EUTOPIA

Acts of Aggression

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Manuel Chavajay, Oq Ximtali / They have tied us, 2017. Video performance, 2:58 min. Image courtesy the artist and Galería Extra.

 

Acts of Aggression
curated by Laura A. L. Wellen, Ph.D
SMU Pollock Gallery, Dallas [link]

Twelve Guatemalan artists, working 20 years after the end of the Guatemalan civil war, display a range of socially insistent works. Unified in their poignantly personal exploration related to the challenges of negotiating community, the exhibition highlights social projects, furtive acts of resistance, poetic games and performative gestures as proactive remembrance strategies. By channeling the reality of Guatemala (the socio-political environment) each work engages the viewer as witness, forcing the personal to become political, insisting on connectivity in public spaces and more intimately as strategies for resilience and tools for private insurrection.

~ Sara Cardona
images courtesy of the gallery

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Kristen Cochran

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Kristen Cochran
soak, stain, bleed, bloom
Pollock Gallery, SMU, Dallas [link]

Documenting a studio process enamored with the hypnotic stain, a series of folded papers -radio-chemical-efflorescent- offer the bleeding Rorschach as arrestingly more compelling than crafted intention. Beguiled, the stain births a blind form of bio-mimicry as rude flowers float and collapse, coagulated stems of plaster ineptly attempting symbiosis. These meandering symmetries are released from nova-parentis profundity with the occasional comedic turn: an insipid neon sign commands several propped up sticks to “bloom.” Reflecting further on nature’s bursts and blood, a video of the armored artist repelling into volcanic eruptions and violent vortices documents her brave descent into the hypnagogic blossom.

~ Ryder Richards
images courtesy of the artist
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