NOSOTROS: Iván Argote and Ana Teresa Fernández in conversation Julio César Morales
NOSOTROS : Iván Argote and Ana Teresa Fernández in conversation Julio César Morales Artists Iván Argote and Ana Teresa Fernández discuss notions of boundaries, borders, and the will to erase distance in an era defined by it. Argote will focus on his work As Far As We Could Get (2019) and Fernández on Borrando La Frontera (2011), two works that manifest the other side in vivid, unpredictable, and radical ways. Argote’s film is shot in Palembang, Indonesia, and Neiva, Colombia, cities that are exact antipodes – geographical points connected by a straight line through the center of the Earth. Alternating like a call and response, the film captures globalized youth cultures at play, capturing more similarities than differences. Fernández’s breakthrough video connects her painting and performance practices through the simple, yet revolutionary gesture of painting the border wall between Mexico and the United States to match the color of the sky through its slats. Viewed at a particular angle, the fence vanishes into the landscape. Argote is based in Paris and Fernandez in San Francisco, echoing KADIST’s dual-positionality with exhibition spaces in both cities. The program is presented in conjunction with the two-part Online Video Exhibition curated by Julio César Morales, which includes both works mentioned above. The exhibition reflects an anxious desire to bridge physical and emotional thresholds during the pandemic. NOSOTROS focuses on one aspect of the complex presentation, that of having the imagination to connect perceived opposites. About Born in Tijuana, Mexico, Julio César Morales is an artist and Senior Curator at the Arizona State University Art Museum. His interests center on issues of labor, memory, surveillance technologies, and identity strategies, and his artworks are in various private and public collections including MoMA, The Los Angeles County Art Museum, The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, and KADIST, amongst others. Iván Argote is an artist and film director. Through his sculptures, installations, films, and interventions, he questions our intimate relationship with others, institutions, power and belief systems. He develops strategies based on tenderness, affect, and humor through which he suggests critical approaches to dominant historical narratives and attempts to decentralize them. In his interventions on monuments, large-scale installations, and performances, Iván Argote proposes new symbolic uses of public space. Recent solo exhibitions include: Juntos Together , ASU – Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe (AZ); Radical Tenderness , MALBA, Buenos Aires, 2018; Deep Affection , Perrotin, Paris, 2018; Somos Tiernos , Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico, 2017; Somos , Galeria Vermelho, Sao Paulo, 2017; and La Venganza del Amor , Perrotin, New York, 2017. Ana Teresa Fernández explores the politics of intersectionality through time-based actions and social gestures, translated into masterful oil and gouache paintings, installations and videos. Operating formally at the intersection of land art, performance and history painting, Fernandez mines 21st-century feminism, post-colonial landscapes, and the psychological barriers to empathy. Fernández has exhibited at institutions including the Arizona State University Art Museum, Phoenix; Denver Art Museum, CO; Grunwald Gallery at Indiana University, Bloomington; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; Palm Springs Art Museum, CA; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ; among others. Her work has been collected by institutions including the Denver Art Museum, Nevada Museum of Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum, and KADIST, among others.