Esperanza Cortés solo show, CANTAR DE CIEGOS/SONG OF THE BLIND, at Turchin Center for the Visual Arts

The influence of Afro-Carribean and Latin American culture permeates CANTAR DE CIEGOS/SONG OF THE BLIND: Esperanza Cortés’ solo show at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University. On view through February 6, 2021, this meticulously curated solo show brings Cortés’ work to a new audience through a presentation of the artist’s installation and sculpture works. The spirit of Frantz Fanon and the critical lens he cast onto the fraught legacy of colonialism across the Americas seeps through the framework Cortés creates in her installations and sculptures, latent in the textures, materials and compositions on view at this solo exhibition.

Esperanza Cortés, La Mado Poderosa (2016-19) Clay, chains, filigree beads, 30x20x10”

The artist reflects on the works on view in her own words, noting, “My work is informed by the extraordinary hybridization of our Americas…its title speaks of the seizures of lands, the enslavement of people and pillaging of precious natural resources which created the massive wealth of the European Nations and the United States. 90% of Indigenous people in the Americas were decimated by Europeans, from a combined impact of massacres, disease, and overwork. Through this genocide there was a loss of cultures, languages, knowledge, and the rewriting of histories. The history we consumed afterwards in the Americas was written by people of European lineage. For that reason we are unable to recognize the history and accomplishments of people of Indigenous and African descent without prejudicial rhetoric. Which leads us back to this moment in time.” Throughout the exhibition, the artist refers to her own Colombian heritage and the rituals, folk traditions and performing arts that she has encountered and embraced in her own personal legacy. Trained as an Afro-Latin dancer, the artist mines the traversal of sacred space and incorporates this rhythmic and three-dimensional approach in her artistic practice.

Cortés notes, “My installations which are organic and improvisational constructions are infused with hope and renewal.” Her works bring the figurative into dialogue with the abstract, bringing out motifs that reference folk iconography from Colombia and pay homage to her roots. With two grandmothers who served as community healers, or Curanderas, in her native land, the artist reflects on the impact of community on individual and the ability of transcultural transcendence to provide a new perspective on what brings out the shared commonality across communities while acknowledging the hierarchical oppression that colonialism brought to the Americas.

Esperanza Cortés, El Grito de las Flores (2019) Personal embroidery, leather, glass beads, MDF board, 30” dia.

In her work, the artist pays homage to the Afro-Carribean and Indigenous histories that have guided her, giving space to the plants, materials and patterns that various cultural influences have guided her and informed her artistic practice. The artist honors and elevates women of these communities as the vital pillars who have worked to hold together families, traditions and enduring craftsmanship. Her loving appreciation for these vital histories and the legends of women who have made their mark in Afro-Carribean and Latin American history is palpable. The balance of aspects of the figurative as combined with organically derived materials such as glass and metal reference the land itself: the constant factor that continues through generations and roots communities to their location and histories.

Esperanza Cortés, A Charmed Life (2008-12) Frescoes, chairs, alabaster and glass beads, amulets, chains and brocade, 7x7x4’

Esperanza Cortés, Second Sight (2008-18) Installation with table and mirror, 20 glass and metal beaded sculptures on clay, 44x54x20”

CANTAR DE CIEGOS/SONG OF THE BLIND, a solo show of works by Esperanza Cortés, is on view at the Turchin Center’s Mayer gallery through the first week of February 2021. Contact the gallery for a video and/or virtual tour of the exhibition: turchincenter@appstate.edu .

Esperanza Cortés, OJO II (2017) 500 eye portraits installation of watercolor on paper, 12’ dia.

In Conversation with Zac Hacmon: Dispositif at SLAG Gallery

We spoke with artist Zac Hacmon to mark the occasion of his solo show, Dispositif, at SLAG Gallery in Chelsea during the Fall of 2020. Our discussion ranged from discourse around boundaries – their formation and documentation – and the use of scale to elicit responses from the visitor. As we toured the show we naturally discussed the non-neutrality of architecture and industrial design, and how abstracted forms can still recall the lingering effects of these intentions. The interaction of these works with one another, their industrial appearance contrasted with the aesthetic approach of the artist to the materials at hand, and the expectation and denial of utility in these works composed of ceramic tile all call to mind the readymade and found object in art-making. We plunged into the show and questioned Hacmon on some of the perspectives he has adopted over the course of his practice, inquiring as to how these viewpoints have impacted his work and, particularly, this suite of sculptures on view at SLAG through Oct 18, 2020.

Apsis  (2019) Zac Hacmon. Ceramic tiles, wood, stainless steel, 5” x 40” x 12”

ANTE Mag. Thanks, Zac, for walking us through your exhibition. We discussed the concept of “profanation” as it relates to your work; could you elaborate a bit on that concept and how it informs your practice?

Zac Hacmon. The concept of “profanation” is based on my recent research which follows the structureof religion and its apparatus. If we talk about the “profane” we must define the sacred first, for something to be sacred it means it was removed from free use of men and from the sphere of human law. Therefore to profane means to return things to their free use and to their pure state. Following this hypothesis, in my work I wish to profane our socio-political structures and the way they form in our built environment.

ANTE Mag. I see. During our conversation I was also struck by your remark “to play is almost a political act”: would you elaborate on that and how it affects your approach to your work?

ZH. It is based on a recent text I started to work with by Georgio Agamben. The text describes the act of play as a political task and it continues the discussion we had before, about the “profane” and sacred. If play breaks up the unity of the myth and rite of which the sacred is powered by then the myth disappears but the rite stays. Same can be addressed with my sculptures in this “Dispositif” show at the Slag Gallery. There is an element of failure in the sculptures, they lost their original function as an architectural structure but they also got a playful element to them that can be activated by touch and movement almost like a toy.

ANTE Mag. I would like to hear your views on the formal qualities of your sculpture as relates to space for inclusion and exclusion – could you provide some context for how sculptures on view at SLAG Gallery relates to boundaries or thresholds?

ZH. The industrial materials I use for my work range from private spaces, domestic and home to the public realm and institutions, by doing that I try to create a hybrid of one over the other and question their coexistence. I use the grab bars in my work in order to create potential for individual access and also to call attention to aspects of regulation mediated through contemporary architecture. The sculptures can be conceived as ruins all together but the ruin is being commoditized and repurposed.

ANTE Mag. Elaborating on the above question, can you provide some context for how your ideas around public versus private space is reflected in your practice?

ZH. Privacy is the higher form of intelligence as we wish to cultivate the self and the being. In contemporary society privacy is long gone, as we live in such a technologically advanced system that we are not even aware of our privacy being gone and violated. In relation to my work, I try to employ this conflict and the duality that I see in our structures, conflicts between function and dysfunction, between public and private.

 Dispositif (2020) Zac Hacmon. Ceramic tiles, wood, stainless steel, grout 
(Installation View)

ZH. The use of readymade is very critical to our time even more than it was 100 years ago when it was presented by Marcel Duchamp. These days, we’ve already crossed the line of no return in terms of the global effects of pollution. Before my Fine Art studies I attended a product design and industrial design degree but in my fourth year I decided to quit when they asked me to design a remote control for air conditioner or a cellular phone, as I didn’t want to be part of the waste industry. I think that through my use and manipulationof the readymade I create an antithesis approach which profanes our acceptance of consumption.

ANTE Mag. Can you discuss the role of the readymade and your work? Is the use of industrial materials in any way political, and why or why not?

ANTE Mag. Finally, can you share some of your upcoming projects with us?

ZH. I am currently working on building Capsule no 4 and Capsule no 5 at my LMCC studio. The “Capsules” are part of an ongoing project of creating alternate, autonomous and inaccessible spaces that invade and penetrate the white cube. The “Capsules” will be part of a group show at the Cathouse Proper Gallery which will take place in November 2020. This work will be site-specific installation for the entrance of the gallery; you will encounter these portals right before you enter the exhibition space. For 2021, I am working on a collaboration with the RDJ Refugee Shelter, in West Harlem (which is a shelter for refugees experiencing homelessness in NYC.) For this project I plan to work together with the shelter residents to create an installation at the shelter space for Fall of 2021.

Positivity (2020) Zac Hacmon. Aluminum, Ceramic tiles, stainless steel, concrete, epoxy, 54 x 27 x 49 Inches

Society, Individual, Suffrage: NYFA x KODA, Womanhood & Women’s Rights Panel on 10/21

The fault lines that are determining our future are trembling in the lead up to this Fall 2020 election, which will be one of the most consequential Presidential elections in our lifetime. Honoring the scale and seriousness of the voter turnout this fall, the New York Foundation for the Arts is partnering with KODA creative lab for the panel discussion, “Womanhood & Women’s Rights.”

This virtual event will take place on Wednesday, October 21st from 6-7:30 pm, and features a conversation led by professor Ginetta Candelario in discussion with artist Lina Puerta, artist and author Elia Alba, and art historian Tatiana Reinoza. Honoring the the 100th anniversary of the women’s suffrage in the United States, the purpose – according to KODA Lab – marks an occasion to encourage especially Latinx communities to vote.

As per the event site, the conversation will focus on identity at the crossroads of the individual and the collective, and re-examine how gender identity influences our social, political, and economic rights. This event is open to everyone and is particularly geared towards women-identifying individuals. At the intersection of our current sociopolitical reality, and in dialogue with art history and art and culture, this discussion will hold valuable insights for anyone seeking social equanimity in increasingly unequal times.