Gisela
Insuaste
with Antonio Guerrero
OPENING
FRIDAY November 26, 2004 from 6-10pm
Nov. 26 - Dec. 18, 2004
Gisela Insuaste's installation "Untitled
Memories at 6310M" opens at Polvo on Friday November 26, 2004 with a reception
from 6-10 PM. According to Insuaste, "This past summer, as I traveled through
mountains, jungle, and along the pacific coast of a South America country I hold
dearly, I constantly noticed the presence of verticals. These structures supported
larger forms, be it a wooden clapboard house, a canoe in disrepair, a colorful
kiosk…structures that resembled stilts, scaffolding, legs...all around
me, it seemed that I was experiencing things and places that hinged on the relationship
between the man-made and the natural architectural forms that exist in our everyday
landscape—and our emotional response to these forms which emphasize the
precariousness of our own existence and interconnectedness with people, places
and things.. "
In
this installation, Gisela has created many forms that perhaps resemble
figures, or buildings or vehicles. They are 4-legged structures, elongated
stilts held together by tension ‘drawn’ tightly by wire
wrapped around wooden rods. Each supports a flatter form that can easily
topple over and fall into itself. Each form, precariously balanced
atop its supporting structure becomes a fragment of the landscape we
see and feel; one that is constantly shifting, interactive, and dynamic.
Gisela Insuaste is an artist currently living in Chicago,
born in New York City, 1975. She creates art inspired by her travels in
North and South America. Her work is based on episodic memories that
are triggered by real and imagined ethnographic experiences in rural
and urban landscapes. These landscapes are precarious: shifty, unstable,
unpredictable, unsettled and ambiguous. They reflect the physically,
emotionally, and socio-politically charged spaces we currently live
in, where political unrest, social unease, and economic instability
affect our individual and collective concepts of space, time, history,
and memory. In her artistic practice, the process of collecting,
documenting, and interpreting material culture is significant for
the creation of drawings and installations that express the interconnectedness
of people, places, and things. She 'draws' in real space and uses
found material that includes wire, paper, tape, cotton, matchsticks,
and fabric to create installations that emphasize a fragile and dynamic
relationship with the natural and man-made architectural forms that
surround us. She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago, and a B.A in Anthropology & Studio Art from Dartmouth
College. She is a recipient of several art and research grants that
have funded her artistic and academic pursuits, including the recent
2004 Richard H. Driehaus "Emerging" Individual Artist Award.
She has exhibited in several group shows in Chicago, Kansas City,
MO, Washington, DC, and Ecuador. She currently works as Arts Program
Coordinator at Association House of Chicago, a community-based social
service organization. http://www.giselainsuaste.com
http://subaltern.org/gisela.htm
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Trailblazing
They
are cyclical. Every spring marks the commencement of a new season.
As the
ground begins to re-grow upward the heavens
descend triumphantly.
A shocking and awesome display of earth’s might. Experts alert
us to the troubling signs: the change in the pressure, the time of year,
weather patterns elsewhere. Unpredictably they come as swiftly as they
go, trailblazing an erratic path of indiscriminant disaster.
Antonio Guerrero lives in Pilsen.
contact: elpaguerrero@yahoo.com
www.paguerrero.com
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12" x 12" mini-installation projects
this month's artist: Christina Marsh
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white foods
book
Christina Marsh, 2004
also a mini-exhibit: Theft
Artists throughout the ages have stolen/borrowed objects, art, ideas, culture, music sampling, art techniques, digital media, culture, etc. and trIed to form their own voice/form of expression. Is there such thing as something "original" nowadays? These 7 artists will investigate this idea of "theft”.
Featuring: CarianaCarianne, Edra Soto, Jesus Macarena-Avila, Silvia Malagrino, Gisela Insuaste, Lucreccia Quintanilla(Australia), Martin Zielinski(Australia)
Drive it, like you stole it! auto enamel on alloy Martin Zielinski 2004 $180 |
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Slang: wog/nip ink on paper Jesus Macarena-Avila 2004 $90 This drawing is from a new series of work exploring verbal communication through "slang". I produced these drawings in Australia, looking popular 80's "Aussie" slang; I examined sexism, racism, and identity politics. Language can sometimes be used to steal an original meaning from one context to another. Slang is often at time re-inventing a new meaning from old meaning. At times, one meaning has multipude sources. In Australia, I noticed was the subtle racism toward South East Asians, similar in the way United States looks at Latin Americans. This drawing demonstrates racial slurs, I created them as these "pop" conversations using "balloons" used in comic book lettering. The action of saying or think slang is recorded through these drawn conversations. Slang provokes identity politics; Robert Young discusses this notion that ‘fixity of identity is only sought in situations of instability and disruption, of conflict and change."1 Jesus Macarena-Avila, November 2004 1. Robert J.C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture
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Diplomas two framed Master of Fine Art diplomas CarianaCarianne 1999-2003 After Cariana received an MFA in sculpture from University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill in 2001, they moved to Chicago to enable Carianne to complete her MFA in fiber and material studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. |
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Smith Street Tram Confidential digital video prints Lucreccia Quintanilla 2004 This work is very much about speculation. It refers to the way we negotiate and construct narratives within an urban mis en scene; its people, culture and architecture. The event in question took place while I was on the tram on my way to work one morning at about 8am. The area in which this event took place: Collingwood, and Fitzroy in Melbourne is renowned for its high unemployment , drug use and general roughness- I.e. Housing Commission high rises and the very frequented: Cash Converters. Smith Street in Melbourne is pretty much synonymous with "trash". It is also as it usually happens in these types of urban areas - known as cultural and artistic hub i.e. Gertrude street contemporary spaces, and numerous studios and artist run spaces. I
have used my friends to recreate the original scene.
They are stills frozen images from the video taken to imply motion
and also to implicate the idea of surveillance camera stills. Surveillance
is of course very much what I was doing. The act of looking out
of the tram window is what I describe as a "TV watching" headspace.
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2004: A year to remember postcards and buttons Edra Soto 2004 |
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untitled found objects Gisela Insuaste 2004 |
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Trash video Silvia Malagrino 2004 |
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