CUÑA – ISHMAEL RANDALL WEEKS, GWCDMX

Main Room

Gallery Weekend Mexico City, 2019

Sept-Oct, 2019

Arróniz Arte Contemporáneo is pleased to present Wedge (Cuña), an individual exhibition by Peruvian artist Ishmael Randall Weeks (Cusco, 1976) for the annual edition of Gallery Weekend Mexico City. Wedge, brings together a group of works developed ex profeso for the local context that responds to the usual intention of the artist to review, through the creation of a personal and unique language, the impact of cultural displacement over time.

Sculptures and two-dimensional works made of adobe, mineral substrates, mud and metal structures constitute a world that emerges from history and memory and that navigates between contemporary, archaic, tradition and folklore including narratives from the Mesoamerican worldview, anthropology Politics and archeology.

Two mosaics titled ‘Mexican Formalisms’ take up fundamental motifs of Mexican architecture: the metal latticework developed by Manuel Felguérez for the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico City, is arranged in a fragmented and irregular way seeking to establish an open dialogue between the viewer, Latin American modernity -represented by the building erected by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez- and the past in the pre-Hispanic tzompantli or Altar de los Muertos that served as a model for the architectural detail made by Felguérez.

Randall Weeks’ concern about the concepts of time, history and ideology adopts more figurative nuances in his sculptural work where he reveals his immediate references: Russian constructivism and Vladimir Tatlin, Matías Goeritz and popular culture. On one hand, a golden brass structure – made from the repetition of simple geometric figures – holds carefully placed concrete plates that contain fossilized textures of handmade fabrics and at the same time rests on an identifiable traditional element: a duffel, woven carpet very common in Mexico and Central America made from the collection of dried palm leaves. On the other, ‘Crisol‘, a large-format sculpture made from pre-Hispanic figurines agglomerated and located on a brick platform, is proof of a false archaeological treasure that was sliced ​​into a dozen bodies for its apparent historical classification and study relevant. Similarly, sedimentary plates full of arbitrary materials and colors that dissected simulate small excavations, also function as a sculptural journal that marks the time with patterns of materials specifically collected at those sites.

Ishmael Randall Weeks graduated from Bard College in 2000 and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2007. His work has been exhibited in various museums both in Peru and internationally, including Middlesbrough Institute of Modern of Art, England, United Kingdom; MoMA P.S.1, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lima, Peru; Culture Center of Buenos Aires (CCBBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; The Drawing Center, New York, United States; Museum of Art of Lima (MALI), Lima, Peru; Macro Museum | Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome, Italy; National Museum, Lima, Peru; The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, United States; Museum of the Bank of the Republic, Bogotá, Colombia; The Fondazione Cassa di Ris-parmio di Modena, Bologna, Italy; The Drawing Room, London, United Kingdom; Museum of Fine Arts, Mexico City, Mexico; the Bronx Museum, New York, United States; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, United States. His work has also been included in the Havana Biennial, the Bineal de Cuenca, the 6th edition of (S) Files Biennialen El Museo del Barrio, New York. In addition, he has received numerous associations, residences and awards from various institutions.