The atrocious eternal return, a two-person exhibition of sculpture, film and video, with Patricia Valencia. Curated by Salomón Huerta at Jaus, Los Angeles, 2015. To view the films see:
Riviera Maya - https://vimeo.com/174809461
La Floresta / The Forest - https://vimeo.com/179212569
Guadalupe - https://vimeo.com/174843777
Los Angeles - https://vimeo.com/179221964
At the mouth of the well of the Itza - https://vimeo.com/179245326
Borrowing its title from the Argentine writer Adolfo Bioy Casares’s 1940 science fiction novella The Invention of Morel, the exhibition positioned sculptural assemblages within an environment of projected and screened images.
Shot collaboratively in Super-8 film and high definition video, the film works documented locations in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Mexico City; the pre-Columbian archaeological sites of Tulum, Chichén Itzá, and Teotihuacán, a ‘Mayan Riviera’ holiday resort near Cancun, and a gated housing community on the outskirts of Mexico City. Companion pieces by Patricia Valencia coupled fragments of architectural anomalies within Los Angeles, with an intimate portrait of working hands at rest. These moving images aim to present an unhurried view of human built environments and their proximity to, and consumption of their immediate natural surroundings.
The sculptural assemblages draw together exotic woods, found remnants of man-made industrial design, and natural minerals, that hint at a former utility or wealth. These mostly natural items that were once re-formed, then discarded, are now re-formulated into acts of careful balance, to be reconsidered as totems of human accumulation.
Collectively the films and sculptures demonstrated a back-and-forth of excavations and burials, many returns; images reiterated, architectures recontextualized, materials reincarnated, hands and their activities revolving relentlessly back.
