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Welcome to Venison's Weekly Blog! Here you will find advice, show reviews, thoughts and short articles by the Venison Team. We welcome your input comments and thoughts in return! 
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Quarterly

Bestiario/Menagerie

1/16/2017

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San Francisco-based curator A.R. Vazquez-Concepcion untangles threads of history, knowledge production, and colonialism in Bestiario/Menagerie, a vibrant, 10-person group exhibition on view at Adobe Books Back Gallery through January 28.

Bestiario or “bestiary”, roughly translated, describes a compendium of animals – imaginary and real – that was bound in book or illuminated manuscript form. Dating to second century Greece, bestiaries reflected a desire to understand the natural and spiritual worlds through collecting, categorization, and comparison.

Review by Roula Seikaly

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Abdiel Segarra Rios // No hay colonia como la mia (There is no colony like mine) Me equivoque pero lo hice con amor (I made a mistake but I did it with love) // 2016
​Centuries on, cabinets of curiosities were amassed as Enlightenment thinking and imperialist expansion brought western Europeans into contact with worldwide civilizations. Through dedicated study of physical artifacts, it was believed, a civilization’s value could be assessed. The sinister footnote to that ambitious effort is, of course, that colonized societies were treated as foreign, as the other, and in need of “civilizing” through paternalistic intervention.
The artifacts that were assembled in personal and later, public curio collections, were regarded as representations of the unfamiliar, and knowledge derived from observation was passed generationally as authoritative. In Bestiario/Menagerie, the objects and the artistic practices that produce them reject containment and the purported “authority” of knowledge through provocative juxtaposition.

Vazquez-Concepcion makes the most of Adobe Books’ intimate gallery, spacing each object to hold its own and, when considered relationally, deliver a deeper and decidedly more troubling understanding when viewed together. ​​​​
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Lionel Cruet // Scatter Sky // 2013/17
Marcela Pardo Ariza’s “Dissident” (2016), in which a humorously unruly pencil line interrupts the banal familiarity of a Post-It note, is both funnier and more frightening next to Fernando Pintado’s “Non Nobis Domine Non Nobis” (Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us) (2016). Its title excerpted from a short Latin hymn that expresses humility and thanks for spiritual blessings, this four-panel charcoal and paint piece portrays crusading Knights Templar who waged multiple wars to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim invaders. In this pairing, notions of rebellion expand and align an innocuous graphite mark and state-sanctioned terrorists bent on delivering apocalyptic violence in the name of Christianity.
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Fernando Pintado // Non Nobis Domine Non Nobis // 2016
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Marcela Pardo Ariza // Dissident // 2016
Stretching diagonally across the gallery, Santiago Insignares’ colorful biomorphic sculptures “Restriction”, “Implication”, and “Posthumous” (2016) address traumatic experiences and how memory enforces such events as mile markers in our lives. Without knowing that the meat of Insignares’ inspiration includes systematic massacre, displays of tortured bodies, and domestic violence, these sculptures might earn little more than a passing glance. Insignares interrogates authority’s unchecked abuses, and how knowledge is obscured to mask the gravest offenses.
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Mya Pagan_ // Monstrixt // 2017
Maria Guzman-Capron’s “El Tigre y Yo” (The Tiger and I) (2017), and Mya Pagan’s “Monstrix” (2017) recall the first bestiaries and later cabinets of curiosities as embodied versions of fantastical hybrid beasts, but with a subversive twist. Working with discounted fabrics, Guzman-Capron fashions a half-tiger, half-human sculpture that lounges atop a low plinth as though enjoying celebrity status. Mya Pagan offers a playful Pan-like creature revealed by a drawn curtain – again half human and half animal – covered in luxurious fur and crowned with flowers and horns. Engaging objects both, especially because their inclusion within this exhibitionary context points to the wholescale degradation colonized people – women in particular – faced as they were enslaved, displayed like circus attractions for lurid consumer satisfaction, and civilized (read: stripped of their individuality and autonomy) for their own good.
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Maria Guzman // Capron_El Tigre y Yo // 2017
The motley assemblage that is Bestiario/Menagerie demonstrates both the best and worst of human inclinations: curiosity is an evolutionary gift. Building knowledge through collecting, comparing, and analyzing has helped the human species amass a compendium more comprehensive than any bestiary or curio cabinet could contain. When knowledge, or presumed knowledge, is used to subjugate others, we lose our humanity. Through these objects and the juxtapositions they activate, the knots of history, knowledge production, and the ever-present danger of using it to exploit others begin to unravel.
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Paula Morales // Arqueologia Digital // 2017
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Maria Guzman-Capron // Black Sandals // 2015
Adobe Books
​Back Gallery


3130 24th Street
San Francisco CA 94110
​

Exhibition dates | Jan 7th - 28th 2017

Closing Reception | Jan 28th 6 - 9pm
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Meager Form, work by Camilla Taylor

1/4/2017

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​Meager Form
Work by Camilla Taylor
@camillataylor

​ Reception | January 13th, 2017 | 5:30 pm

Penny Contemporary
187 Liverpool Street
Hobart Tasmania, Australia
pennycontemporary.com.au
​@pennycontemporary

Photos by Mike Reynolds
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I won't tell you // unglazed stoneware, linseed oil, graphite // 7" x 9" x 6" // 2016
How often do we get out work done a week or so early? Not often, in my experience. Luckily Camilla completed her works for Meager Form early, and we got to reap the benefits. Here's a look into my studio visit with her!
Meager Form is comprised of sculptures and collographs that depict the relationship between strength and vulnerability. Camilla, who has been greatly influenced by TS Eliot for this series, spoke with me for about an hour and we discussed everything from art, to neighbors, family and social trends.

Preview by Nazish Chunara

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You will always hesitate // stoneware, graphite, linseed oil, synthetic hair, wrought iron, stainless steel // 34" x 43" x 4" // 2016
​Camilla used her own hands as a guide for these sculptures and was able to vary them in size and gesture. They're beautfully depicted, all the way down to the lines in the palms which are curiously detailed. The weight of hands versus the weight of hair provide a little fight. You only have parts of a body to create an identity, if that's even what you want to do. Camilla's works are intentionally left unidentified which leaves ample room for wonder. Whose body could be attached to these hands or feet or braid of hair? It could be yours, mine, your professor's, maybe your mom from a few years ago or the hand of someone you have yet to meet. It's pretty magical to think about.
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You will always hesitate (detail)
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You will always hesitate (detail)
Though these limbs leave room for you to elaborate on, they are also representative of the things we potentially have in common. We're all ideally born with ten fingers and a set of life lines to get our palms read. ​The exploration of identity is high right now, which makes Camilla's works stand out even more. There is no eye color, shape, finger nail, or skin color to point out and run with.
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Grasp // lost wax cast pewter // 6.5" x 3.5" x 3" // 2016
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Grasp // lost wax cast pewter // 6.5" x 3.5" x 3" // 2016
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Grasp // lost wax cast pewter // 6.5" x 3.5" x 3" // 2016
Alternatively, there's is much security to be found in There is space all around you. Wrapped in itself, these feet are kept warm, cozy and safe. It's like creating a personal bubble; there's space for yourself provided by yourself, which immeditely led me to the idea of the imporance of self care.

We can have our heads in the clouds, just as long as our feet are on the ground - isn't that how it goes? Camilla's works trigger a number of varying thoughts to tinker with.
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There is space all around you // lost wax cast pewter, synthetic hair // 25" x 14" x 4.5" // 2016
Reminicent of etchings, the prints below were made through the process of collography. The images are carved onto board, covered in ink and transfered onto paper. This was my first experience with it. Of course, I asked her if she ever considered incorporating color (I bet she's gotten that one too many times.) I realized that it's unnecessary because the texture created with this technique is so deep, that they are extremely vibrant as is.
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Hang limp // collograph on cotton rag paper // 42" x 30" // edition of 2 // 2016
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Look away 2 // collograph on cotton rag paper // 42" x 30" // edition of 2 // 2016
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Gathered hair // relief print on kozo paper // ed. of 3 // 50" x 11" // 2016
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Hair in a braid // relief print on kozo paper // ed. of 3 // 50" x 11" // 2016
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Loosening braid // relief print on kozo paper // ed. of 3 // 50" x 11" // 2016
Meager Form ships off to Penny Contemporary this week. If you have the chance, I recommend saying hello to Camilla and checking out the work personally! 
PS, Camilla has a new system of screen printing and it's with watercolor. Check out the following piece, along with many others in With Liberty and Justice for Some at Walter Maciel Gallery  Los Angeles, starting  January 7th, 2017.
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Thank you for having me over Camilla!
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Vital at Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati

11/10/2016

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VITAL
Sculptures by Margaret Smithers-Crump

Manifest Gallery
2727 Woodburn Ave
Cincinnati, OH 45206, USA

​Opening reception |Friday November 11, 6 -10 p.m.
​Exhibition dates | November 11th  December 9th

Gallery hours:
Tues - Fri, Noon - 7pm
Sat, Noon - 5pm
or by special appointment
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detail of Thrive // Acrylic on translucent Plexiglas // 115 x 78 x 8" // 2016
This exhibition of Margaret Smithers-Crump’s work is one of 8 selected from among 137 proposals submitted for consideration for Manifest’s 13th season. It is the first solo exhibition Manifest has ever presented in multiple spaces at the gallery.
Three individual works will occupy two galleries, creating an environment through which viewers must pass, like small prey or symbiotic organisms, in order to experience them fully. As large wall-based installations the works insist upon a visceral, corporeal involvement on the part of the viewer. It is no accident that Smithers-Crump's works function perfectly to bridge, both literally and conceptually, between the two group exhibits also on view at this time. ​
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Gathering // Acrylic on Translucent Plexiglas // 120 x 144 x 8 inches // 2016
Of her work the artist states:

"Through its inherent associations to life, death, and renewal, Vital explores water as the source and resource for all living beings and by extension, the vulnerability of the oceans. Acting as metaphors for a fragile existence, the glass-like artworks in this exhibition underscore the vital necessity of water on our planet.

Each installation is made of hundreds of unique hand cut, painted, and chemically bonded units of primarily recycled plexiglas. Individually formed and shaped by heat, these translucent pieces become both membranous and organic.

As glass is easily shattered, each of these plexiglas installations reminds us of the fragility of life on Earth and of the importance of water to its survival.”
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Margaret Smithers-Crump is a Canadian artist based in Houston, Texas. She received her BFA in Painting from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio in 1973. For the last twenty years, Smithers-Crump has been exploring the aesthetic potential of Plexiglas in both painting and installations. She has had a series of solo and group exhibitions throughout Texas and the United States including her recent one person exhibitions at the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, Galveston Art Center, Galveston,TX; Imperial Center for the Arts and Sciences, Rocky Mount, NC; Penn College of Technology - Penn State, Williamsport, PA; and Lawndale Art Center, Houston,TX.
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