the notion of self-representation by using plastic and narrative elements and employing a variety of electronic media and resources such as video, photography, hand-made film, mechanical structures, motion machines, among others. Her work has been shown in exhibitions and festivals in galleries and museums internationally such as Fenómenos Lunares Transitorios at Garash Galería in Mexico City (2009), FEMACO: Muestra de Arte Contemporáneo at Garash Galería in Mexico City (2008), Femlink: The International Video Collage at Centro Cultural Espana in Mexico City (2008), Aella at Foto y Cine Latino in Paris (2007) and In the Air: Projections of Mexico at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2005). She is currently Head of the Images in Motion Department at the Centro Multimedia, Centro National de las Artes in Mexico.

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Naomi Uman * Removed (1999)
Using found porn from the 1970s, the artist physically erases the female figure with the aid of nail polish and bleach.

Former private chef to Malcolm Forbes, Calvin Klein and Gloria Vanderbilt, Naomi Uman recently traded in her eggbeater and oven mitts for a 16mm Bolex and acid resistant black rubber gloves. Her work is marked by her signature handmade aesthetic, often shooting, hand-processing and editing her films with the most rudimentary of practices. Her films have been exhibited widely at the Sundance and Rotterdam International Film Festivals, The New York Film Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival, among others. She has also screened her work at the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney, the Smithsonian and Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno.

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Katri Walker * Cool Cool Water (2002)
Cool Cool Water is a video triptych that mocks media representations in which women, reduced to mere sexual objects, are used in theatrical ways to seduce the spectator and to sell products.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1978, Katri Walker has been living between Mexico City and Glasgow since 2002, where she graduated from the Master of Fine Arts Program at Glasgow School of Art in 2007. She works predominantly with video installation and has exhibited in group shows and screenings throughout the United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, Iceland, The Netherlands, Venezuela, Estonia, Italy, Germany, Sweden and the United States. Her work is currently touring international museums as part of the group exhibition, Patria o Libertad! The Rhetorics of Patriotism curated by Paco Barragán. She is also developing a new body of video work for a solo exhibition at Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen, Scotland to be held in March 2011.
http://www.katriwalker.com

Curators:

Ariane De Blois is a Ph.D. student in the Doctoral Program in Art History at McGill University writing her dissertation on the works of Jane Alexander, Patricia Piccinini and David Altmejd based on part-human part-animal grotesque figures found in Contemporary Art. She sits on the Board of Directors at the Musée d’art de Joliette and teaches Art History at Collège de Rosemont. Along with Julie Bélisle and Perte de Signal, she is collaboratively curating the exhibition La Mécanique de l’objet, which will be presented at the Centre d’exposition Raymond-Lasnier of the Maison de la culture de Trois-Rivieres from February 6 to March 11, 2011.

Erandy Vergara is a Ph.D. student in the Doctoral Program in Art History at McGill University, specializing in Contemporary Media Art and Postcolonialism. She has participated in numerous curatorial projects, among them Curating Mexican Video Art: A Historical Survey held at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda as part of the exhibition Memory: New Media in Mexico (2010) and Heart, Arte Electrónico at VIDI_FESTIVAL 06 at La Sala Naranja Gallery in Valencia, Spain. She co-curated the video programme Videomix: Dancing at La Casa Encendida Gallery in Madrid, Spain (2006) and The Image Outside of Time at Antimatter Underground Film Festival at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada (2005). She has been guest lecturer at numerous round tables and symposia in her home country, Mexico. In 2008, she was granted the Abner Kingman Fellowship in Arts from McGill University. Studio XX thanks Perte de Signal for their generous equipment loan.