09 August to 06 September 2008

Rodrigo Matheus
The World We Live In

Ricardo Rendón
Open Window

Rodrigo Matheus: The World We Live In Rodrigo Matheus’ work comments on the overly efficient nature of contemporary culture in an effort to expose its fragility. In his object-and video-based works, Matheus invokes order, sterility and control, while at the same time triggering an equally obsessive desire for the antithetical notions of spontaneity and abnormality. To contrast contemporary culture’s “programmed” notions of labour and capital, Matheus constructs non-productive spaces in an effort to complicate our ideas of efficiency. In his most recent works, the artist distinguishes artifice (that which is mechanically or digitally constructed) from the physical world of nature. The concept of time and temporal conflicts enter Matheus’ works and artistic process: While acknowledging that his artistic production takes place in the present moment, he notes that it is formed (and informed) by a sort of vintage memory of the recent past. Simultaneously, his work and process have an inherent element of the near future. Ricardo Rendón: Open Window Ricardo Rendón’s interest in the artistic process seeks to uncover motivation and answer the question, “Why do we create?” Whether spontaneous or intentional, random or controlled, to Rendón there is no correct answer, but only evolutions of forms that are constantly changing. In his installation Open Window, he covers the gallery windows with wood panels, which are then drilled with a 2-1/2 inch circular saw. The leftover, or “waste” material created during the process is left untouched, to show the work’s progress. Rendón finds it more important to stress the development of the artistic environment rather than the display of completed works. In this piece, the creative practice and its outcomes are treated together as a work of art, integrated by events and eventualities charged with the collective spark of their perpetual ignition.