The Government of the State of Oaxaca in collaboration with Hilario Galguera Gallery is honored to present the exhibition We Are the Garden, the Garden Is Us by Mexican artist Bosco Sodi, who lives and works between New York and Puerto Escondido. It will be curated by Dakin Hart, Senior Curator at the Noguchi Museum, NY.
The show will take place at the Ethnobotanical Garden of the City of Oaxaca on February 3rd, 2020. It is set to coincide with Pre-Maco Oaxaca, a series of activities that precede the art fair in Mexico City.
The exhibition presents recent clay works by the artist within the context of the famous garden founded by Francisco Toledo, which objective is the preservation of different local species of flora of the state of Oaxaca. The compound has a collection of several plants, trees and cactus that represent the very rich, desertic, landscape of the region. Part of this panorama is reproduced in the coast of the state where Casa Wabi, the artist's studio and residency/ foundation, is located.
Sodi's clay oeuvre, as his paintings, has an intimate connection with the context in which it is executed. By employing ancestral techniques for the production of primary forms such as the cube and the sphere, Sodi recreates one of the most primal gestures of humankind. He also converses with one of the seminal technologies involved in the development of civilization that parts from an intimate link with nature. This way, the artist develops a parallel discourse with ethnobotanics, the practice that studies the historical relationship between humans and the vegetation that surrounds them.
The inherent complications in the development, the maneuvering and the installation of the pieces navigate between the territories of impossibility, immensity and a certain absurdity and unreasonableness. However, their material power and their imposing physical presence poetically evoke an essential part of human spirit drawing attention towards the concepts of effort, labor and the historical connection with the elements, plus the presence of the unfathomable that lays in collective imaginary.
By confronting the space of this botanical garden, Sodi's clay sculptures will find themselves in a familiar territory for them. The arid landscape of Casa Wabi has already put them against sand, vegetation, the sun and the elements. At the same time, considering Oaxaca City's history and mysticism, the works will be hosted in a site that will allow new readings. Spectators will be able to discover and have a vision of them within a location that has untied the imagination and creativity of various generations of artists since many years ago.
Press release courtesy Galeria Hilario Galguera.
Calle Francisco Pimentel 3
Col. San Rafael
Mexico City, 06470
Mexico
www.galeriahilariogalguera.com
+52 55 55 2121 6902
Tuesday – Friday, 11am – 6pm,
and Saturday, 11am - 2pm