OPENING THURSDAY APRIL 27, 5 - 8 PM
APRIL 27 – JUNE 11, 2017
130 ORCHARD STREET, LOWER EAST SIDE
Perrotin gallery is thrilled to present Iván Argote’s first show in New York, marking his 3rd solo at the gallery. Born in 1985 in Bogota, he has been represented by Perrotin since 2009. Argote creates videos, photographs, sculpture, public interventions and performances, as a way to explore our inextricable links to history, tradition, art, politics and power. Argote investigates the city as a place of transformation and potentiality, traveling the world in search of vestigial signs of fallen power, studying the indirect manifestations of control, and observing the conventions that gain acceptance in order for one vision of history to become the official version. Public monuments and sculpture are also recurring themes in the artist’s work. Through his personal narratives, and their connections to history, ideology, and consumerism, Iván Argote questions a Western perspective of History.
Iván Argote’s work has been shown in many international exhibitions, such as “Future Generation Art Price” Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Kiev, 2017, “Ideologue”, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, 2016; “Sírvete de mi, sírveme de ti” (solo) Proyecto Amil, Lima, 2016; “An idea of progress” (solo), SPACE, London, 2016; “Intersections”, Cisneros Fountanals Foundation, Miami, 2015; “Between the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Will”, 5th Thessaloniki Biennale, Thessaloniki, 2015; “Buildering: Misbehaving the City”, Blaffer Art Museum, Houston and CAC Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati in 2014; “Strengthlessness” (solo), Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2014; “La Estrategia” (solo), Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013; “Tectonic, Moving Museum”, Dubai, 2013; “Los irrespetuosos”, Museo Carrilo Gil, México DF, 2013; The 30th Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo, 2012, among others.
When I was a kid, someone told me that a man dug a hole so deep that he stepped out of it on the other side of the world. Standing on firm ground, I wondered why this man, in fact, did not fall out of the earth and exit it upside down. In his new film “As Far As We Could Get” which contains documentary and fictional elements, Iván Argote digs an imaginary channel from Indonesia to Colombia, or from the municipality of Palembang to a town called Neiva. The two cities are exact antipodes (a rare coincidence that only six more cities share worldwide). In both locations, the artist rented large billboards to announce simultaneously a feature film named, “La Venganza Del Amor” (The Revenge of Love). […]
Gianni Jetzer, March 2017
