The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University presents an exhibition of recent work by artists living and working in Mexico City.
The young generation of artists in Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art from Mexico City" embrace non-traditional materials in their work, which includes video, photography, installation and performance. The exhibition will be on view at the Nasher Museum of Art from through June 7.
The exhibition is exciting because it pushes our ideas about what is considered art, said Kimerly Rorschach, Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. Here, conceptual art mingles with popular culture in sometimes humorous, sometimes provocative, yet very creative ways. We are pleased to present work by artists who have helped make Mexico City a thriving hub of contemporary art over the past 10 years.
The term escultura social, or social sculpture, came from German performance artist Joseph Beuys, who said that sculpture, if made from everyday materials and displayed in a real-world setting, has the potential to affect society most broadly.
The works are all socially engaged, they draw connections between nature and culture, they revisit conceptual practices/actions from the 1960s, and promote a demystified and democratic idea of art-making, said exhibition curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm, who is the Pamela Alper Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
"My objects are to be seen as stimulants for the transformation of the idea of sculpture ... or of art in general. They should provoke thoughts about what sculpture can be and how the concept of sculpting can be extended to the invisible materials used by everyone.
Thinking Forms -- how we mold our thoughts or
Spoken Forms -- how we shape our thoughts into words or
SOCIAL SCULPTURE -- how we mold and shape the world in which we live:
Sculpture as an
evolutionary process;
Everyone an Artist." -- Joseph Beuys, 1979
Credit: Joseph Beuys, Introduction in Caroline Tisdall, "Joseph Beuys" (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), p. 6.
Exhibition Credits:
The exhibition was organized by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, the Pamela Alper Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Major support for Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art from Mexico City has been provided by the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris.
Additional support has been provided by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; Karen and Steven Berkowitz; Anne and William J. Hokin; Abe Tomás Hughes II and Diana Girardi Karnas; The Albert Pick, Jr. Fund; and Jim and Rita Knox.
At the Nasher Museum, the exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Council for the Arts at Duke University, with additional support provided by the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, North Carolina Arts Council, Jaclyn, Nelson and Kelly Braddy T'99, Latino Community Credit Union, and WUVC-TV Univision 40.
Video Credits:
All images, animation, etc. are Ⓒ the artists and the Nasher Museum of Art.
Interviews by: David Colagiovanni and Wendy Hower Livingston
Editing: David Colagiovanni
Special Thanks to:
María Alós
Artist, Mexico City
Pedro Lasch
Assistant Professor of the Practice of Visual Arts
Duke University
Julie Rodrigues Widholm
Exhibition Curator
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