Film & Video (Film & Video)

Antonio Ole’s Rhythm of N’gola Rhythms (1978), is a film about the struggle for Angolan political independence. It looks at the role of popular culture and labor strikes through the 40s and 50s following the band Ngola Ritmos who embarked upon a consciousness-raising mission with their pro-independence political music. Through both their clandestine activities and their music, the band is credited with aiding political mobilization take off in Angola.

Painting (Painting)

Figura Noturna II by Antônio Obá depicts a dark figure, surrounded by a halo of light set against an even darker background. He has one eye open, which stares intensely at the viewer. The image relates to a theme recurrent in the artist’s practice: the figure lying awake at night.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

Wind by Antonio Pichillá is a textile piece depicting the glyph that represents the element wind in the Mayan tradition. It is woven in the four colors of each of the cardinal points which, together, symbolize the entire universe. It is woven mostly with knots that the artist refers to as a “bond between two or more systems that also represents a closure […] the knot in the throat that submerges the voice.” This piece, like other works in Pichillá’s practice, is an attempt to reconcile the Maya Tz’utujil symbolic tradition with Western art historical categories and practices.

Painting (Painting)

Juego de Banderas (a play on words that loosely translates to both set of flags and game of flags) is a triptych of modified Colombian flags by Antonio Caro. Although the yellow, blue and red stripes on the first flag are faithful to the original, the second flag at the center has been modified to feature the word Colombia, emulating the typography and white-on-red design of the iconic Coca-Cola brand. Caro’s first version of this logo was a 1976 graphite drawing, and he has since produced several variations in different materials.

Photography (Photography)

Occupy HK 2014 is a series of 18 photographs that Xyza Cruz Bacani’s shot at the height of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. At the time, the Umbrella Movement was considered the largest social unrest defending the democratic aspirations of Hong Kongers, who flooded the streets to demand universal suffrage. The protestors even managed to block Hong Kong’s main highway for months, freezing Asia’s financial centre.

Photography (Photography)

Occupy HK 2014 is a series of 18 photographs that Xyza Cruz Bacani’s shot at the height of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. At the time, the Umbrella Movement was considered the largest social unrest defending the democratic aspirations of Hong Kongers, who flooded the streets to demand universal suffrage. The protestors even managed to block Hong Kong’s main highway for months, freezing Asia’s financial centre.

Photography (Photography)

Occupy HK 2014 is a series of 18 photographs that Xyza Cruz Bacani’s shot at the height of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. At the time, the Umbrella Movement was considered the largest social unrest defending the democratic aspirations of Hong Kongers, who flooded the streets to demand universal suffrage. The protestors even managed to block Hong Kong’s main highway for months, freezing Asia’s financial centre.

Photography (Photography)

Occupy HK 2014 is a series of 18 photographs that Xyza Cruz Bacani’s shot at the height of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. At the time, the Umbrella Movement was considered the largest social unrest defending the democratic aspirations of Hong Kongers, who flooded the streets to demand universal suffrage. The protestors even managed to block Hong Kong’s main highway for months, freezing Asia’s financial centre.

Photography (Photography)

Occupy HK 2014 is a series of 18 photographs that Xyza Cruz Bacani’s shot at the height of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. At the time, the Umbrella Movement was considered the largest social unrest defending the democratic aspirations of Hong Kongers, who flooded the streets to demand universal suffrage. The protestors even managed to block Hong Kong’s main highway for months, freezing Asia’s financial centre.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

This is a poignant and humorous self portrait that turns the camera on the artist’s own physical inability to cry. With non-stop cascades of “tears” coming down from his eyes, the impact of the work is in the contrast between the still image of the artist and the constant movement of the waterfalls flowing down. An image of impotency, it is also a beautiful “moving picture” in the formal sense.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

The mines at Potosí are both the site and subject of this work, also titled Potosí, by Antonio Vega Macotela. Historically, these mines bankrolled Spanish imperial coinage; the Spanish began excavating the site for silver in 1545 in what is now Bolivia. The mines themselves are situated at great altitude in the Andes, and are inhospitable to animal labor.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Elizabeth McAlpine’s work frequently deals with time based issues as well as the experience of watching. In The Height of the Campanile , McAlpine has calculated the height of the tower and timed her shooting of it so that the length of the film in meters is exactly that of the height of the tower. Thus the time it takes to view the film, and the pace at which the camera pans up the tower are equivalent to the height of the tower.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Untitled (Wheelchair Drawing) is a ten-foot photo transfer of the image of a wheelchair with burning embers in its seat. In 2006, it was included in the exhibition, Alchemy of Comedy…Stupid at Artpace in San Antonio where Arceneaux explored the links between the medieval practice of alchemy and contemporary comedy. However, his particular image of the wheelchair is tragic, since it refers specifically to the comedian Richard Pryor, who became temporarily wheelchair-bound after being severely burned from drug use, and died prematurely of a heart attack in 2005.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Emmanuel van der Auwera visited Miami at the end of 2017 and was working on a project relating to school shootings. Two months later, on 14 February 2018, 19 year old Nicolas Cruz killed 17 people and injured 17 others in a shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Van de Auwera began to follow videos uploaded to the Periscope App, a live broadcasting channel that closed in March 2021, downloading them and creating a bank of data that would otherwise disappear, as material on Periscope was self-deleting after a short period of time.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

Black Ocean by Liu Yujia portrays a desert landscape in a state of both destruction and construction, revealing the desert’s simultaneous fragility and indestructibility. The structure of the storytelling of this film was inspired by Italian writer Italo Calvino’s novel, Invisible Cities (1972). Several chapters from the book are interwoven in the film incorporating the discussions of cities and landscapes narrated by Marco Polo and Kublai Khan in the novel.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

The series of drawings Cancha Abierta (Yellow Series) derive from a project in which Jesús ‘Bubu’ Negrón worked with the community of El Rosario, located in the region of Beni, Bolivia, approximately 500 meters away from the Mamoré River. Due to a major flood that affected the vicinity–the largest recorded to date–the location had been practically buried under mud. One of the most distressed areas was the basketball court, which was buried underneath three feet of mud.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

A Thoughtful Gift by Pio Abad is based on a version of a letter written by the former First Lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan to the former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos. Written in 1986, the letter assures Marcos of their safety from persecution in the United States, following widespread anti-government protests across the Philippines. The Marcoses were granted exile in the United States by the Reagan administration and they eventually fled to Honolulu.

Sculpture (Sculpture)

Marepe (an acronym for Marcos Reis Peixoto) is from northeastern Brazil, and his sculptures and installations are steeped in its culture, traditions, festivals; his personal memories associated with his birthplace; and his interactions with European culture. Periquitos (Parakeets, 2005) is a cartoonlike giant television with a screen made of four vertical strips of blue, yellow, green, and red acetate. There is a recurring figure on the screen, which is taken from a photograph of the artist at age six.