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The BAR vol.6 Exhibition

The Backers Foundation and AIT residence programme vol. 6
New works from Allegra Pacheco and Alberto Rodríguez Collía

Saturday, July 13 - Saturday, July 27, 2013 at YAMAMOTO GENDAI (Shirokane, Tokyo)


AllegraPacheco AlbertoRodriguezcollia
Left: Allegra Pacheco / Untitled / 2013  Right: Alberto Rodríguez Collía / No lugar (Non place) / 2013



Press release (Japanese) Download(PDF / 893KB)





The Backers Foundation and Arts Initiative Tokyo are delighted to announce the 6th Backers and AIT Residence (BAR) programme exhibition, "Divided Against Ourselves " which will be held between July 13th and 27th at YAMAMOTO GENDAI. This year, emerging artists Allegra Pacheco (b.1986) and Alberto Rodríguez Collía (b.1985) will present works inspired by the experiences and discoveries of their three month residency in Tokyo, funded by the Backers Foundation.

Allegra Pacheco is a Costa Rican artist who works in a variety of mediums, with her work predominantly photographic, but often expanding into drawing and installation. In 2012, Pacheco exhibited her first installation work, 'Boobs', a series of breast-shaped soft sculptures made in collaboration with disenfranchised women from La Carpio, an immigrant neighborhood in Costa Rica. The exhibition space took on the innocence of a children's playground, but at the same time served as a platform whereby feminist issues and taboo subjects such as sexuality could be addressed in an un-biased environment. For this exhibition, Pacheco will produce an installation using both photography and illustration, and inspired by the architecture and density of Tokyo, where systems and rules unconsciously control the city's occupants and their lives. Her fantastical cityscapes are claustrophobic and lonely, where the post-apocalyptic undertones of a machine-ruled world invite the viewer to contemplate where our growth-focused lifestyles might lead our future generations.

In Japan for the first time, Guatemalan artist Alberto Rodríguez Collía uses archive's images (newspapers, television commercials, documentaries, video clips and the internet) to produce video works, drawings and collages. Collía presents images borrowed from mass media to criticize the unstable social and political situation in his country. For the 2008 project 'La Favorita', Collía gathered together with Erick Menchú, Guatemalan visual artist, images of folk sign designs from Guatemala, sharing the anonymous voices of the country. During his stay in Tokyo, he will produce engravings that combine semi-autobiographical situations from Guatemala and Tokyo, weaving together new stories.

The artists share certain similarities in that they use familiar motifs, presented at times in humorous ways, to portray the hidden and darker elements of our society. In recent years, as collectors increase, and the market expands, there is increasing interest in the South American art scene, but at the same time there is much to be learnt about creative expression and the socio-cultural situation.

Residency programs allow us to look through the artist's eyes, seeing not only the pleasant, but also the cultural differences and misunderstandings, in turn allowing us to view our society in a different manner.

Text: Naoko Horiuchi (AIT) Translation: Ben Davis

[ OUTLINE ]
Title: The BAR(The Backers Foundation and AIT residence programme)vol. 6
"Divided Against Ourselves"
New works from Allegra Pacheco and Alberto Rodríguez Collía


Date: Saturday, July 13 - Saturday, July 27, 2013
Venue: YAMAMOTO GENDAI(3F, 3-1-15, Shirokane, Minato-ku, Tokyo)TEL:03-6383-0626
Organized by: Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIT]
Co-organized by: The Backers Foundation
Supported by: YAMAMOTO GENDAI / YOKUMOKU
Time: 11:00 - 19:00 (Closed on Sunday, Monday and National holiday) *Admission free
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 13 18:00 - 20:00

*Related Event: Talk by the two artists and Jimmy Ogonga (Residence Curator from Nairobi) at AIT.
Please check the AIT website for further information.

*YAMAMOTOGENDAI website: www.yamamotogendai.org/
*AIT Artists in residence Official Instagram : (@AIT_AIR)
Curator: Naoko Horiuchi (AIT)




<Biography (Selected)>

Allegra Pacheco(Born in 1986, Costa Rica, Lives and works in London)

AllegraPacheco ・2011 BFA Photography, School of Visual Arts (New York)
・2013 *Currently obtaining a Masters in Fine Arts, Wimbledon College of Arts (London)
・2010 White Box/SCOPE Art fair (Miami)
・2010 New York Photo Festival, DUMBO BK (New York)
・2011 Tokyoscapes, Just Another Space (Tokyo)
・2012 BOOBS Galeria Des.Pacio (SJ Costa Rica)
・2013 Boobs in Japan, GALLERY MoMo (Tokyo) July 20 - Aug 10


Read more...

allegrapacheco_tokyo allegrapacheco_boobs
Left: Untitled, Mori Art Museum ( From the series of "Tokyo") / 2011  Right: Boobs / 2012 / mixed media (detail)

AllegraPacheco_untitles
Untitled / 2013 / acrylic, ink on board




Alberto Rodríguez Collía(Born in 1985, Lives and works in Guatemala)

AlbertoRodriguezcollia ・Graduated in 2007 as engraver from Escuela de Arte 10 from Madrid
・2007 in august he co-founds the Taller Experimental de Gráfica, the 1st. workshop dedicated for engraving in Guatemala.
・2008 "Auction 08", Museum of Latin American Arts (California)
・2008 "Horror Vacui", Espacio CE! (Guatemala)
・2010 "Central American Biennial" (Nicaragua)
・2012 "Estampida", Des.Pacio gallery (San Jose, Costa Rica)


Read more...

Alberto Rodríguez Collía
From the series of "Weekend" / 2009 / scanned newspapers, frame

Alberto Rodríguez Collía Alberto Rodríguez Collía
Left: Vegetation / 2013 / super 8 film transferred to digital video / 3' 07" Right: No lugar (Non place) / 2013 / engraving on paper

Alberto Rodríguez Collía Alberto Rodríguez Collía
From the series of "Weekend" / 2009 / scanned newspapers, frame




What is The Backers Foundation?
Since 2007, the Backers Foundation, a private group of patrons from the business worlds, has supported ten emerging contemporary artists and five curators to visit Tokyo and stay for a three month residency. The non-profit organization AIT works with the Backers Foundation to organize and host the program. In 2012, a group exhibition bringing the ten previous residency artists was held at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art.

2013-7-12