JORGE MÉNDEZ BLAKE

As part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, 1301PE is pleased to present its third exhibition, Dismantling Gorostiza,with Jorge Méndez Blake. Méndez Blake who is known for his play betweenart, literature and architecture will exhibit a new body of work basedon multiple texts by Mexican, modern writer José Gorostiza (10 November1901 - 16 March 1973). Méndez Blake works with the four publications Gorostiza wrote in his lifetime: three poetry: Muerte sin Fin [Death without End], del Poema Frustrado [Frustrated Poem] and Canciones para Cantar en las Barcas [Songs to Sing on Boats] and the other an essay, Notas sobre Poesía [Notes on Poetry].Gorostizawas a diplomat and professor, but he was best known for his poetry forwhich he was awarded membership to the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua.Méndez Blake recalls learning Muerte sin Fin, _“it was a poem that every elementary school child learned.” _Méndez Blake applies precise methods in which the new texts are “written” using existing characters, letters and words. _“For me to dissect a text and produce something different with it is a reading-writing process.”_ThroughoutMéndez Blake’s new painting, drawing and sculpture he continues to lookat the interrelation between art, literature, architecture and thenotion of “dismantling of language.“Jorge Méndez Blake livesand works in Guadalajara, Mexico. Méndez Blake’s recent solo museumpresentations include: 2014, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; 2010,Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles; 2010, Museo Tamayo, MexicoCity; and 2008, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City. He was the recipientof the Young Creators Grant in 2007-2008 by the National Fund forCulture and Arts, Mexico. Selected group exhibitions include; 2014, Requiem for the Bibliophile, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara; 2013, Escotoma: Historias de Butades, Galeria Metropolitana de la UAM, Mexico City; 2012, Resisting the Present, Musée d’Arte Moderne, Paris; Crisisss América Latina, Arte y Confrontación: 1910-2010, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City.