Abraham Cruzvillegas and Kerry Tribe at Modern Art Oxford on artrepublic.com

Abraham Cruzvillegas, is best know for his his long-standing project, Autoconstruccion, in which he takes inspiration from the eclectic and improvisatory architecture of his childhood home in the area of Pedregales de Coyoacán, Mexico City. Autoconstrucción operates as a metaphor for individual identity and the identity of a place existing in a state of flux. Cruzvillegas’ project is informed by ideas of ‘survival economics’ – how scarceness can lead to recycling and solidarity in opposition to consumption and individualism.

For his exhibition, Cruzvillegas has created a series of new works for Modern Art Oxford, that respond to the diverse contexts of the city of Oxford and the artist’s own personal background: The Optimistic Failure, a large-scale suspended sculpture in the form of a ‘mobile’, adorned with representations of Amazonian tsantsas (shrunken heads) made from animal dung, grass and soil collected from Port Meadow, Oxford; and The Simultaneous Promise, a mobile sculpture constructed from a tricycle and sound system that plays recordings of the artist’s interpretations of songs from his childhood and new songs by Oxford bands. These commissions are presented alongside two other new works: Blind Self Portrait as a Post-Thatcherite Deaf Lemon Head. For 'K.M.', in which found paper items are layered in thick monochrome paint and pinned to the gallery walls in a geometric pattern; and Untitled Scratching Relief with Builders Groove 3, a drawing incised directly onto the walls of the Upper Gallery and inspired by the route explored by Cruzvillegas’ during his visits to Oxford.

Dead Star Light includes Kerry Tribe’s most recent projects in her ongoing investigation into memory, forgetting, ambiguity and doubt. Presenting three newly commissioned film, video and installation works, the exhibition brings to a close the 3 Series of commissions, organised by Modern Art Oxford in collaboration with Camden Arts Centre, London, and Arnolfini, Bristol. 

Dead Star Light consists of three new works: Milton Torres Sees a Ghost, Parnassius mnemosyne and The Last Soviet. Milton Torres Sees a Ghost is a room-sized sound installation in which reel-to-reel audio tape traces the gallery walls, endlessly playing and erasing a first hand account of the American fighter pilot’s encounter with a UFO over British airspace in the 1950s which was officially declassified in 2008. Parnassius mnemosyne is a 16mm-film installation featuring an enigmatic animation of the eponymous butterfly. Finally, The Last Soviet is a single-channel video combining original and appropriated footage to tell the true story of Sergei Krikalev, a Soviet cosmonaut who was left in orbit for nearly a year as the Soviet Union collapsed beneath him.

OPENING HOURS: Tue & Wed 10.00 – 17.00, Thur – Sat 10.00 – 22.00 Sun 12.00 – 17.00

Image Credits:

Installation view: Autoconstrucción, CCA Glasgow, 2008. Image courtesy of kurimanzutto

La Familia, 2009, Coconuts, artificial hair, steel wire and glue, Variable dimensions, Image courtesy of kurimanzutto

La invincible, 2002, Mixed media, Variable dimentions, Image courtesy of kurimanzutto

Kerry Tribe, Milton Torres Sees a Ghost, 2010 (Installation view: Arnolfini), Installation with audio tape, reel-to-reel players and oscilloscopes , Photo Jamie Woodley

Kerry Tribe, Parnassius Mnemosyne, 2010 (Installation view: Arnolfini) , 16mm mobius film loop, Photo Jamie Woodley

Kerry Tribe, The Last Soviet, 2010 , (Installation view: Arnolfini) , Single channel video with sound , Photo Jamie Woodley, Generic Exhibition Review