b[x] gallery, 203 Harrisson Place, 3rd floor, Brooklyn, NY
August 24 – October 5, 2018
AnnexB and b[x] gallery present Hasta Tepito, first solo show of the Brazilian artist Mano Penalva in NYC, curated by Julie Dumont / The Bridge Project.
No man’s land of itinerant traders and in constant movement, Tepito is a neighborhood in Mexico
City, a grey area on the map, with hazy borders and no exact geographical definition for the
passersby, an open market where according to a popular saying “everything can be sold, except
one’s honor” and where outsiders are not allowed.
In the video Hasta Tepito, the central axis of the exhibition, Mano Penalva reveals his lifelong
interest for popular markets, the flow of people, of goods, the packaging, the colors, patterns and
sounds that mark the rhythm of these transit places. Through this observation, the artist depicts
his subjective view of the circulation of objects and of the bodies that carry them in a globalized
world, sharing in the meantime, an insight of what it is to be a stranger.
The outsiders’ outlook is a recurrent theme to Mano Penalva’s artistic work, as he starts from
everyday references and reveals their essence, their symbolic form, as if they were seen for the
first time, proposing new interpretations and displacing boundaries.
This exercise of construction and deconstruction is further developed in collages, expanded paintings, minimalist sculptures and installations, in a playful mix of high and low culture, when a simple twist moves the banal into the contemporary art field. Mano Penalva’s formal expression in the attribution of new volumes, meanings and functions to familiar objects, brings us to the core of the artist’s practice, questioning the differentiation between the erudite and the popular, the beautiful and the ugly, the original and the copy, actively breaking art’s classical structures and limits. Hasta Tepito in this sense, proposes a reflection on
the time lapse corresponding to the paths followed by the street sellers, a moment where anything
can happen, as it is the case when he displaces everyday references and turns them into art.
Text by Julie Dumont / The Bridge Project
Mano Penalva (Salvador de Bahia, Brasil, 1987) :Mano Penalva documents the material culture, globalization and the corresponding behavior patterns changes. His artwork are deliberately nonrepresentational, allowing materials to dictate form and come together on their own. He is graduated in Social Communication (2008, PUC-RJ), Social Sciences (PUC-RJ) and frequented the art lectures at Parque Laje (RJ). He showed his work in Latin America, the United States and Europe, with highlights for the solo shows Re-Que-Bra, Frédéric de Godlschmitd Collection (Brussels, 2018), truk(ə), Soma Galeria (Curitiba, 2018), Estado Sul, Camelódromo (Porto Alegre, 2017); Andejos, Museu de Arte de Ribeirão Preto (2017); Balneário, Central Galeria (São Paulo, 2016); and for the group shows O Maravilhamento das Coisas, Galeria Sancovsky (São Paulo, 2018); A Bela e a Fera, Central Galeria (São Paulo, 2017); Hecha la ley, hecha la trampa, Hangar (Barcelona, 2017); Simphony of Hunger: Digesting FLUXUS in five moviments, A PLUS A Gallery (Veneza, Itália, 2015); and CONTRAPROVA, Paço das Artes (São Paulo, 2015).
The Bridge Project is a São Paulo based, nomadic curatorial initiative created by the Belgium
Born curator Julie Dumont, offering visibility to artists through the organization and documentation
of exhibitions and international residencies with partners from São Paulo, Brussels and New York
among others.
Link : https://www.annexb.net/exhibition-hasta-tepito
