TWILIGHT CHORUS
GROUP EXHIBITION
co-curated with guadalajara90210
MARIANA GARIBAY RAEKE
ILANA HARRIS-BABOU
CIRCE IRASEMA
HÉCTOR JIMÉNEZ CASTILLO
MARIO NAVARRO
MARCO ROUNTREE
THE CHIMNEY
200 MORGAN AVENUE
BROOKLYN, NY 11237
MAY 31 – JULY 14, 2019
OPENING FRIDAY, MAY 31, 6:30-9:30PM
The Chimney is pleased to present Twilight Chorus, a group exhibition co-curated with guadalajara90210, a Mexican-based organization run by Alma Saladin. The exhibition includes works of Mariana Garibay Raeke, Ilana Harris-Babou, Circe Irasema, Héctor Jiménez Castillo, Mario Navarro and Marco Rountree. Most works were commissioned for this exhibition.
As the sun recedes below the horizon, a soft and uncertain glowing light permeates the landscape. The twilight – an in-between and temporally ambiguous moment, only lasts a few minutes. At this time, the small and almost invisible creatures of the natural realm become most active: they leave their hiding place to bustle into the night and dance into the air, waters and forests.
Twilight Chorus evokes a phantasmagorical landscape where the works’ musical and choreographic forms are revealed. The selected pieces have varying textures and expressive qualities that unveil the vibrancy and liveliness of materiality. They are visual poetries whose forms playfully and gracefully twirl and swirl, like the ballerina’s elegant movements. Their lightness, fragility and reflectivity appear, disappear and morph upon viewers’ phenomenological encounter with the works, making their performative function ephemeral and transitory, just like the dancer’s arrhythmic breath. Caught in their élan vital, Twilight Chorus is a suspended moment in time.
Héctor Jiménez Castillo presents paintings that act as a visual musical score. Sprayed paint moves and disappears softly on the transparent surface of juxtaposed sculptural boxes. With a penetrating light, the spray paint simultaneously glows and fades in a choreography of colors.
Suspended from the ceilings are two of Mariana Garibay Raeke’s newly commissioned pieces. Circular metal frames covered with organic materials – reed, fibers and plants, softly swing and morph, receptive to time and the environment.
Ilana Harris-Babou’s ceramic lamps are made of juxtaposed layers that seemingly melt and fuse with one another. Slabs, resembling organic matter are cobbled together. Their wobbly and unequal forms find a balance through their asymmetrical shapes.
Circe Irasema’s Cosmic Paintings are vertical fabric-based paintings of varying sizes with minimal marks, each exploring a unique color palette. The varying hues consist in applied make-up bought from stores in downtown Mexico City.
Mario Navarro’s sculptures play with spatial elements and decompose architectural paradigms. With the interplay of balance, displacement and gentle architectural intervention, his works reveal the space’s volume.
Marco Rountree’s works repurpose and transform existing organic forms from volcanic stones to Mexican calabazas (gourds). In The Chimney, ornamented gourds stand atop thin metal bars. Like musical instruments, their bustling curvaceous shapes suggest rhythmic patterns.
BIOGRAPHIES
guadalajara90210
guadalajara90210 is a gallery/project-space run by Alma Saladin, dedicated to contemporary art and based in Guadalajara (Mexico), which explores new exhibition formats through the organization of site-specific projects offsite.
Héctor Jiménez Castillo (b.1992, Veracruz, Mexico), completed a BFA from the Escuela de Artes de la Secretaría de Cultura Jalisco, Mexico (2014). Selected solo exhibitions include: “Quis este deus quem adoras? (¿Cuál es el dios al que adoras?) Espacio Obra negra” at Guanajuato, Mexico (2018); “You’re here and it’s amazing”, Arrogante Albino’s commissioned performance for I SEE YOU at the SCAD Museum of art, Savannah, Georgia, US (2018); “Concierto para dos pies izquierdos, Laboratorio Artes Variedades” at the Laboratorio Artes Variedades residency, Guadalajara, Mexico (2018); “La domesticación de los reinos (plantae) para Unmetrocuadrado” at the Hotel Demetria, Guadalajara, Mexico (2018); “Hubo dos momentos de fugaz conciencia mientras cruzábamos el río” at Guadalajara90210, Guadalajara, Mexico (2017), to name a few. Jiménez Castillo was awarded residences at Unlimited NYC, New York (2019) and PROA residency, Guanajuato, Mexico (2018). He lives and works in Guadalajara.
Mariana Garibay Raeke (b.1977 Guadalajara, Mexico) completed her BFA at California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2012) and her MFA at Yale University School of Art, New Haven (2014). Her solo exhibitions include “closing the space between us: touch and the topology of galaxies,” The Chimney NYC (2018); “Every Number is One”, Transmitter, Brooklyn (2015); “Polychromes”, Zughaus Gallery, Berkeley, CA (2012); “Life Elsewhere”, The Consulate General of Mexico, San Francisco, CA (2007) among others. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Selenas Mountain (Ridgewood), Fortnight Institute (New York), The Chimney NYC (Brooklyn), Harvey/Meadows Gallery (Aspen), Transmitter (Brooklyn), Instituto Cervantes (New York), Cornell University (Ithaca), Oakland Museum of California (Oakland), de Young Art Center (San Francisco), SFMOMA Artist Gallery (SF), The Consulate General of Mexico (SF), among others Garibay Raeke has participated in residency at Pocoapoco, Oaxaca, Mexico (2019); the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2017); Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass, CO (2016), the Kala Art Institute, Berkeley; and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco (2005). She was a founding member of Grupo < > (2015-2017) a collective focused on supporting and promoting the work of Latin-American women artists in New York and is a co-founder and editor of Asteroids and Asterisms a digital publication of conversations with artists on the nature of making and matter.
Ilana Harris-Babou (b.1991, Brooklyn, NY) completed her BA from Yale University, New Haven (2013) and her MFA from Columbia University, New York (2016). Harris-Babou is included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, New York curated by Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta. She had several solo exhibition in the United-States: “Reparation Hardware” at Larrie, New York, NY (2018); “One Bad Recipe” at The Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2017). She was also included in several group exhibitions such as “Further Thoughts on Earthy Materials” at the Kunsthaus Hamburg (2018); “How To” at the The National Academy, New York (2018); “In Practice: Material Deviance” at the Sculpture Center, Long Island, NY (2017); “Genre-Nonconforming: The DIS Edutainment Network”, at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA (2017); “In Response: Unorthodox at The Jewish Museum, New York (2016) She has received several awards: Session, Recess Art, New York (2018) and Van Lier Fellow, Museum of Arts and Design (2017). She is included in several press articles namely Artforum, The New Yorker, Bomb Magazine, Pin-up, to name a few.
Circe Irasema (b.1987, Mexico City) completed her degree in Visual and Plastic Arts at the Arts and Design Faculty of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (2010) and later at the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving “La Esmeralda” (2017). Among her individual projects are Anotaciones Simples sobre el Fenómeno de Síntesis de una Visión Binocular (Galería Progreso, Mexico City); and the intervention Nueva Colección Prehispánica de Danza Aérea presented in the esplanade of the National Museum of Anthropology and History, in Mexico City, by invitation of the curatorial initiative “Satélite”. She participated in the portfolio review by artist Jorge Macchi at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), in 2014, and has been part of the selection of several editions of Salon ACME. Her work has been exhibited in group shows like: Antropología Moderna(Roberto Garza Sada Center of Art, Architecture and Design, Monterrey); Ontologías Pictóricas / El cordón umbilical retiniano (ESPAC, Mexico City); Almost Solid Light: New Work from Mexico (Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York); Delirios Urbanos (El Cuarto de Máquinas, Mexico City); Galerías Similares: la misma pero más barata (Salón Silicón, Mexico City); Una red de líneas que se intersecan(ESPAC, Mexico City), among others.
Mario Navarro (b.1984, California) completed a bachelor in architecture from Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Occidente, Guadalajara, Mexico (2008). Selected exhibitions include “A Landscape of Events,” SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2017); “Veil/Unveil,” Proyecto Paralelo, Mexico City (2017); “Aesthetical Irregularities,” Komagome SOKO, Tokyo, Japan (2016); “ Mi Casa, Tu Casa,” Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York (2016); and “Forms of otherness,” organized by Bard College, International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), Brooklyn (2015). He was awarded residencies at Queens Space, Long Island City, USA (2018-19) and Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, New York (2017-18). He lives and works in New York
Marco Rountree (b.1982, Mexico City) lives and works in Mexico City. Rountree was awarded several solo exhibitions in Mexico and abroad such as “Escuela de Ciencias y Artesanías del Volcán Xitle” at the Anahuacalli Museum, Mexico City (2019); “Lengua future” at Carta Blanca, Mexico City (2018); “Muralismo Floritural” at the Galería La Caja Negra, Madrid, Spain (2016); “Faldas y plantas” at the Proyecto Paralelo, Mexico City (2016); “Post Concepción” at Gabrielle Maubrie Gallery, Paris, France (2013). His works were included in numerous group exhibitions such as “geometria primitive,” Mercado Negro, Cholula, Mexico (2018); “Kitchen debate” at Rawson Projects, New York, US (2017); “TALÓN ROUGE: six mexican artists revisit José Juan Tablada and his New York circle” at PROXYCO gallery, New York, USA (2017); “True Story” at Proyecto Monclova, Mexico City (2015); “Nothingness and the Being” at Fundación Jumex, Mexico City (2009), to name a few.
