Abraham Cruzvillegas
Autodestrucción8: Sinbyeong
11 April–26 July 2015
Art Sonje Center
87 Yulgok-ro 3-gil
Jongno-gu
Seoul 110-200
Republic of Korea
T + 82 2 733 8945
F + 82 2 733 8377
Curated by Samuso
Art Sonje Center presents Autodestrucción8: Sinbyeong, the first solo exhibition of Abraham Cruzvillegas to be held in Korea and also the commemorating show of his being awarded the fifth Yanghyun Prize in 2012.
Autodestrucción8: Sinbyeong is the eighth episode of the artist’s “autodestrucción” series, an ongoing project of Cruzvillegas since 2012 that combines various languages of literature, philosophy, and music in various localities around the world. For this exhibition, Cruzvillegas presents new works in which he reuses waste and daily objects collected from redevelopment areas in Seoul. It is through such recycling that the artist generates new possibilities and novel images for the seemingly useless objects that have lost their original functionality. It is in this context of transformation that sinbyeong, a particular spiritual experience, has been added as the subtitle of this show. The artist employs as the ground metaphor of his exhibition this space of a rite of passage, or space of mediation, that one has to pass through in order to metamorphose from one being to another.
In the artist’s note for Autodestrucción8: Sinbyeong, Cruzvillegas introduces the eminent avant-garde Mexican poet Jorge Cuesta and his posthumously published poem Song to a Mineral God. In this representative piece of a poet that had pursued radical transformation and alteration of chemistry using his own body, Cuesta pronounces the autonomy of language by taking on the perspective of animism to liberate the language from the sentiments of the poet and allowing room for it to reveal the feelings of its own. It is through the artist’s note that Cruzvillegas borrows such stance of Cuesta and seeks a liberation and transformation of language.
For Autodestrucción8: Sinbyeong, Art Sonje Center has held on to the leftover debris from its past exhibitions throughout the year, and also collected detritus from redevelopment neighborhoods around Seoul. The artist used such materials to create new works during his two-week stay in Seoul, with the help of artists and art students in Korea. Furthermore, upon a barren space of Art Sonje Center that has torn down parts of its walls to portend its upcoming renovation, Cruzvillegas uses video, sound, performance, and traces to reconstruct the memory of his parents’ house in Ajusco, Mexico. In the meanwhile, Art Sonje Center has hosted a series of “Monday Workshops” consisting of interviews and lectures of curators, sociologists, and artists. A documentation of such pre-events and the making process of the exhibition is to be published within the exhibition period.
Abraham Cruzvillegas is a member of The International Taoist Tai Chi Society, studied Pedagogy in the National University of Mexico, and was a member of Gabriel Orozco’s workshop from 1987 to 1991. He also participated in diverse artist run projects, like Temístocles 44, La Panadería and he is also the founder of La Galería de Comercio in 2010. His work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions worldwide, including a major exhibition Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstrucción Suites at the Walker Art Center in 2013 which traveled to the Haus der Kunst, Münich (2014); Fundación colección Jumex, Mexico City (2014) and Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2014). He has also participated in Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany in 2012; Gwangju Biennial also in 2012; 10th Havana Biennial in 2009; and the 50th Venice Biennial in 2003. Cruzvillegas was awarded the Yanghyun Prize in 2012 and is to present a new project at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall this coming October.
Art Sonje Center was founded in 1998 and plays a crucial role in exhibiting and fostering contemporary art in Seoul. Aimed at nurturing familiarity with contemporary artistic practice, Art Sonje Center is dedicated to the development of a program consisting of exhibitions, projects, performances, screenings, lectures, workshops, publications, and education programs.
Press enquiries: press [at] samuso.org
*This exhibition has been made possible by the Yanghyun Foundation.
