COLLECTIVE MEASURE
“…What happens to an archeological space, the way that we’ve abused it, the way that we consider it, the way that it relates to architectural thought or urbanistic thought of a city – is something that interests me.”
– Ishmael Randall-Weeks
Ishmael Randall-Weeks’ work reflects on the relationship between architecture and its social context. His work ranges from complex, large-scale installations to more intimately sized objects, including site-specific installations, sculptures, and works on paper. By borrowing formal and material bases of everyday elements his work initiates conversations around urbanism, education, and time. The use of construction materials that have been used for centuries—from pre-Columbian cultures to the legacies of Modernism— is part of his interest in engaging in a dialogue about the collective through form and materiality.
In COLLECTIVE MEASURE, the transformative physical movements such as straining, extending, and folding, that are formally captured in the objects Randall-Weeks creates, seem to mirror the tendencies in the mechanisms of human thinking. The mediating spaces, translucent barriers, and permeable divisions that these works create project an imaginary window where temporal and geographical distances collapse, enabling us to rethink the relationship between past and present. This relationship to time and its elusive nature are layered in his exploration of various temporalities, and sometimes directly addresses timelessness itself, as seen in his choice of artwork titles - but in essence, aims to trace a more equitable political, cultural, and social horizon for the future.
On view in this exhibition, works like Concreto and Carpeta contain books, pencils, chalk and chalkboards - tools that Weeks transforms into symbols of acquiring and dictating knowledge. The books and pencils embedded into the concrete, however, obstruct or contain the access to any knowledge hinting at the complexities and power dynamics inherent in it.
Chalkboard Biombo and Biombo Collective Measure tell tales of cultural appropriation. The word biombo is a Hispanization of the Japanese byobu, which means “protection from wind.” The first byobus arrived in Latin America in the early 1600s and quickly became highly coveted luxury items. Originating in China, these screens are made of separate folding panels hinged together and were used in homes to divide or enclose interior spaces. Traditionally decorated with landscapes, in Latin America (especially in Mexico), they become platforms to display cityscapes and historical scenes, and consequently, turned into a local tradition that was sustained for centuries to come. Creating biombos of his own, Randall-Weeks reveals his interest in the thoughtful or ignorant ways in which we approach, use, abuse, and appropriate history and heritage.
His screens, still movable but deprived of any function, float in front of chalkboards that hang on the wall, only partially covering them with a veil of white tiles, are essentially enigmatic tableaus of privacy, intimacy, protection, seclusion, and revelation.
In essence, and true to his overarching artistic inquiry, many works in the exhibition revolve around the explorations of the characteristics and the notion of space. Whether be the psychology of a space or the limitations and potential expandability of space.
ABOUT ISHMAEL RANDALL-WEEKS
Ishmael Randall-Weeks (b. 1976, Peru) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Lima, Peru. He graduated from Bard College in 2000 and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2007. His work has been exhibited extensively both in Peru and internationally, including at MoMA P.S.1, New York; The Drawing Center, New York; Bronx Museum, New York; The Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Lima, Peru; Museum of Art of Lima (MALI), Lima, Peru; National Museum, Lima, Peru; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern of Art, England, UK; The Drawing Room, London, UK; Macro Museum | Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome, Italy; Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Bologna, Italy; Museum of the Bank of the Republic, Bogotá, Colombia; Spanish Cultural Center of Buenos Aires (CCBBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Museum of Fine Arts, Mexico City, Mexico. His work has been included in the Havana Biennial, the IX and the XIV Bienial de Cuenca, the 6th edition of (S) Files Biennial in El Museo del Barrio, New York and 2010 Greater New York and MomaP.S.1, amongst others. He has received numerous grants and awards, including from the Rockefeller Foundation, the MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy; Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York; NYFA, New York; Art Matters, New York; Kiosko, Santa Cruz, Bolivia; and La Curtiduria art center in Oaxaca, Mexico.
