VECINOS

Gwladys Alonzo
Cynthia Gutierrez
Gonzalo Lebrija
Gabriel Rico
Eduardo Sarabia

October 27, 2017 - January 20, 2018
Opening reception: Friday, October 27, 6-8 pm

Images (from left): Cynthia Gutierrez, Deepwater Pagliacci, 2011, fiberglass, paint and iron; Gonzalo Lebrija, Unfolded Airplane, 2017, cotton paper

CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibition’s is pleased to present their inaugural exhibition VECINOS in a new Fell Street location opening on Friday, October 27 and running through January 20. VECINOS features five prominent artists living and working in Mexico: Eduardo Sarabia, Cynthia Gutiérrez, Gonzalo Lebrija, Gabriel Rico and Gwladys Alonzo. Aged between 26 and 45, they represent different career points within a new generation emerging from Mexico and gaining notoriety in international circles. Most established are Gonzalo Lebrija and Eduardo Sarabia each of whom have exhibited extensively internationally —Sarabia has a concurrent solo exhibition at the Mistake Room Los Angeles. Cynthia Gutiérrez, whose work is currently presented in the 57th Biennale di Venezia, has a solo museum exhibition currently at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah.

VECINOS explores the relationship between memory and place. With varied types of production and distinct methodologies the artists explore notions of modernity, citizenship and socio-political impact. Each has an embedded microhistory that speaks to the traditions of place and a distinct socio-cultural landscape. Throughout the exhibition, these artists examine collective memory and individual perception, whether putting a lens to narratives that define place, or utilizing materials and processes associated with a specific region.

Images (from left): Eduardo Sarabia, Untitled (Sabritas), 2017, hand painted ceramic vase, hand painted wood box; Eduardo Sarabia, Sticky Green, 2017, acrylic on paper

Eduardo Sarabia’s work utilizes folklore, traditional craft and a mythology of Mexico’s recent and past history. His series of traditional blue and white Talavera ceramics (produced in collaboration with Guadalajara based Suro Ceramics) depicts contemporary imagery of the Mexican narcos. Whether proffered as a temptation directed at youth to join cartels or badges of worth, the ‘girls, drugs, and power that come hand in hand with goods of the drug trade’ are translated here into traditional motifs. For his resent paintings, Sarabia uses photographic snap shots as a palette to paint larger paintings, obscuring the original subject by the blobs of paint – the final result is a palimpsest of experiences altered, reminding us how the past is shaped over time.

Gonzalo Lebrija has used the mediums of video, photography and sculpture to examine notions of time resulting in playful works with layers of meaning. His recent series of deconstructed/unfolded paper airplanes and paintings from unfolded paper, bring up questions of memory and transference. The austere geometry of the folds, alluding to the paper in another form, remind us that nothing is static. The reference of making paper airplanes points to a youthful symbol of imagination and crossing distance. The oil painting Veladura 3 suggests formal aerodynamics with a translucent layering of colors.

Through her research-oriented projects Cynthia Gutiérrez has used a number of mediums including drawing, painting, video, ready-made, sculpture and tapestries to explore the ways in which identity or nationalism are embedded in objects, in particular monuments. The artist analyzes the ongoing adherence to ethical and political gestures depicted by aesthetic parameters. Whether through comical sculptural forms or deconstructing text as a formal gesture, Gutiérrez examines the inherent entropy in today’s narratives. Her work Deepwater Pagliacci alludes to the Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo’s tragic clown opera and the oil- rig Deepwater Horizon. For Ecos de un imperio II, from 2014, the artist painstakingly removed fragments of a text set in drywall boards. The deconstructed passage is Costa Rican author Carlos Gagini’s La caida de Aguila (The Fall of the Eagle), a political science fiction novel from 1914 that imagines a future war where South American allies defeat a very powerful and expanding United States nation.

Image: Gabriel Rico, Reductio ad absurdum, 2016, neon and stone

An archeologist at heart, and architecturally trained, Gabriel Rico is interested in gedanken-experiments: a term Einstein used to describe his unique approach of using conceptual rather than actual experiments to imagine potential consequences. Utilizing found objects and taxidermy, Rico’s sculptures and installations question our relationship to time, nature and place through the lens of philosophy, science and mysticism. In his wall-hanging sculpture Reductio ad absurdum, 2016 a neon light is shaped as the mathematical symbol of square root and a small boulder is placed inside, acting as the principle of that square root. The title aptly references a form of argument that attempts to disprove a statement by showing it is inevitably ridiculous and absurd. Through this playful assemblage, Rico questions the natural order of existence and the value of humans within it.

Also recontextualizing found objects and common materials, Gwladys Alonzo melds and re-appropriates forms into sculptures that demonstrate a precarious vulnerability. She utilizes classic materials such as metal, wax, concrete, marble and stone, while using unconventional techniques. Her structural gestures embody humor, and question stereotypes associated with the predominantly male practice of sculpture, where eminently phallic verbs such as ‘erect’, ‘raise’, ‘train’ and ‘recover’ are part of the vocabulary. Her works Acapulco I and Acapulco II are site-specific interventions made on site at the new gallery location with concrete, wire, spray enamel and mirrored Plexiglas.

CULT has an ongoing relationship with Mexican artists and galleries. CULT gave Mexico City based artist Pablo Davila his first US exhibition in May 2016, presented in Mexico's premier fair Zona Maco in 2016 and led a curatorial tour of galleries, artist studios and museums in Mexico City with the San Francisco Mexico Consulate earlier this year. This exhibition VECINOS, will be the first of several cross-gallery collaborations with Mexican and South and Central American galleries and institutional partners.

CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions would like to thank the Consulate General of Mexico in San Francisco for their very generous support of this exhibition, Surro Ceramics for their aid in shipping from Guadalajara, and Les Lunes natural wine and CALA Restaurant for their contributions to the opening night party. A percentage of sales from the exhibition will benefit continued earthquake relief in Mexico and immigrant communities affected by the Northern California wildfires.


Contact: Aimee Friberg info@cultexhibitions.com

Installation Photos | Individual Works

EDUARDO SARABIA, Sticky Green, 2017, Acrylic on paper, 56 x 76 cm / 22 x 30 inches (framed)
EDUARDO SARABIA, Untitled (Sabritas), 2017, Hand Painted Ceramic Vase, Hand Painted Wood Box Ceramic: 32 x 23 x 23 cm / 12.6 x 9 x 9 inches, Box: 30 x 40 x 30 cm / 11.8 x15.7 x 11.8 inches
GONZALO LEBRIJA, Unfolded Airplane - Metallah, 2017 Cotton paper, 150 x 116 cm / 59 x 45.7 inches, Unique, one of a kind
GONZALO LEBRIJA, Veladura 3, 2017, Oil on linen, 120 x 90 cm / 47.2 x 35.4 inches
CYNTHIA GUTIERREZ, Deepwater Pagliacci, 2011, Fiberglass, paint, iron, 83 x 70 x 55 cm / 32.7 x 27.5 x 21.6 inches
CYNTHIA GUTIERREZ, Ecos de un imperio II, 2014, Fragments of the text “La caida de Aguila” by Carlos Gagini removed from drywall 78 x 58 cm / 30.7 x 22.8 inches each
GABRIEL RICO, Fauna, 2016, Brass, neon, branch, tape & deer hoof 75 x 75 cm / 29.5 x 29.5 inches, Edition 1/1
GABRIEL RICO, Reductio ad absurdum, 2016, Neon and stone, 41 x 14 x 28 cm / 16.14 x 5.5 x 11 inches, Edition unique, (from a series of five unique works + 2 A.P.)
GABRIEL RICO, Atlas, 2011, Folded paper, Height: 30 cm / 11.8 inches Diameter dimension is variable (up to 250 cm diameter), Edition 1/1 +AP
GABRIEL RICO, Merde, 2012, Ceramic and 24-karat gold and platinum paint, 120 x 20 x 6 cm / 47.2 x 7.8 x 2.3 inches, Edition: unique (from a series of 6 unique works)
GWLADYS ALONZO, Acapulco #1 (San Francisco), 2017 Concrete, spray paint, wire and mirror 27 x 27 x 22 inches

Current

CULT TURNS 10
10 Year Anniversary Exhibition
January 18 - March 2, 2024

Past

Terri Loewenthal
Mountain Goat Mountain

September 15 – November 18, 2023

Time is a Tangled Web: Mary Fernando Conrad, Sophronia Cook, Cross Lypka, Tyler Cross, Zhivago Duncan, Jean Isamu Nagai, Rachel Kaye, Ruth Charlotte Kneass at CULT Bureau, Oakland
September 28 - December 16, 2023

Last Light: Luz Carabaño, Sophronia Cook, Cross Lypka, and Aidan Koch
June 23 - August 26, 2023

ECHO ECHO: Rachel Bridges and Ivan Bridges at CULT Bureau, Oakland
March 2 - August 5, 2023

Two Handfuls Of Silver Dust: Rhonda Holberton
April 27 - June 17, 2023

LEGACY: Binta Ayofemi, Adrian L. Burrell, Rachel Bridges, Ivan Bridges, Masako Miki, and Jean Isamu Nagai
January 18 - April 1, 2023

ZHIVAGO DUNCAN: Measuring Consciousness
September 15 - December 10, 2022

CULT Bureau: Gaze Interrupted
September 17 - November 19, 2022

AMY NATHAN: Slipknot Loophole
May 14 - August 26, 2022

Rebekah Goldstein: Welcome Home Stranger
March 19 - May 7, 2022

Sapiens / Stories at CULT Bureau
November 10, 2021 - April 30, 2022

Physics & Fiction
January 20 - March 12, 2022

Chris Fallon: Irresistible Deception
October 15 - December 18, 2021

Sapiens / Stories on 8-Bridges
October 7 - November 3, 2021

Masako Miki: New Mythologies
June 16 - October 12, 2021

Tales of Metamorphosis: Rebekah Goldstein, James Perkins, and Amy Nathan
June 3 - 30, 2021

Janus II - CULT's 7 Year Anniversary Exhibition
April 9 - May 20, 2021

Troy Chew: Yadadamean
October 17 - December 12, 2020

We’re all in this together
August 14 - October 10, 2020

Beyond Words
June 26 - August 29, 2020

Ritual of Succession
January 10 - March 28, 2020

Record of Succession at fused space
January 13 - March 27, 2020

AMY NATHAN: Glyph Slipper
September 13 - December 7, 2019

FEMALE TROUBLE 2
June 28 - August 3, 2019

RUXUE ZHANG
April 20 - June 15, 2019

MASAKO MIKI: Shapeshifters
January 12 - March 23, 2019

JASKO BEGOVIC (SKO HABIBI): HUMAN_E.T.
November 30 - December 14, 2019

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: See You On The Flipside
September 8 - November 25, 2018

FEMALE TROUBLE
June 9 - July 28, 2018

TERRI LOEWENTHAL: Psychscapes
March 2 - May 19, 2018

VECINOS
October 27, 2017 - January 20, 2018

RHONDA HOLBERTON: Still Life
January 10 – March 4, 2017

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: Release Me
October 21 - December 10, 2016

NO SHOW MUSEUM: Yves Klein, Maria Eichhorn, Daniel Knorr, Etc.
One Night Only: Monday, October 17, 2016

DESIRÉE HOLMAN: Selected Works
September 17 - October 8, 2016

SHE MOONAGE DAYDREAM:
Facundo Argañaraz, Leah Guadagnoli, Desirée Holman, Kara Joslyn, Max Maslansky, Liz Robb, Tamra Seal, Emily Weiner, & Cate White

July 16 - August 20, 2016

PABLO DÁVILA: Ladies & Gentlemen,
We Are Floating In Space

May 13 - July 9, 2016

MASAKO MIKI: Conversations with Fox, Feather, and Ghost
March 4 - April 30, 2016

SUZY POLING: Total Internal Reflection
January 15 - February 27, 2016

DAN GLUIBIZZI: You Don’t Have to be Alone Tonight
November 6 – December 19, 2015

FRANCESCO IGORY DEIANA: Haptic Render
September 11- October 31, 2015

SEXXXITECTURE: Daniel Gerwin, Rebekah Goldstein, Roman Liška, Max Maslansky, May Wilson & Jake Ziemann
July 1 - August 1, 2015

ADAM SORENSEN: In Situ
May 1 - June 27, 2015

KLARA KÄLLSTRÖM & THOBIAS FÄLDT: Village / High Hills
February 27 - April 25, 2015

PRINCE RAMA: How To Live Forever
January 25 – February 21, 2015

JOSEPH DUMBACHER & JOHN DUMBACHER: Divert (Out of Line)
November 7, 2014 – January 16, 2015

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: Passenger
September 12 – November 1, 2014

A PATTERN LANGUAGE: Michelle Grabner, Angie Wilson & Lena Wolff
June 20 - July 19, 2014

MICHELLE BLADE: Gathering Into Being
April 25th – June 7th, 2014

MIGUEL ARZABE: /*Reject Algorithms*/
March 7 – April 19, 2014

JACQUELINE KIYOMI GORDON: Drawings
March 7 – April 19, 2014

FRITZ CHESNUT: Purr Valley
& Rhonda Holberton

January 10 - February 22, 2014

UNSEEN: Miya Ando, Miguel Arzabe, Chris Duncan, Klea Mckenna & Dean Smith
November 10 - December 21, 2013

Past Off-Site Exhibitions

RHONDA HOLBERTON: Still Life 2
April 7 - May 26, 2018

LAS COSAS QUE PINTAN / PAINTING IN AN EXPANSIVE FIELD
Works by Miguel Arzabe & Juan Sorrentino

April 9 – May 17, 2015

EBB: Gina Borg and Chris Russell at Loczi Design
December 10, 2014