MATRIX: Gabriel Chaile and Sin Wai Kin

On December 13, Gabriel Chaile and Sin Wai Kin open their first solo exhibitions in the United States as part of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s (BAMPFA) signature MATRIX series of contemporary art. Both artists are premiering new artworks at BAMPFA: Chaile’s newly commissioned sculpture and installation connects to his ongoing research into the forms and rituals of precolonial cultures in northwestern Argentina; Sin’s visually kaleidoscopic video works, which use the expansive genre of speculative fiction to interrogate social norms, make their US debut. 

MATRIX 283 / Gabriel Chaile: No hay nada que destruya el corazón como la pobreza centers on Chaile’s large-scale sculptural commission, made onsite in collaboration with the UC Berkeley Art Practice department during a residency preceding the exhibition. Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, the Lisbon-based artist has been celebrated worldwide—including at the 59th Venice Biennale last year—for his monumental, anthropomorphic clay sculptures that expand on the forms, rituals, and traditions of precolonial cultures in his native Argentina. His practice intertwines Indigenous mythologies and contemporary sociopolitical references, including Tucumán Arde (Tucumán is Burning), an important series of art events that exposed the region’s widespread poverty following the federal government’s closure of key sugar mills in the 1960s. Chaile’s MATRIX exhibition, the title of which translates to “Nothing destroys the heart like poverty,” will remain on view at BAMPFA through April 14, 2024.

Best known for their category-defying performances and moving image works, Sin also presents new work in MATRIX 284 / Sin Wai Kin: The Story Changing. In addition to their most recent video work, Dreaming the End (2023), Sin’s six-channel video work The Breaking Story (2022) spills out from the gallery and into the museum’s public space. The Toronto-born artist draws on references ranging from Cantonese and Peking opera to their early performances in London’s experimental drag scene, in which their popular onstage persona playfully pastiched exaggerated notions of conventional Western femininity. Since then, their cast has grown to encompass an expanding universe of characters who in their multiplicity address how forms of embodiment have the potential to dismantle binary constructs and imagine alternative worlds. Sin’s MATRIX exhibition will remain on view at BAMPFA through March 10, 2024.

Chaile and Sin join a distinguished forty-five-year legacy of nearly 300 artists who have shown their work at BAMPFA at pivotal moments in their careers through the MATRIX series, including Paul Chan, Nan Goldin, Shigeko Kubota, Mark Manders, Julie Mehretu, Adrian Piper, and Cecilia Vicuña, among many others. MATRIX was established at BAMPFA in 1978 as one of the first programs at a US museum to showcase rotating exhibitions of cutting-edge contemporary art, giving artists a critical platform to expand their creative practices in new and exciting ways. 

Under the leadership of BAMPFA’s new curatorial team, which was appointed earlier this year, MATRIX is focusing on commissioning and premiering new work. The team is led by Chief Curator Margot Norton, who is curating Chaile’s MATRIX exhibition. Also new to BAMPFA are the Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator Victoria Sung, who is curating Sin’s exhibition, and Senior Curator Anthony Graham.

“Both Chaile and Sin connect to important sociopolitical issues of the present, weaving traditional forms of artmaking and contemporary references with reverence and humor,” Norton said. “These artists are making some of today’s most innovative and insightful work across media, and it is an honor to present their first US solo exhibitions through the MATRIX program at BAMPFA.”

“BAMPFA’s MATRIX series has long been a touchstone for contemporary artists and audiences nationally and internationally,” said Sung. “We are excited to build on this important legacy with a new generation of MATRIX artists and to underscore our commitment to centering and supporting artists through the production and display of bold, ambitious new work.”

About Gabriel Chaile
Gabriel Chaile (b. 1985, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina) makes sculptures, paintings, and large-scale installations that reflect how social issues of the present connect to long histories of anti-colonial resistance. His works have been included in prominent group exhibitions, including the 59th Venice Biennale (2022) and the 5th New Museum Triennial (2021). He has had solo and group exhibitions at Studio Voltaire, London (2023); The Highline, New York (2023); Foundation Thalie, Brussels (2021); Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires (2017); Centro Cultural San Pablo T, Tucumán (2016); and Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires (2015); among others. 

About Sin Wai Kin
Sin Wai Kin is an artist who uses speculative fiction within the realms of performance, moving image, writing, and print to interrupt normative processes of desire, identification, and objectification. Sin was shortlisted for the prestigious Turner Prize in 2022. Their works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions at Fondazione Memmo, Rome (2023); Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (2023); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Para Site, Hong Kong (2022); Somerset House, London (2022); ICA, Los Angeles (2022); The Guggenheim, New York (2022); and Tank Museum, Shanghai (2020); among others.

Sponsorship
MATRIX 283 / Gabriel Chaile: No hay nada que destruya el corazón como la pobreza is curated by Margot Norton, Chief Curator, with Matthew Villar Miranda, Curatorial Associate. MATRIX 284 / Sin Wai Kin: The Story Changing is curated by Victoria Sung, Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator. Both exhibitions are part of BAMPFA’s ongoing MATRIX series of contemporary art exhibitions. Founded in 1978, MATRIX provides artists with an experimental platform to make and show new work.

The MATRIX program is made possible by a generous endowment gift from Phyllis C. Wattis.

BAMPFA visitor information
Hours
Wednesday through Sunday, 11am–7pm

Tickets
14 USD general admission / 12 USD non-UC Berkeley students, disabled, 65+
Free for BAMPFA members; UC Berkeley students, faculty, staff; 18 and under; one adult per child 13 and under; and artists in the BAMPFA collection/MATRIX

Contact
+1 510-642-0808