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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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Up Close and Wearable: Tides

9/28/2016

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Preview by Nazish Chunara

Tides is a series of wearable garments by Amabelle Aguiluz, whose work we've been following since the beginning of the year. ​Her influences very much derive from bodies of water and the organisms that live in them. From the first time I saw her work at Art Share LA to her collaborative residency with Szalt Dance Co and their production of Water Stories, we've seen so much growth and transformation in the making and function of her hand spun, machine knit, designs. Materials include found, donated yarns, and 100% fair trade cotton, allowing the artist to keeping the project eco-friendly. ​
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Amabelle has worked with fashion in the past, so when I visited her studio her for an interview for our Spring issue, I asked if she'd do it again. Needless to say, I'm extremely excited about this! 
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I wanted to work with light and shadow to see the knitted textures in motion. The goal was to see how each of the pieces transform through layering by building texture upon texture.
Tides is a project inspired by sea foam and water created without set patterns. Each piece is unique and would be difficult to replicate. I started with experimenting with small shapes relying on intuitive knitting to guide me. Then I molded and hand stitched each knit swatch to build each garment. The process became a puzzle and each shape became part of a collage. The layers show stages of growth and my interest in texture and volume. The knitting approach happens very organically; it is how I relate to the way patterns form in nature and in the ocean - free flowing, never creating the same shape twice.
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Amabelle Aguiluz is an artist living and working in downtown Los Angeles. Her practice incorporates clothing, textile, fiber sculpture and installation processes that study rhythm, nature, poetic expression and human experience captured through the repetitive motions of crafting. She studied at Politecnico di Milano, Italy and graduated in 2011 at The Fashion Institute of Technology, New York BFA in Fashion Design with an emphasis in Knitwear Design and Textiles. Her installation and wearable artwork has been exhibited at Art Share LA, MorYork Gallery, The Last Bookstore for Maiden LA 2016, Women's Center for Creative Work as part of LA's Public Art Biennial Current LA: Water in Los Angeles and The Triennale Internationale des arts textiles en Outaouais, Canada. ​
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Designer // Amabelle Aguiluz  // @amabelleaguiluz
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Photographer // Mike Carreiro // @mikecarreiro

Model // Ashley Chung // @chungashley
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Hair // Sydney Costley // @sydney_costley

Stylist // Natalie Hemmati

MUA // Aaron Paul // @aaronpaulbeauty

These Days LA // @thesedays.la (for those of you who have your eye on the new organic cotton bulky knit sweater)
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GROWTH / DECAY -Review

7/5/2016

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GROWTH / DECAY
Jun 30, 2016 - Aug 20, 2016
             Paradigm - Phillidelphia, PA                                                   Antler -Portland, OR                                   Gallery hours: Tues, Thurs, Sat 12:00pm - 6:00pm                          Gallery hours:M - Sat 11am - 6pm , Sun 11am - 5pm                         
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Michelle Konczyk // Metempsychosis
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Michelle Konczyk // Atrophy

Review by Danielle Schlunegger-Warner

Growth/Decay was co-curated by Susannah Kelly and Neil Perry of Antler Gallery with Sara McCorriston and Jason Chen from Paradigm Gallery. Both Galleries were started by artists and enthusiasts that wanted to create a space for building community and showing the work of emerging artists. Growth/Decay was a great opportunity for artists to gain exposure in a new city and broaden their network of fellow emerging and established artists.  I believe it is also a good push for galleries to show work by new artists and reengage viewers by refreshing their rosters. While I still loved pieces by artists that both galleries had shown before, I was personally delighted to learn about Michelle Konczyk's stunning works in watercolor, as well as Nick Pedersen's surreal digital environments. I am looking forward to seeing this model used more in galleries across the country and internationally. 

The opening at Antler drew a large crowd staying packed all evening for Alberta St.'s Last Thursday art walk in Portland. While attending the opening I had the opportunity to speak with the curators and a few of the artists visiting from Philadelphia.  Sara McCorriston explained to me that when the two galleries were conceiving the show, they needed to find a theme broad enough that could facilitate two pieces from all the artists. "We gave each other the opposite theme... I see Antler as more of a 'growth' gallery, and Paradigm leans more towards themes of decay... "

The abundance of flowers and animals that were present in these artworks and previous exhibitions show the curators' draw to artists working with themes of nature. This is certainly a true for Antler Gallery. David Rice, Christina Mrozik, Brin Levinson, and Zoe Keller are just a few examples of artists that speak to artists' connection with nature and their reaction to human led climate change. While still within the themes of nature, Paradigm generally seems to curate towards the breakdown, complexities, and the absurdities of being human in a natural world by bringing in artists like Drew Leshko, Caitlin McCormack, Nick Penderson and Jeremy Hush to their roster.
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 All of the works Growth/Decay can be viewed online and purchased through Antler Gallery & Paradigm Gallery 

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Press Release 

Paradigm Gallery and Antler Gallery are excited to present a co-curated group exhibition which spans two themes and two cities, with an opening reception on each coast. Both galleries invited 16 artists, asking them to make two pieces tackling the themes of Growth and Decay.

We live in a time when progress and destruction -- physical, economic, and sociological -- seem to go hand in hand. This theme opens up space to consider the binary nature of the world we live in. The theme was selected as we felt it was universal enough to be explored by the vast majority of artists yet also offered a distinct duality which fulfills the desire to open different shows in each city. Both aspects of the theme needed to be cohesive with the other but also be able to stand alone as its own show in isolation, as all of the "Growth" works will be on display in Philadelphia at Paradigm Gallery and all of the "Decay" works will be on display at Antler Gallery in Portland, with openings less than one week apart. The works may be viewed as stand alone pieces, but many also serve as diptych works.​
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    Our Venison team uses this blog page to post short articles about events, projects, journeys, and art adventures that we find relevant to the contemporary lives of fellow artists.

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