“The whole lot right here is volcanic” at Friedman Benda
For its ninth annual visitor org exhibition, Friedman Band presents “The whole lot Right here Is Volcanic,” a present of uncommon objects that embodies Mexico’s explosive up to date artistic power. On view by means of February 18, 2023 at his New York gallery, the exhibition is conceived by curator, editor, and impartial design researcher About Mario Ballesteros. Its title stems from a press release by the unconventional Swiss architect Hannes Meyer, who lived in Mexico for over a decade from 1938 to 1949. “The title is a quote from a letter he wrote to a pal and fellow architect, Hans Schmidt, solely after just a few months of residing within the nation.” Ballesteros says designboom. Meyer was referring each to the unpredictable geological circumstances and the encompassing lava panorama, but in addition to the problem of introducing an orthodox modernism to Mexico, an overfed and overlapping tradition with deep roots and timeless deviance. “The instability of the geography right here—volcanoes, earthquakes, and so on. — echoes the explosive nature of our multi-layered tradition,” explains the curator.
The whole lot Right here Is Volcanic captures that very same eruptive power, that includes new and up to date works in addition to specifically commissioned installations by established and rising Mexican artists, designers, architects and creatives. The exhibition features a particular interpretation of conventional Mexican vernacular delicacies by artwork/structure studio Tezontle; a fragile beaded chair by Frida Escobedo; a monolithic desk of acclaimed artist Pedro Reyes; and a cantilevered mosaic bench by the legendary natural architect Javier Senosian. “The exhibition needs to move the chaotic, multivariate, oversaturated and overlapping nature of design as it’s now practiced in Mexico and make it instantly palpable in a really totally different context. I hope the viewers is stunned and delighted, that they get one thing of the spirit of indigenous resistance to the flattening nature of globalized manufacturing, digital media, and the clichéd or official narratives of “identification” and “Mexicanness” that we need to problem,’ says Ballesteros. Learn our interview with the curator in full beneath.
Tezontle, Vernacular Delicacies, 2022, courtesy of Friedman Benda and Tezontle | picture by Lucas Cantu
interview with curator Mario Ballesteros
designboom (DB): How did the concept for the exhibition come about and when did you begin engaged on it?
Mario Ballesteros (MB): In a manner, this exhibition has been gathering behind my head for the final 10 or 15 years. I’ve been fascinated by up to date design in Mexico for therefore lengthy and I work intently with Mexican designers and artists to grasp what makes it work and what makes it totally different. The truth is, I’ve collaborated with lots of the artists within the present for years and witnessed their very own evolution.
The truth that this mission lastly got here within the type of an exhibition in New York Metropolis for Friedman Band it is a completely satisfied coincidence. Within the fall of 2020, within the midst of the pandemic, I signed up for a sequence of on-line lectures organized by Daniella Ohad on assortment design, the place Marc Benda was one of many visitors. After his good speech, I requested him just a few questions that piqued his curiosity. We exchanged just a few emails and conversations after that, and he invited me to take part within the gallery’s sequence of guest-curated exhibitions. He had been fascinated by Mexico for a while and we agreed that it was a very good time to embark on an formidable mission like this. We spent a few week in Mexico Metropolis visiting artists’ studios and began engaged on mounting the exhibition there.
So the mission was dropped at a boil after a protracted, sluggish cook dinner; )
curator Mario Ballesteros
DB: Are you able to inform us extra concerning the title of the exhibition and the Hannes Meyer quote that impressed it?
MB: Only a few individuals know that Hannes Meyer got here to Mexico in 1939 after fleeing Germany firstly of World Warfare II and residing in the us. He ended up staying for a full decade, though he by no means accomplished any main tasks and was not very lively in native architectural manufacturing on the time. It is wonderful that such a key determine within the historical past of recent design managed to stay just about below the radar in Mexico for therefore lengthy. However it says lots concerning the nature of design tradition in Mexico.
The title “The whole lot right here is volcanic” is a quote from a letter he wrote to a pal and fellow architect, Hans Schmidt, only some months after residing within the nation. It’s vital as a result of it factors to the issue—or impossibility—of establishing a Eurocentric model of “rational modernity” in a spot like Mexico. The instability of the geography right here — volcanoes, earthquakes, and so on. — echoes the explosive nature of our multi-layered tradition. I believe that premise nonetheless holds at present, I believe it actually encapsulates the power of the present and it is also a really eloquent however straightforward option to talk it superbly to an viewers which may know little or no concerning the state of up to date artwork or design in Mexico, or the historical past of fabric tradition within the nation.
SANGREE, Ocean of Shapes, 2022, courtesy of Friedman Benda and SANGREE | picture by Daniel Kukla
DB: “The whole lot Right here Is Volcanic” brings collectively a sequence of uncommon objects that embody up to date Mexican tradition. What’s your opinion concerning the creativity and cultural and inventive manufacturing of the nation in the intervening time?
MB: It’s actually explosive: numerous, non-conformist, stunning, edgy, wealthy in references, distinctive in its narrative and materials qualities, recognizing its deep roots but in addition fast to query or flip them round. It is an thrilling, vital second for up to date Mexican manufacturing that has additionally been brewing for a very long time. As I mentioned with Marc, the present will not be concerning the “potential” of Mexican design, it’s a clear message that we’re right here, able to flex our artistic muscle and have rather a lot to say.