Group exhibition Curated by Sima Familant Francis Alÿs Felix Gonzalez-Torres David Hammons Férran Martin Donald Moffett Jessica Rankin Sebastián Romo Marisa Tellería-Díez
puddle-wonderful is a multi-generational group show of artists from the United States and abroad where content and material are both paramount. Concerned with people, politics and place, the works in the show address the shape of our current circumstances while also providing a coherent installation that reflects historical precedents within artmaking along with more current trends of installation and material driven projects. The exhibition – which is comprised of painting, sculpture, installation, and drawing - encourages site specificity, temporality, and change.
A candy-piece by Felix Gonzalez-Torres opens the show, a pile of lunar candy mints that will be consumed by viewers during the exhibition; Untitled (Lover Boys) elucidates the artist’s interest in active viewer participation, change and materiality. Rich in metaphor and ambiguity, work will be included by David Hammons, an artist well known for his use of unconventional materials and references to the contemporary urban experience.
Manipulating the painterly context and negotiating an ephemeral dialogue, Jessica Rankin embroiders sculptural paintings on organdy; it features fragments of poetry relating to travel, nature and time punctuated with corresponding imagery. The sculptural painting is installed specifically to allow the sun to change the reflections on the wall. Creating elaborate falla sculptures for the Valencia City Festivals, Férran Martin is concerned with natural elements such as fire and heat. Martin will install an abstract wax painting in the gallery's skylight, illuminating the space - designed by Rafael Viñoly - like a stained glass window. Francis Alÿs' Sunpath is a photographic project which follows a group of people moving with the shade of the Mexican flag hung in a city square, a conceptual project which reflects current politics as the people's placement continually shift under the weight of the flag's shadow.
Sebastián Romo is interested in how daily living patterns translate into other visual ideas and will exhibit a series of photographs titled Constellations where he visually links bottle-caps on a city street, implying a new constellation of objects. Tellería-Díez's minimalist sculptures suggest gestural expressions and question the extent to which our memories affect our perception of place. Interested in the political while also questioning formal issues, Donald Moffett contributes a projection from an area of Central Park called The Rambles - onto a monochrome painting. The Rambles is the backdrop for anonymous sexual encounters whereas the visual of a tree blowing in the autumn wind continues to forward nature as the benchmark for our place in the world.