Thursday, May 19, 2011

ALEJANDRO ALMANZA AT FUNDACION MAGNOLIA, LONDON







Marina Kurikhina chief curator and Tarek Echeverria Samperio director of Fundacion Magnolia




I DID IT MY WAY AND TOOK THE HIGH WAY
ALEJANDRO ALMANZA PEREDA at Fundacion Magnolia
13th May–11th June 2011

FUNDACION MAGNOLIA is delighted to present the first UK exhibition of Mexico City based artist Alejandro Almanza Pereda (b. 1977). This presentation will offer an overview of Almanza Pereda’s practice, which consists of installation, video and drawing. The exhibition will feature new commissions as well as recent work. Known for questioning and challenging the rules of physics Alejandro fiercely explores the concept of gravity in his work. Relentlessly pushing these boundaries, Almanza Pereda relies purely on the forces of resistance to hold his works in place.

Travelling across the US and Mexican border brought Almanza Pereda to explore a variety of situations of intense contrast and sensibility. One may describe such an approach as an exploration of the safe and secure as opposed to the dangerous and unmasked, expressed through the use of precarious experimental assemblages with a poetic narrative.

Almanza Pereda’s construction of major installations is an important part of his practice. The artist always builds his delicately balanced structures on site, exploring gravity through an intense and sometime theatrical visual language. Almaza Pereda offers an intricate experience that can only be explored in person. Another major aspect of the artist’s practice lies in his fascination with consumerism and its worldwide repercussions. Through each of his projects in Colombia, Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Germany he religiously searches through flea markets, gathering used objects, many with local historical connection and others with the global presence of mass market goods.

In his studio in Mexico City one may find the essence of his practice; discovering a collection of carefully combined objects, some collected over a period of several years, that eventually become part of a work. Almanza Pereda refers to this as a ‘cabinet of curiosities’.

text by Marina Kurikhina, Chief Curator, Fundación Magnolia

Fundacion Magnolia at
ROVE Gallery
Lincoln House
33-34 Hoxton Square
London, N1 6NN
Mon–Sat 11:00–18.00

info@fundacionmagnolia.org
http://fundacionmagnolia.org/

http://www.alejandroalmanzapereda.com

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