The exhibition “Body Body” by Nina Childress looks back on 40 years of uninterrupted creation. It is the first retrospective of the paintings of the artist in France.
Its title refers to the American expression “body of work”, but also to the importance of the representation of the body in her works, as well as the phenomenon of repetition or double.
From this exhibition of a hundred paintings, out of the 1081 paintings produced between August 1980 and the end of 2020, several lines of force and recurring subjects emerge: series and its variations (Tupperware boxes, candies, soaps, toys…), question of portrait (icons, statues, effigies, self-portraits…) or conversely an absence of bodies (the Hair Pieces, interiors, empty seats…). Everywhere, the norm and the subversion are questioned.
Installation view Ulla von Brandenburg, Eine Landschaft ohne Blau, wie ungefähr, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst. Photo Tobias Hübel. Courtesy de l’artiste, Art : Concept (Paris); Meyer Riegger (Berlin/Karlsruhe); Pilar Corrias Gallery (Londres) et Produzentengalerie Hamburg
The exhibition ‘A landscape without blue, what would you say’ (a quotation from Goethe’s panels on colour theory and their explanation) has been specially designed for the rooms of the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art. This is the first exhibition of the artist’s work on this scale in Germany and the first museum exhibition of her work in Northern Germany.
Produit par The Modern Institute pour l’exposition ‘Warning Graphic Content’
Jeremy Deller – Printed Matters
Matthew Higgs
Perhaps the most salient thing you need to know about the artist Jeremy Deller is that he neither trained nor studied to be an artist. This is important, as it inducts Deller within a history of so-called “self-taught” artists: a canon of individuals who arrived at making art, or something that resembles art, via other means, via other routes. Eschewing art school, Deller instead studied art history, initially within the formal environs of London’s Courtauld Institute, where he specialized in the southern-European Baroque; and then later at the University of Sussex, where he studied with David Mellor (Mellor’s Wikipedia entry notably identifies only Deller as being a former student of his).
At Sussex, Deller’s interests expanded to embrace a broader and more porous understanding of the role that both art and the artist might play within society. Informed and influenced by the prescient thinking of the pioneers of what came to be known as Cultural Studies – Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, et al – Deller’s subsequent work, over the next three decades both mirrors and amplifies their desire to understand culture “in all its complex forms”, whilst simultaneously analyzing “the social and political context in which culture manifests itself.”
Deller’s emergence as an artist was organic. He has described his 1986 encounter with Andy Warhol in London as being a watershed moment, “Meeting Andy Warhol was the most important thing that had happened to me in my life up to that point.” The two weeks that he subsequently spent in New York in Warhol’s orbit at The Factory “would prove to be the art education that I’d never had – the equivalent of taking a foundation course and BFA and MFA degrees in a fortnight.” From Warhol, Deller determined that “an artist can do whatever he or she wants. There are no limits.”
From the outset, the subject of Deller’s work has been a consideration of the recent past: an examination of how our shared social, cultural and political histories inform and shape both the present and the future – an approach that is evident in Deller’s key works such as: The History of The World and Acid Brass (both 1997); The Battle of Orgreave (2001); It Is What It Is (2009); and Everybody In The Place (2018), among others.
Many of Deller’s early works took the form of t-shirts, posters, bumper stickers, carrier bags, classified ads, business cards, public signage, and other forms of printed matter: quotidian, commonplace mediums that he continues to employ to this day. Circulating freely and outside of the established channels of the art world, Deller’s earliest interventions sought out instead a different public – passersby – and could, in the words of curator Ralph Rugoff, “be appreciated without any specialized knowledge.”
This fundamentally democratic impulse remains a defining characteristic of Deller’s work of the past thirty years, and is central to his public identity as an artist: since winning the Turner Prize in 2004 – which he dedicated to “… everyone who cycles, everyone who looks after wildlife, and the Quaker Movement …” – Deller has gradually become a public figure himself.
Throughout Deller’s work, which over the years has become increasingly collaborative, there is a palpable sense of generosity: a desire to frame often complex ideas in a manner that is at once legible and accessible, yet in a way that never condescends to nor patronizes the audience.
‘Warning Graphic Content’ is the first exhibition to survey Deller’s poster and print works produced between 1993 and 2021, an era of often unprecedented social, cultural, political, ecological and technological upheaval. Despite the exhibition’s focus on printed matter, the exhibition also serves as a retrospective and chronological account of Deller’s thinking, a visual manifestation of his ongoing – and shifting – interests and advocacy. Aligning the poetic with the polemical, Deller’s poster and billboard works have increasingly taken on a more urgent even political dimension: evident in his recent post-Brexit broadsides Thank God For Immigrants (2020), Welcome To The Shitshow (2019), Tax Avoidance Kills (2020) and the new classic: Cronyism Is English For Corruption (2021). Writing in 2012 on the occasion of Deller’s mid-career survey at London’s Hayward Gallery, curator Ralph Rugoff succinctly outlined Deller’s unique position:
“… Deller has worked to illuminate the underlying knots that tie us together – often in ways that defy our conventional understanding of society and our place within it. Ingeniously exploring the ways that culture is woven from webs of activity that cut across all social spheres and categories, his work has provided an indispensable alternative to contemporary art’s status quo, and an invaluable tonic for our capacity to re-imagine the ways we make sense of the world.” ¹
¹ Rugoff, R. ‘Middle Class Hero’, in Hall, Stuart ; Higgs, Matthew ; Rugoff, Ralph ; Young, Rob (ed.) ‘Jeremy Deller : Joy in People’, (Londres : Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2012), p. 20
List of available individual posters
Click on each image for more information
Jeremy Deller, A Range Rover crushed and made into a bench, 2012. Silkscreen on paper, 9 parts, max.: 15 × 71 cm (5 ⅞ × 28 inches). Edition of 10 plus IV AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Keith Moon Matters, 1995. Silkscreen on paper, 79 × 53 cm (31 ⅛ × 20 ⅞ inches). Edition of 7. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Together 4 Ever, 1995. Silkscreen on paper, 66 × 50 cm (26 × 19 ⅝ inches). Edition of 7. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, To Live is to dream, 1995. Silkscreen on paper, 79 × 53 cm (31 ⅛ × 20 ⅞ inches). Edition of 7. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Thank God for Immigrants, 2020. Silkscreen on paper, 59,4 × 42 cm (23 ⅜ × 16 ½ inches). Edition variable of 500. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Send Bat Echolocation sounds to Dub Reggae Producers, 2012. Silkscreen on paper, 66,7 × 48,2 cm (26 ¼ × 19 inches). Edition of 10 plus IV AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Quotations, 2005. Xerox prints sur papier, polyptych of 6, 84 × 59,5 cm (33 ⅛ × 23 ⅜ inches). Edition of 6 plus II AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Prince Harry Kills Me, 2013. Digital print on pearlescent paper, 27,9 × 21,6 cm (11 × 8 ½ inches). Edition of 50 plus X AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Minutemen tracklisting, 2005. Letterpress print, 55 × 35 cm (21 ⅝ × 13 ¾ inches). Edition of 10 plus II AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Meek/Turing, 2012. Silkscreen print on paper, 49,5 × 59,7 cm (19 ½ × 23 ½ inches). Edition of 10 plus IV AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Live at Leeds, 2005. Silkscreen print on paper, triptych, each: 36 × 56 cm (14 ⅛ × 22 inches). Edition of 10 plus II AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Keith Moon Matters, 1995. Silkscreen print on paper, 79 × 53 cm (31 1/8 × 20 7/8 inches). Edition of 7. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, London & on & on, 2016. Silkscreen print on paper, 76 × 51 cm (29 ⅞ × 20 ⅛ inches). Open edition. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, I♥Melancholy, 1993. Silkscreen print on paper, 32 × 48 cm (12 ⅝ × 18 ⅞ inches). Edition of 6. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, I can see a bicycle, 2012. Silkscreen print on paper, 52,7 × 53,3 cm (20 ¾ × 21 inches). Edition of 10 plus IV AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, I Blame The Industrial Revolution, 2012. Silkscreen print on paper, 45,7 × 81,9 cm (18 × 32 ¼ inches). Edition of 10 plus IV AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Home Sweet Home, 2006. Letterpress print, 35,6 × 55,9 cm (14 × 22 inches). Edition of 100 plus XX AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Friendly Bombs, 2012. Silkscreen print on paper, 54,6 × 70,5 cm (21 ½ × 27 ¾ inches). Edition of 10 plus IV AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Every Little Helps, 2013. Print on paper, 2 parties, chaque: 100 × 70 cm (39 ⅜ × 27 ½ inches). Edition of 50. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, English Magic circa 1990, 2014. Lithographic on paper, 59 × 84 cm (23 ¼ × 33 ⅛ inches). Edition of 300 plus III AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, I♥Melancholy, 1993. Silkscreen print on paper, 32 × 48 cm (12 ⅝ × 18 ⅞ inches). Edition of 6. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Brothers, 2005. Letterless print, 55 × 35 cm (21 ⅝ × 13 ¾ inches). Edition of 100. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Brian Epstein Died For You, 1995. Poster, 42 × 30 cm (16 ½ × 11 ¾ inches). Edition of 12 plus II AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Bless This Acid House, 2005. Letterless print, 35 × 55 cm (13 ¾ × 21 ⅝ inches). Edition of 10 plus II AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Attention all DJs, 2012. Silkscreen print on paper, 42 × 52 cm (16 ½ × 20 ½ inches). Edition of 100 plus X AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, Animal Vegetable Pop Music, 2012. Silkscreen print on paper, 54,6 × 69,8 cm (21 ½ × 27 ½ inches). Edition of 10 plus IV AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Jeremy Deller, A Time Before Shopping, 2012. Silkscreen print on paper, 99 × 69,2 cm (39 × 27 ¼ inches). Edition of 10 plus IV AP. Courtesy of the artist, Art : Concept, Paris, The Modern Institute, Glasgow. Inquire
Listen to the interview of Jeremy Deller by DUUU Radio.
The artist presents the exhibition and the poster co-produced for the occasion by Art : Concept and *DUUU.
Kate Newby, I like the way I am, 2023. Bronze, corde artisanale / Bronze, Handmade rope. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo by Jorge Davalos Palma
Kate Newby, Kate Newby, a year in the wild, 2022. Verre, jaune d’argent / Glass, jaune d’argent. 37 × 37 cm (14 ⅝ × 14 ⅝ inches). Courtesy the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Feel Noise, Kate Newby and MacKenzie Stevens, 2022, Testsite, TX/US
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Carbonate of Copper, 2022, Artpace, San Antonio, TX/US Curator Jennifer Teets
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Carbonate of Copper, 2022, Artpace, San Antonio, TX/US Curator Jennifer Teets
Vues de l’exposition / Installation view “Réclamer la terre”, 14.04.22 – 04.09.22, Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Courtesy the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Aurélien Mole
Vues de l’exposition / Installation view “Réclamer la terre”, 14.04.22 – 04.09.22, Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Courtesy the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Aurélien Mole
Vues de l’exposition / Installation view “Réclamer la terre”, 14.04.22 – 04.09.22, Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Courtesy the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Aurélien Mole
Vues de l’exposition / Installation view “Réclamer la terre”, 14.04.22 – 04.09.22, Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Courtesy the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Aurélien Mole
Vue de l’exposition / Installation view, Kate Newby: Try doing anything without it, 2022, Art : Concept, Paris
Kate Newby, 5 minutes to everywhere, 2022, Bronze, 19,5 x 54 x 0,4 cm
Kate Newby, amazing all times of year, 2022. White brass, silver, found glass (Auckland), stoneware, glaze (6 pieces). Dimensions variables (6 pièces). Dimensions variables. Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Try doing anything without it, 2022. Briques, pièces de monnaie, verre trouvé (Paris, Texas) / Bricks, coins, found glass (Paris, Texas). 324 x 397 cm. Produit aux / Produced at Rairies Montrieux. Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Vue de l’exposition / Installation view, Kate Newby: Try doing anything without it, 2022, Art : Concept, Paris
Vue de l’exposition / Installation view, Kate Newby: Try doing anything without it, 2022, Art : Concept, Paris
Thank you for taking us along (à gauche/left), Her expression (à droite/right), 2022. Briques, mortier / Bricks, mortar. 324 x 10 x 11 cm (127 1/2 x 3 7/8 x 4 3/8 in). Produit aux / Produced at Rairies-Montrieux. Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Vue de l’exposition / Installation view, Kate Newby: Try doing anything without it, 2022, Art : Concept, Paris
Vue de l’exposition / Installation view, Kate Newby: Try doing anything without it, 2022, Art : Concept, Paris
Kate Newby, Walking with a lot of people, 2022. Limoges porcelain, glass, whipping twine, woolen rope, wire, Jute, ribbon, thread, gold, bronze. Dimensions variables. Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Kate Newby, Walking with a lot of people, 2022. Limoges porcelain, glass, whipping twine, woolen rope, wire, Jute, ribbon, thread, gold, bronze. Dimensions variables. Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Kate Newby, Walking with a lot of people, 2022. Limoges porcelain, glass, whipping twine, woolen rope, wire, Jute, ribbon, thread, gold, bronze. Dimensions variables. Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Generous and with light, 2019. Verre, corde de laine, câble / glass, wool rope, wire, dimensions variables Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Generous and with light, 2019. Verre, corde de laine, câble / glass, wool rope, wire, dimensions variables Courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
: Kate Newby. Grows and grows on you, 2021 Argile, bris de verres collectés, crayon dermographique, 3700 éléments. Vue d’exposition / Installation view Musée d’art contemporain de Haute-Vienne – Château de Rochechouart photo: Aurélien Mole
Kate Newby, ’Sorry fingers keep going’, 2018. White brass, porcelain, silver, brass, stoneware and glaze, 8 pieces
Kate Newby, ‘Let me be the wind that pulls your hair’, 2017, Exhibition view (detail), Artpace, San Antonio, TX, USA
Kate Newby, ‘I can’t nail the days down’, 2018. Exhibition detail, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
Kate Newby, ‘I can’t nail the days down’, 2018. Exhibition detail, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
Kate Newby, ’lit by lightning’, 2019. Glass, Two parts, 9.4 x 18 x 29cm, 8.8 x 20 x 11.5cm
Kate Newby, ’Bring Everyone’, 2019. Glass, Dimensions vary according to site
Kate Newby, ‘The more I listen to it the more I love it’, 2017. Glass, beer bottles Exhibition detail, Contemporary Swedish Art Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden
Kate Newby, ‘Not this time, not for me’, 2017. Mortar, concrete colour, silver, white brass, porcelain, cotton rope, glass, stoneware. Exhibition detail, SculptureCenter, New York, NY, USA
Kate Newby, ‘Let me be the wind that pulls your hair’, 2017. Exhibition detail, Artpace, San Antonio, TX, USA
Kate Newby, ‘A rock in this pocket’, 2018. Bricks, glass, ceramics, metal Exhibition view, 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Biography
Kate Newby was born in Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand in 1979 and works in the United States where she resides. In 2015 she graduated with a PhD from the Elam School of Fine Art at the University of Auckland.
Working with a variety of media including installation, textile, ceramics, casting and glass, Newby is a sculptor who is committed to exploring and putting pressure on the limits and nature of sculpture. As such, she is interested in not only space, volume, texture and materials, but where and how sculpture happens. The handmade plays a very important role in her work ; it is not merely romantic or even retrograde, but rather the aesthetic byproduct of a position that shamelessly embraces direct experience over the mediated.
Her work has been shown at the 21st Biennale of Sydney in 2018, as well as in various institutions and galleries around the world: Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, Nouvelle-Zélande (2023); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2022); Musée de Rochechouart (2021); Institut d’Art Contemporain Villeurbane (2019); Lumber room, Portland, Oregon (2019); Kunsthalle Vienna (2018); Kunsthaus Hamburg (2018); Index, Contemporary Swedish Art Foundation (2017); and the SculptureCenter, NY (2017).
Kate has completed residencies at: The Joan Mitchell Foundation (2019), The Chinati Foundation (2017), Artpace (2017), Fogo Island (2013), and the International Studio & Curatorial Program ISCP (2012).
She won the Walters Prize, New Zealand’s largest contemporary art prize, in 2012 and the Ettore Fico Prize (Turin, IT) in 2022.
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Tania Pérez Córdova. Generalization, Museo Tamayo, 2022. Photography by Gerardo Landa and Eduardo López (GLR Estudio). Courtesy of Museo Tamayo.
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Tania Pérez Córdova. Generalization, Museo Tamayo, 2022. Photography by Gerardo Landa and Eduardo López (GLR Estudio). Courtesy of Museo Tamayo.
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Tania Pérez Córdova. Generalization, Museo Tamayo, 2022. Photography by Gerardo Landa and Eduardo López (GLR Estudio). Courtesy of Museo Tamayo.
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Tania Pérez Córdova. Generalization, Museo Tamayo, 2022. Photography by Gerardo Landa and Eduardo López (GLR Estudio). Courtesy of Museo Tamayo.
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Tania Pérez Córdova. Generalization, Museo Tamayo, 2022. Photography by Gerardo Landa and Eduardo López (GLR Estudio). Courtesy of Museo Tamayo.
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Tania Pérez Córdova. Generalization, Museo Tamayo, 2022. Photography by Gerardo Landa and Eduardo López (GLR Estudio). Courtesy of Museo Tamayo.
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Tania Pérez Córdova. Generalization, Museo Tamayo, 2022. Photography by Gerardo Landa and Eduardo López (GLR Estudio). Courtesy of Museo Tamayo.
Vue d’exposition / Installation view Tania Pérez Córdova. Generalization, Museo Tamayo, 2022. Photography by Gerardo Landa and Eduardo López (GLR Estudio). Courtesy of Museo Tamayo.
Vue de l’exposition/Installation view, Tania Pérez Córdova, All our explanations, Art: Concept, 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo by: Nicolas Brasseur
Vue de l’exposition/Installation view, Tania Pérez Córdova, All our explanations, Art: Concept, 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo by: Nicolas Brasseur
Vue de l’exposition/Installation view, Tania Pérez Córdova, All our explanations, Art: Concept, 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo by: Nicolas Brasseur
Vue de l’exposition/Installation view, Tania Pérez Córdova, All our explanations, Art: Concept, 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo by: Nicolas Brasseur
Tania Pérez Córdova, Todas nuestras explicaciones, 2022, Béton coloré, glace en train de fondre, 26,5 x 38 x 9,5cm. Courtesy of the artist & Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Nicolas Brasseur
Tania Pérez Córdova, Small Tragedies 1 (There are dead bees on the ground, they are in extinction, I explain it to my son, whose clothes no longer fit, and have holes, other holes are made by pests, others can be handmade, it is triple filter, it is just dust, It’s blush, it’s trash, it is myopia, it is astigmatism; we didn’t need all those things we bought.), 2021, Stratified glass: reused museum window, found bees, contact lenses, fragments of clothes, receipts, leaf, blush, dust, bread crumbles, fragment of N95 mask, plastic bag, plasticine, tape, uv filter. 150 × 80 cm (59 × 31 ½ inches)
Tania Pérez Córdova, We Belong /We Dissent (from the series Things in Pause), 2017, marble, borrowed guitar string, 91 x 65 x 3 cm. Indus 2 exhibition view. Photo Fabrice Gousset
Tania Pérez Córdova, Substraction 1, 2018, Iron (Le Creuset Dutch casserole dish that has been cast, melted, and remelted in its own mold), 2 parts, pot 31 x 22 x 10 cm; lid: 24.4 x 15 cm.
Tania Pérez Córdova, Sincere I Non-sincere, 2018, gold facsimile necklace, obsidian, water, 26 x 44 x 13 cm. Photo Fabrice Gousset
Tania Pérez Córdova, Paisaje, 2018, aluminum, various materials (fragment of fence cast, melted, and recast in its own mold), dimensions variable
Tania Pérez Córdova, Paisaje, 2018, aluminum, various materials (fragment of fence cast, melted, and recast in its own mold), dimensions variable (detail)
Tania Pérez Córdova, Panorama, 2020, Professional airbrush sunless spray tan on canvas 210 × 116 cm (82 7/10 × 45 7/10 in)
Tania Pérez Córdova, Voice, 2013, Borrowed sim card, porcelain, 36.5 x 25.8 cm (14 3/8 x 10 3/16 inches). Photo Claire Dorn. Courtesy of the artist, José García and Galerie Perrotin
Tania Pérez Córdova, installation view Daylength of a room, Kunsthalle Basel, 2018. Photo Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel
Tania Pérez Córdova, installation view Daylength of a room, Kunsthalle Basel, 2018. Photo Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel
Tania Pérez Córdova, installation view Daylength of a room, Kunsthalle Basel, 2018. Photo Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel
Tania Pérez Córdova, installation view Daylength of a room, Kunsthalle Basel, 2018. Photo Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel
Tania Pérez Córdova, Short Sight Box – Hole E, 2020, Imprint of a hole dug in a field, earth, plant roots, plaster, mesh, enamel paint, South Sea pearl, artificial pearl, 80 × 66 × 26.7 cm (31 1/2 × 26 × 10 1/2 in).
Tania Pérez Córdova, installation view Short Sight Box at Tina Kim Gallery. Photo Hyunjung Rhee
Tania Pérez Córdova, installation view Short Sight Box at Tina Kim Gallery. Photo Hyunjung Rhee
Biography
Tania Pérez Córdova (b. 1979) is a Mexican artist born in Mexico City where she lives and works. After studying at the school of Fine Arts in Mexico City, she went on to get a BA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College in London.
Tania Pérez Córdova uses a large range of media, namely sculpture, found objects and installation, but also photography and performance, through which she explores the contextual relationship between everyday objects. The visual elements she presents are meant to be understood in the context of a larger narrative to which the titles give the keys – the artist likes to refer to her works as ‘situations’.
« Pérez Córdova layers different technologies, time periods and materials — gunpowder, cigarette ash, makeup, foam, bronze poured into sand, jewellery — to present poetic snapshots of a narrative that has already happened or might yet take place. Her elegant sculptures are questions hanging in the air, a feeling unarticulated.
In her intimate creations, vestiges of human presence can be discerned as objects are given new purposes; a medallion of melted beer cans trapped between reused window glass, a bronze cast of someone’s pocket, a coloured contact lens on marble. She often activates her sculptures through a playfully performative element such as having a person in the gallery wear the partner contact lens or earring to one in a sculpture. »*
*Text by d’Elizabeth Fullerton
Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Museo Tamayo in Mexico (2022-2023), Kunsthalle Basel (2018), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2017) and soon at Sculpture Center, New York (2024). Her work is part of important public collections such as Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago/US, Tamayo Museum/MEX, Jumex Collection/MEX, San Francisco Moma/US, Cisneros Collection/US-VEN, Museo Amparo/MEX.
‘All our explanations’ showed at Art:Concept in January 2022 is her first solo exhibition in France.