Xxxx, Soma Summer 2011

This six-week intensive program culminates with an open studio/lecture event, where participants will show the development of their work. Applicants must have significant experience in their field. They are expected to participate in all of the program’s activities.

All program activities will be in english.

Application Requirements

Applicants must demonstrate significant experience in their field. They are expected to participate in all of the program’s activities. The size of the group is limited to twenty five participants. Applicants must hold a valid passport.

Application deadline: Online applications will be accepted until Monday April 01st, 2013. However, the size of the group is limited to twenty-five participants. The application review process will begin Friday March 01st, 2013.

Tuition and Housing

Tuition is $ 3,250 USD for the six-week program, which does not include accommodations, per diem or transportation. $5,500 USD is a reasonable total budget approximation for the six-week stay in Mexico City (tuition, housing, food, recreation, transportation). SOMA Summer will assist participants with locating housing. We have a special rate at Hostal Virreyes: www.hostalvirreyes.com.mx, and Hostel Suites DF: http://www.hostelsuitesdf.com/

Financial Aid

Scholarships/tuition remission are available based on portfolio review and proof of financial need. Send request letter along with your application.

SOMA Summer 2013 

For a detailed program of activities scheduled during SOMA Summer 2013, clik here

Eduardo Abaroa is an artist and writer working in the fields of sculpture, installation and live action.  He has shown his work in several major museums in Mexico; LA MoCA, PS1 and ICA Boston in the United States; Reina Sofía Museum in Spain; Kunstwerke, in Germany, the Nottingham Contemporary Museum in the UK, etc. He has participated in Busan, Korea and Mercosul in Porto Alegre, Brasil. Early this march he exhibited Demolition Project: Antrhropology Museum in Kurimanzutto Gallery, Mexico City.

As a writer, he was an art reviewer for the art section of Reforma newspaper, and has written for other Mexican publications like Curare, Casper, Moho, Codigo 06140 and Tomo. He has contributed texts for exhibition catalogues of artists related to the Mexican context like Francis Alÿs, Melanie Smith, Pablo Vargas Lugo, Tercerunquinto and Dr. Lakra, among others.  In the early nineties he co-founded the T44 artist run space in Mexico City. He directed the 9th International Symposium of Art Theory in Mexico City (SITAC) in 2011. Eduardo is the regular course director at Soma.

Marcela Armas was born in Durango in 1976. She lives and works in Mexico City. Her work relates urban situations, sound actions, installations, video and documents in order to investigate about the capacity of different materials and technologies to produce poetics of social reflection. Energy consumption and urban space are some of her main issues.

Armas received a BFA by the University of Guanajuato and a MFA by the Politecnic University in Valencia, Spain. She has been supported by the National Foundation for the Arts in Mexico for the development and research of New Media Projects. She is artist in residence in the New Media Research Center in Mexico City.

She directed with Gilberto Esparza, experimental electronics workshops Fundación Telefónica VIDA 10 in Peru, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Her work has been exhibited in Mexico, United States, Colombia, Spain, Brazil, Peru, Canada and Italy.

Magali Arriola is a curator and art critic. Until recently Magalí worked as the Chief Curator of Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. As an  independent curator, Magali has organized El dulce olor a quemado de la historia , the 8th Bienal of Panamá (2008) and Prophets of Deceit at the Wattis Institute For Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2006). Before joining Tamayo’s team, Magali was Chief Curator of Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico City, curator in residency at Wattis Institute For Contemporary Arts and founder member of group Teratoma and the National Committee of Artistic Industry (CANAIA).

Mariana Botey is an artist/critic born in Mexico City in 1969. She is Assistant Professor in Modern/ Contemporary Latino American Art History in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD. Botey received her Ph.D. in Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine, in 2010. She graduated in 2000 with an MFA from the University of California, Irvine Studio Art Department Program; and in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London, England. Academic director of the graduate theory seminar Zones of Disturbance (August 2009-August 2011) at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC) in UNAM. Her experimental video documentaries have been shown at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Bilbao, The Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, The San Diego Museum of Art, The Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico City, Red Cat Theater at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles amongst many other museums, galleries and festivals. Since 2009 she is a founding member of the editorial and curatorial committee of The Red Specter: a phantasmal, agitation, and conspiratorial organization working at the intersection of art, politics and theory. The Red Specter is based in Mexico City and is at the center of a wide web of international collaborations with artist, critics, designers and curators. Lives and works in San Diego, California.

Amy Sara Carroll is Assistant Professor of American Culture / Latino / a Studies and English at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  She received a Ph.D. in Literature from Duke University (2004), and an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Cornell University (1995). Her research, teaching, and writing interests include Latino/a American contemporary cultural production (performance, art, video, and literature), feminist, queer, and postcolonial theory, visual culture, cultural studies, inter-American studies, border studies, and critical creative writing. Her poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies such as Talisman, Carolina Quarterly, The Iowa Review, Mandorla, Chain, Bombay Gin, Seneca Review, Borderlands, Faultline, This Bridge We Call Home, and Not For Mothers Only: Contemporary Poets on Child-Getting and Child-Rearing. She has exhibited poem-prints at the Audre Lorde Project (Brooklyn, New York), Duke University Museum of Art, Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center (Auburn, New York), and State-of-the-Art Gallery (Ithaca, New York).

Sande Cohen received a PhD in intellectual history from UCLA. He taught at Brown (1976-79), UCLA (1979-87 and 2008-2009), and CalArts (1980-2009).  He currently divides his time between the U.S. and mostly the Chiang-mai area of Thailand.  He is the author of, among other works, Historical Culture (1986, UC Press); Academia and the Luster of Capital (1993, Minnesota); French Theory in America (co-ed, 2001, Routledge); and History Out of Joint (2006, Johns Hopkins).  His most recent essays are in Cultural Critique (75, 2010) and Rethinking History (2011).  His main area of interest is historiography—the intellectual coding(s) and other organizations of all things timed, including the untimely. This involves using close analysis of discursive behavior in the criticism of institutional practices.

Abraham Cruzvillegas (México DF, 1968) es miembro de la Sociedad Internacional de Tai Chi Taoísta. Estudió pedagogía en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México de 1986 a 1991 y fue parte del taller de Gabriel Orozco de 1987 a 1991. Su obra se ha expuesto en el Contemporary Art Museum-Houston, el Museum of Contemporary Art de Chicago, la Redcat Gallery, en Los Ángeles, la Tate Modern Gallery, en Londres, el Centro Cultural Monte Hermoso, en España, el New Museum, en Nueva York, Modern Art Oxford, Le Carré, en Nimes, Artsonje, en Seúl, entre otros. Desde 1990 Cruzvillegas ha dado clases e impartido cursos y tutoriales, así como coordinado seminarios y talleres en diferentes instituciones dedicadas al arte, a nivel internacional, como la DIA Art Foundation, Malmö Art Academy, Ruskin College-Oxford, Duke University, NYU, Glasgow School of Art, CalArts, the New Museum, California College for the Arts, the Nasher Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Tate Modern, the Guggenheim Museum, the University of Houston, la Universidad Nacional Iberoamericana, la Universidad de Guanajuato, el museoTamayo, el Centro de la Imagen, el Centro Nacional de las Artes, la Universidad de Sonora, la Universidad de Las Américas, San Francisco Art Institute, UCLA, UCSD, la ENAP-UNAM, La Esmeralda. También ha escrito ensayos y crítica de arte en catálogos, publicaciones periódicas y especializadas como Bomb Magazine, Bidoun Magazine, Artforum, Gagarin, Curare,Casper y los diarios Reforma y La Jornada, entre otros.

Irving Dominguez is a Mexico City based curator and visual arts independent researcher. He had studied history of photography and theoretical approaches to photography on Centro de la Imagen (CONACULTA), Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) and Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora. He attended curatorial workshops at Centro de la Imagen and the seminar Cultural and theoretical studies on curatorial practice at Teratoma, A. C.

In 2007 he helped to create the documentation center of Casa Vecina (FCHCM). From 2008 – 2009 he was curatorial researcher at Centro de la Imagen, and member of the seminar Gender theory and Visual culture studies hosted by Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas and Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género – UNAM during the same period.

Recent curatorial work had been made for the Centro Cultural San Carlos – Academia de San Carlos (UNAM) and the Festival Foto 30 on Guatemala City both on 2010. He contributed to the collective project www.mapademexico.org under the direction of spanish artist Rogelio López Cuenca. Twice (2009, 2011) had participated on the Encuentro de críticos e investigadores de foto organized and supported by PhotoEspaña Festival and the AECID – Ministerior del Exterior, España.

Nowadays is the coordinator of the project Derivado. Propuesta de interpretación de centros de documentación that involves a group of 7 artists generating artistic experiences after research on contemporary art museums’ documentation centers. Is member of Taller Multinacional, www.tallermultinacional.org, and Centro ADM, www.centroadm.com, artistic independent iniatives both located in Mexico City.

Ricardo Dominguez is a co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), a group who developed Virtual-Sit-In technologies in 1998 in solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. His recent Electronic Disturbance Theater project with Brett Stabaum, Micha Cardenas, Amy Sara Carroll and Elle Mehrman, the *Transborder Immigrant Tool* (a GPS cellphone safety net tool for crossing the Mexico/U.S border was the winner of “Transnational Communities Award” (2008), this award was funded by *Cultural Contact*, Endowment for Culture Mexico – U.S. and handed out by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico), also funded by CALIT2 and two Transborder Awards from the UCSD Center for the Humanities. *Transborder Immigrant Tool* was exhibited at 2010 California Biennial(OCMA), Toronto Free Gallery, Canada (2011), the project was also under investigation by the U.S. Congress in 2009/10, and was also reviewed by Glenn Beck in 2010 as a gesture that potentially “dissolved” the U.S. border with its poetry. Ricardo is an Associate Professor at UCSD in the Visual Arts Department, a Hellman Fellow, and Principal/Principle Investigator at CALIT2 (http://bang.calit2.net). He also co-founder of *particle group*, with artists Diane Ludin, Nina Waisman, Amy Sara Carroll, an art project about nano-toxicology entitled *Particles of Interest: Tales of the Matter Market* that has been presented in Berlin (2007), the San Diego Museum of Art (2008), Oi Futuro, and FILE festivals in Brazil (2008), CAL NanoSystems Institute, UCLA (2009), Medialab-Prado, Madrid (2009), and Nanosferica, NYU (2010).

Ruth Estévez was born in Spain and currently lives in Mexico City where she was Chief Curator at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil from 2007 to 2010. Ruth received a BFA from the Universidad Pública del País Vasco (the Public University of the Basque Country), a MA in Art History from the Mexican National Autonomous University (UNAM), and a MA in Museography from the European Institute of Design in Madrid. She is currently working on her thesis for her PhD in Art History at UNAM. Ruth has curated  individual exhibitions for artists such as Fernando Ortega, Gabriel Acevedo, and Guy Ben Ner. She has also organized several group exhibitions: El horizonte del topo/The Mole´s Horizon. Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels, Belgium, One Foot Apart. Galería Leme, Sao Paolo, Brazil and co-curated: Proyecto Cívico at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, Frontier: A Sketch for the Creation of a Future Society, Chiapas, Mexico, among others. Actually she is the Co-Director and Curator of LIGA-Space for architecture-DF, the first private space in Mexico dedicated to architectural and urbanistic practices.

Mario Garcia Torres was born in Monclova, Mexico in 1975 and lives and works in Mexico City.  Some of his recent solo exhibitions include: September Piece, Jan Mot, Brussels (2011); Directions: Cyprien Gaillard and Mario Garcia Torres, Hirschhorn Museum Museum, Washington (2010); What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger, FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon (2010); Have You Ever Seen the Snow?, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2010); I Will Be With You Shortly, Peep-Hole, Milan (2010);  It’s Embarrassing, but for Some Time Now I Only Have Had Title Ideas in English, Espai 13, Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona (2009); Unspoken Dailies, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2009); The Exhibition Formerly Known as Passengers 2.11: Mario Garcia Torres, 9 at Leo Castelli, Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2009); Early Color Video Tapes, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City (2009);  MATRIX 227, UC Berkeley Museum of Art and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley (2009); All That Color is Making Me Blind, Jan Mot, Brussels (2009); Il Aurait Bien Pu Le Promettre Aussi, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2009); Some Stories that Went Missing…, Kunsthalle Zurich (2008); Mario Garcia Torres, White Cube, London (2008).  He has also participated in numerous important group exhibitions: 29th Sao Paulo Biennial (2010); Taipei Biennial, Taipei (2010); 8^th Panama Biennal, Panama (2008): Yokahama Triennial, Yokahama (2008); Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2007).

Anthony Graves is an artist and founding member of Camel Collective, formed in 2004. In 2004–05 he was a fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program, and in 2009 received his MFA from the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University. He has exhibited internationally under his own name and that of Camel Collective in venues such as Artists’ Space, New York; the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City; OCAT in Shenzhen, China; and Århus Kunstbygning in Århus, Denmark. He has written on the work of Michael Ashkin, and has an essay in the forthcoming book Architectural Inventions. Anthony Graves is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Chip Lord is an artist who works with video and photography. As a member of Ant Farm [1968-1978] he produced the video art classics Media Burn  and The Eternal Frame as well as the Cadillac  Ranch sculpture in Amarillo, Texas.  Since 1980 he has worked independently and in collaboration producing video installations and single channel  videotapes. His media work straddles documentary and experimental genres, often mixing the two, and has been shown widely at film and video festivals and in Museums. In 2005 a survey of his video work was shown at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arts Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain.  His photo project Movie Map was shown at the Rena Bransten Gallery in 2003 and in the group exhibition, AUTO.SUEÑO Y MATERIA in Gijon and Madrid, Spain, 2009.  In partnership with Bruce Tomb and Curtis Schreier he created Ant Farm Media Van v.08 [Time Capsule], for the exhibition “The Art of Participation from 1950 until Now” for SFMOMA, 2008.  In 2010 he completed a public video art piece, titled To & From LAX,  for the remodeled Bradley Terminal at LAX Airport.  A related single channel video, IN TRANSIT, was completed, 2011.

The exhibition, ANT FARM 1968-1978, originated by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives, 2004, has shown at five other locations in the US and Europe.   Additional exhibitions were at the FRAC Centre, Orleans, France (Oct. 11 – Dec. 22, 2007) and the Graduate Architecture School at Columbia University (March, 2008). Each exhibition produced a book monograph about Ant Farm.

Nate Harrison is an artist and writer working at the intersection of intellectual property, cultural production and the formation of creative processes in modern media. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation, “Appropriation Art and U.S. Intellectual Property Law Since 1976.” Nate’s art work has been exhibited at The American Museum of Natural History, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Centre Pompidou and The Kunstverein in Hamburg, among others. Nate has also lectured at a variety of institutions, including Experience Music Project, Seattle, the Art and Law Residency Program, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, New York and SOMA Summer, Mexico City. Nate earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan, a Master of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts and is a doctoral candidate, Art and Media History, Theory and Criticism in the Visual Arts Department at the University of California, San Diego. Currently Nate is on the faculty at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Carla Herrera-Prats received her BFA at “La Esmeralda,” in Mexico City, and her MFA in Photography at CalArts, Los Angeles. She has been a participant at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. Carla has recently taught at the Cooper Union, the California Institute of the Arts, the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the Director of the Graduate Program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and runs Soma Summer. She has shown her work in venues such as Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Darb, MUAC, Centro de la Imagen, Museo Dolores Olmedo, in Mexico City; Centre Vu, Quebec; Artists Space, Art in General, New York; The Contemporary Museum of Baltimore, and Darb, Cairo, among others. Herrera-Prats is co-founder of Camel Collective, a group of artists, writers and film makers with whom she has worked since 2005.

Szu-Han Ho is an artist whose work addresses the intersection of spatial practices, material culture, and affective knowledge. Her research interests have revolved around the shared metaphors of economics and ecology. After receiving a B.A. in Architecture from UC Berkeley, she launched a multi-year collaborative project integrating art installation, architectural proposals, performance, and agricultural research on a 250-acre site in West Texas. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received an MA in Visual and Critical Studies and an MFA in Film, Video, and New Media. Recent projects include a mobile exhibition at the Geographic Center of the US (in conjunction with the Center for Land Use Interpretation), a performative property survey at Mildred’s Lane Historical Society, and a traveling exhibition of analogue models to psyches and natural systems. She is currently developing a collaborative, site-specific choral piece based on bird communication. Szu-Han teaches in the Department of Art and Art History at University of New Mexico.

Cuahtémoc Medina (Mexico City, Mexico) is an art critic, curator and historian with a PhD in History and Theory of Art, University of Essex, and a BA in History from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Mexico City. Since 1992 he has been a full-time researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, and has taught at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson. Previously, he was the first curator of Latin American Art Collections at Tate, London (2002-2008); director of the 7th International Symposium on Contemporary Art Theory, Mexico City (2009); and is one of the founders of Teratoma, a group of curators, critics and anthropologists based in Mexico City. Exhibitions include Teresa Margolles’s project, What Else Could We Speak About? (2009), for the Mexican Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale; The Age of Discrepencies, Art and Visual Culture in Mexico 1968-1997 (in collaboration with Olivier Debroise, Pilar García and Alvaro Vazquez, 2007-2008), Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Francis Alÿs. Diez cuadras alrededor del estudio (2006), Antiguo Palacio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City; and 20 Million Mexicans can’t be Wrong (2002), South London Gallery. Medina also organized Francis Alÿs’s When Faith Moves Mountains (2002). He is currently organizing Proyecto de Arte Contemporáneo, Murcia with a year-long exhibition project entitledDominó Caníbal. Some of his recent publications include South, South, South, South. 7th International Symposium of Contemporary Art Theory México (Patronato de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, 2010); “Towards a New Architecture” in Tercerunquinto. Investiduras institucionales (INBA-Conaculta, Cuauhtémoc, 2009); “La oscilación entre el mito y la crítica. Octavio Paz entre Duchamp y Tamayo” inMateria y sentido. El arte mexicano en la Mirada de Octavio Paz (Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA-Landucci, 2009); and “Entries” (in collaboration with Francis Alÿs) in Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception(Tate Publishing, London, 2010). He also contributes a bi-weekly art criticism column “Ojo Breve” inReforma newspaper, Mexico City.

Yoshua Okón was born in Mexico City in 1970 where he currently lives. His work is like a series of near-sociological experiments executed for the camera blends staged situations, documentation and improvisation and questions habitual perceptions of reality and truth, selfhood and morality. In 2002 he received an MFA from UCLA with a Fulbright scholarship. In 1994, he founded La Panadería, an artist-run space in Mexico City.

His solo shows exhibitions include: Octopus, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA, HH, Baró Sao Paulo Brazil, Yoshua Okón: 2007-2010, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, Ventanilla Única,Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Canned Laughter, Viafarini, Milan, SUBTITLED, Städtische Kunsthalle, Munich, Bocanegra, The Project, NY, Gaza Stripper, Herzeliya Museum, Israel, Cockfight, Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan, Oríllese a la Orilla, Art & Public, Geneva, Lo Mejor de lo Mejor, La Panadería, Mexico City. His Group exhibitions include: Amateurs, CCA Wattis, San Francisco, Laughing in a Foreign Language, Hayward Gallery, London, The Age of Discrepancy, MUCA, Mexico City, Adaptive Behavior, New Museum, NY, Terror Chic, Spruth/Magers, Munich, The Virgin Show, Wrong Gallery, NY,Mexico City: an exhibition about the exchange rates between bodies and values, PS1, MoMA, NY, and Kunstwerke, Berlin. He has also participated in: Mercosur Bienial, Porto Alegre, Brazil, Istanbul Bienial,Istanbul, ICP Trienial, NY, California Bienial, OCMA, New Port Beach and Torino Triennale, Turin.

Gonzalo Ortega received an MA in Kunst im Kontext (Art in Context) from the Universität der Künste Berlin in 2006 and a BFA in Visual Arts from the National University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1996. From 2007 to 2011 he was director of the Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte – MUCA Roma, where he organized the exhibitions: El arca de neón (the arch of neon), 2008; Proyectos para desconstrucción (Projects for deconstruction), 2009;A-B, 2009; and Residual / Artistic interventions in the city, www.residual.com.mx, a collaboration with the Goethe Institut Mexico and the UNAM, and ORBE (2011). He is co-founder and curator of the independent project plusminus7 for the support of Latin American art in Berlin, Germany, together with the German art historian Kirsten Einfeldt and visual artist Angelica Chio. Gonzalo has edited and contributed in many catalogues such as Residual / artistic interventions in the city, UNAM-Goethe Institut, 2010; MEMORIAS 2003-2006, and 2006-2009, Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte, MUCA Roma, 2007; Berlinz. Sprachraum Berlin-Linz, Universität der Künste Berlin and Kunstuniversität Linz, Austria, 2006; Still Life. Naturaleza Muerta, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, 2003; Coyote, I like Mexico and Mexico likes me, or just another dead Mexican of American artist Daniel Joseph Martínez, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, 2001.

Luis Felipe Ortega was born in Mexico City in 1966. He has presented his work in solo and group exhibitions since 1993. Though Ortega uses different media (sculpture, installation, photography, drawing), video has been a permanent tool in his production. He started recording actions and then making visual narratives that make the viewer travel through silence and void. In 2001 the Centre Pompidou acquire his piece Remake, 1994 (in collaboration with Daniel Guzmán). His most recent solo exhibition, titled This is it, now is now, opened at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda, in Mexico City, in 2010.

Raul Ortega Ayala. The methods Ortega Ayala draws on in his practice have resembled the work of an ethnographer. Immersing himself as a ‘participant observer’ in environments such as those connected with food, gardening and office work, he has then used the materials and experiences resulting from these immersions to produce groups of works which he calls ‘souvenirs’. The artist’s engagement with each ‘world’ has included taking employment as well as conducting practical and theoretical research. He is currently exploring a new methodology for a new series of work devoted to the concept of absence.

Ortega Ayala lives and works in Mexico City. He received an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art and Hunter College in New York and studied philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico concurrently with his undergraduate degree in painting. His work has been exhibited internationally including recent solo shows at Stroom, The Netherlands, Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico, The Kowalsky Gallery, London (curated by Gilane Tawadros) and in group shows at TENT / Witte de With in Rotterdam, Tramway in Glasgow, EV+A in Ireland, the Liverpool Biennial and the Barbican Centre.

Barbara Perea is a Mexico City-based contemporary art critic and curator, with a special focus on electronic, sound art and video. She has a degree in Art History (Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City). In 2001 she co-founded the curatorial collective (id)entity David Perea, with fellow curator Mariana David. As David Perea, they participated in Habitat Sónico, the fourth edition of the Sound Art Festival, at X-Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico City, 2002), organised an artist residency program which included Artur Zmijewski, Pawel Althamer, Jorge Macchi and David Castro, curated five exhibitions, and co-produced two artworks by Santiago Sierra and Artur Zmijewski. From 2003 to 2006 Barbara Perea served as director of  MUCA Roma, in Mexico City (University Museum of Science and Art) where she curated or organized numerous exhibitions. She has published over 50 reviews and essays in the magazines Dónde ir (Mexico City), Artecontexto (Madrid), and Artlies (Houston) and contributed to the following exhibition catalogues: Plataforma Puebla 2006 (Puebla, 2006), Arnulf Rainer: la imagen equivocada (Mexico, 2007) Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Some Things Happen More Often Than All of The Time (Madrid, 2007), amongst others. With Príamo Lozada, she was artistic co-director of Plataforma Puebla 2006, and co-curator of the Mexican Pavilion at the 52 Venice Biennial, which hosted Some  Things Happen More Often Than All of the Time, a solo show by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. With Guillermo Santamarina she co-curated Soni(c)loud, as guest curators for the experimental sound festival Radar (April, 2007), and prepared the opening exhibition and acquisitions programme for Laberinto de las Ciencias y las Artes, a science and art museum in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. She has worked as New Media lecturer at CENTRO university, in Mexico City and is currently part of the team of Transitio mx, the Internation Electronic Art and Video Festival.

Paul Pfeiffer (born Honolulu, Hawaii, 1966) is an American video artist whose work incorporates the use of found footage. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute (BFA Printmaking) and Hunter College, New York (MFA), and has lived and worked in New York since 1990. Pfeiffer is represented by carlier | gebauer, Berlin and Thomas Dane, London.

He has had solo shows at the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2001), the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2002), the Barbican Arts Centre, London (2003), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2003), The Project, New York (2007), carlier | gebauer, Berlin (2008), MUSAC, Leon, Spain (2008) and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2009).

He participated in the Whitney Biennial in 2000 and was awarded the inaugural Bucksbaum Award. In 2001 he participated in the 49th Venice Biennale. He won the visual arts Alpert Award in 2009.[1]

Pfeiffer’s work is time-consuming and meticulous. “Pfeiffer makes a show of removing his subjectivity while investing himself intensely in his work: It can take him four months to produce a scant two minutes of video.”[2]

He is the recipient of the Guna S. Mundheim Prize and Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin for Fall 2011.

Vicente Razo (Mexico City, 1971) is a Mexican artist currently based in New York. His work engages in a polemic and critical understanding of art practice as a possibility for cultural resistance and social intervention. He is interested in the intersections between popular culture, politics and art production, therefore his work ranges from museum making, printing ready mades to creating record libraries. Razo studied art in the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, received an MFA from New York University and attended the Whitney Independent Studio Program. Razo has presented his work in The Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Dispatch New York. He has exhibited in group shows at PS1 Contemporary Art, South London Gallery, Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Spain, MALBA in Buenos Aires, Argentine, The Pinacoteca do Estado in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Ex-Teresa in Mexico City, among others venues. Razo’s work is in the collection of the Hammer Museum, and at the collection of the MUAC, the institution with the biggest collection of contemporary art in Latin America. His art has been reviewed by the New York Times, Artnews, Artforum, Frieze, and Art Nexus, amongst others. Razo’s work has been highlighted in the anthologies about contemporary Mexican art  New Tendencies in Mexican Art (Palgrave-MacMillan 2004) and The Age of Discrepancies: Art and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1968-1997 (Turner-UNAM 2006). He is the author and editor of the book “The Museo Salinas Official Guide” (Smart Art Press, 2002)

Jorge Reynoso is currently Technical Secretary of the Dirección General de Artes Visuales, located at MUAC (the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). He has been director of the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (2007 – 2009), and vice-director of both the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (1991 – 1998) and the Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes (MUCA, 1998 – 2003). Besides his work as curator and museographer of contemporary art projects, he is professor of Art History at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado and at Centro, Diseño, Cine y Televisión. Reynoso frequently writes about contemporary art, from academic papers to books for children.

Tyler Rowland was born in 1978 in Reno, Nevada, raised in Phoenix, Arizona, and lives in New York. Rowland is an information-gatherer, a material-collector, and an object/tool-maker. He believes that art has social value. He uses his life, his work, his family, and his home/studio as departure points and often sacrifices or copies objects of personal value. He has shown at venues including Mass MoCA (North Adams, MA), SAPS (Mexico City), Murray Guy Gallery (NYC), GASP (Boston), More Fools in Town (Turin, Italy), and at ESL Projects, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and Eungie Joo’s Six Months (all in LA). He has a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. He has taught at Northeastern University, Massachusetts College of Art, Harvard University, and Edward Everett Elementary in the Boston area and currently he teaches sculpture at Vassar College.  Rowland will be featured in an up-coming group exhibition in Mexico City at UNAM’s Casa de Lago in February 2012.

WEEK 01 /// July 4 – 8

Group Critique: 12 hour group critic with Carla Herrera-Prats

These first two sessions will allow participants to get familiar with each other. Everyone will present a selection of works to the group for about half an hour. After each presentation, we will discuss about the social, political and aesthetic implications raised
by each project in a critical and respectful dialogue.

Studio Visit: Yoshua Okón

Individual Critiques with: Eduardo Abaroa, Carla Herrera-Prats, Yoshua Okón, Bárbara Perea, Nate Harrison, Pedro Reyes,

Visits to: Museum Carrillo Gil Museum, Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes

WEEK 02 /// July 11 – 15

Affective Labour of Caring and Politics of Dedication: 9 hour workshop with Larissa Harris and Anthony Huberman

Curators Larissa Harris and Anthony Huberman have organized exhibitions and events under the name The Steins since 2007. The name comes from a statement by American artist James Lee Byars, who once said that his three favorite people of the
20th century were Stein, Einstein, and Wittgenstein. The exhibitions, which take place in a small basement gallery in New York and usually last only a few hours, are homages to the Steins’ own favorite artists and thinkers and aim to share some favorite ideas with a community of friends.

For SOMA, The Steins lead a workshop focused around their own affective curatorial process. Beginning with a lecture by the German art critic Jan Verwoert, who discusses what he calls the affective labour of caring and the politics of dedication, the workshop asks participants to consider what they love and to find the appropriate form with which to share it and make it manifest.

Studio Visit: Vicente Razo / Carlos Amorales

Lecture: Cuauhtémoc Médina “The Biennial Syndrome”, a lecture about curatorial engagement within global exhibitions

Individual Critics with: Ruth Estévez, Larissa Harris, Anthony Huberman,Tyler Rowland, Vicente Razo, Carlos Amorales, Jorge Reynoso

Off sideDF* with Eduardo Abaroa

WEEK 03 /// July 18 – 22

Appropriation and Intellectual Property in Contemporary Art: 9 hour seminar with Nate Harrison

This seminar will offer a primer on appropriation art and United State intellectual property (IP) law, running from the 19th century, to the rise of “postmodernist” in the 1970s, through to recent appropriation projects in tactical media. The class will use
primary theoretical and legal texts to interrogate the criticality and political efficacy of appropriation given its position within a growing “culture industry,” and its antagonism towards regimes of intellectual property. Comparisons to other non-U.S. (or even non- Western) historical contexts are encouraged.

Studio Visit: Artemio

Individual Critiques with: Artemio, Eduardo Abaroa, Magalí Arriola, Yoshua Okon, Silvia Gruner, Nate Harrison, Carla Herrera-Prats, Lucia Sanroman

Off sideDF* with Eduardo Abaroa

WEEK 04 ///

Alternative Education Strategies – Learning and Art Education as a Utopian
Group Process: 9 hour workshop with Nils Norman

After Nils has presented his research, projects and teaching methods a session will begin with a group “check-in”, allowing for each student to speak freely without interruption about their own experiences in education and theirideas about what
education and learning might, could and should be. The three 3 hour sessions will be developed around an open discussion about what a future art education and school could look like.

Studio Visit: Minerva Cuevas

Artist Talk: Chip Lord

Individual Critics with: Minerva Cuevas, Gonzalo Ortega, Edgar Orlaineta, Victor Palacios, Nils Norman, Carla Herrera-Prats, Chip Lord

Off sideDF* with Eduardo Abaroa

WEEK 05 /// August 1 – 5

Residue and Appropriation: a Theoretical Approach: 9 hour seminar with Mariana Botey

Art criticism has the function to produce a system, or method through which to think the field of art. Contemporary art practices are inevitably linked to the production of critical discourse and to referents of theory and forms and figures of theorization. Working a distance that allows us to grasp the notions of Residue and Appropriation beyond current environmentalist trends and the proliferation of a digital culture that thrives on practices of remix and mash-up, the workshop will explore an argument that approaches the relation of these concepts to a radical economic critique of capitalism and to political strategies that aim to short-circuiting common sense and ideological constructs. Working from Georges Bataille´s intuitions about a “general economy” and his articulation of “The Notion of Expenditure” (1933) our discussion will move toward a re-figuration of the conceptualization of “residue” and “the residual” as part of a theoretical tradition that argues for economies founded in heterogeneity and uneven systems of development, exchange and calculation; that is, processes grounded within a logic of loss, expenditure or dilapidation, and the critical use of obsolete cultural forms and technologies. From collage to détournement to contemporary practices of radical confiscation, the examples to be discussed explore the avant-garde, neo avant-garde and post avant-garde use of appropriation as a mode of production and method of research in art practices.

Studio Visit: Tania Candiani

Individual Critics with: Mariana Botey, Miguel Monroy, Ricardo Dominguez

Visits to: Museum Contemporary Art Rufino Tamayo and Museum of Modern Art (MAM)

WEEK 06 /// August 8 – 12

Varieties of Readymade Experience: 9 hour seminar with Anthony Graves

Along with its subcategory, the assisted readymade, the readymade is the paradoxical exemplar of the most advanced and the most archaic varieties of magical thinking: the capitalist commodity and the religious fetish. In this seminar we will consider the
concept of the readymade in its various lives as negative aesthetic gesture and beyond. Much has been written on the readymade already, yet many texts do not address that formative gesture of 20th century modernism outside of its transgression of the
conventions of exhibition and display let alone beyond the authorial shadow of Duchamp.

The goal of this seminar is productive: rather than historicize the readymade, we will extend its logic as tactical appropriation to conditions and situations touching on a wide range of social phenomena. We will speculatively extend it to topics as diverse as
aesthetics, global climate change, improvisational economies, post-industrial labor, political protest, and the modification of social space. The question of symbolic resistance vis-à-vis direct action, that most recent historical whipping post of art versus
life, will haunt our seminar room as both the vanishing point and the stakes of our inquiry are political agency.

OPEN STUDIO : august 10

Individual Critics with: Carla Herrera-Prats and Anthony Graves

Visit to: Teotihuacan Pyramids

* Off sideDF
9 hour site specific workshop with Eduardo Abaroa
The workshop takes place in three different surprise non-academic places around Mexico City. Each session will be a group reflection and discussion on the concepts involving site-specificity and the possibilities of art to comment on specific cultural,
political, social and geographical situations.

AOIBHEANN GREENAN (Irland)

' Motels and Mineral Surfaces', 2011, Pencil on perforated paper.

My practice is concerned with ideological constructs that rely on foundational dichotomies such as nature and culture or the primitive and the popular to shape our sense of identity. I believe that these binary oppositions are a matter only of intellectual convenience made possible by the structure of language and that to defend them inhibits personal growth and psychological integration.  My work aims to dissolve these rigid boundaries by presenting both aspects in a dynamic relation rather than isolation.  In particular my work explores the idea of nature as a continuously reinvented cultural construction. I adopt a multidisciplinary approach through drawing, painting, collage, installation, video and performance, generating immersive environments which loosely adhere to the visual framework of imitation naturescapes such as zoos, aquariums, virtual nature tours and monuments. What interests me is not the illusion itself but rather the construction of the illusion. The apparent neutrality of these spaces, objects or rituals– the ideological manifestations – allow many of their intrinsic social constraints to remain concealed. Where these simulations strive to conceal their deceit, my work is transparent about its artifice. The approach is demystifying: works self-reflexively expose their own construction and interrupt their own absorption. This enables the viewer to understand the experience itself as a construction and so, to a higher extent, allows them to question and evaluate the impact this experience has on them. My practice is very much about positioning the subject, it aims to provoke modes of self-awareness that counter the diminishment of self in our advanced technological age.

BENJAMIN TONG  (Canada)

Shape of Time (2011), 20x30inches : inkjet print on enhanced matte paper

A page, for instance, is cut out from a volume on the history of ancient Mesopotamia – modern day Iraq. The table of contents on one side and a timeline on the other are folded into the shape of a ‘paper boat’, then unfolded. The matrix-of-folds are used to explore other shapes. Folding brings together hitherto disparate regions of the page, physically linking new possibilities within the text while obscuring others. The fold, after all, is the tensile memory of an act we have performed on the page – its history. Oscillating between the social forces that shape how we interpret the world and matter itself ——between order and chaos, known and enigmatic—— I am interested in how the process of creation can perhaps point to new meanings pertinent to the present and future. (b. 1981) Living and working and pursuing an MFA at the California Institute of the Arts.

BILL ABDALE (United States)

Crime & Punishment, graphite on paper, 36"x24", 2011

Gathering information the way that papers accumulate in a desk drawer, Bill Abdale’s work traffics in the history of the criminal, the damned, the intoxicated, the hallucinatory, the ruined, the used-up, the could’ve-been, and the never-was.  He uses combinations of printed reproduction and hand drawing to explore how subjectivity, retelling, and intervention shape our storytelling: how something forgotten is lost forever or replaced with a lie, how myth becomes fact, how fiction informs reality, and when the fake is as good as the real thing.

Bill was born in New York City in 1984 and grew up in Buffalo, NY.  He studied printmaking in college and holds a BFA from Purchase College, SUNY and an MFA from Hunter College, CUNY.  Currently he teaches at Purchase College and is based in Brooklyn, NY.

CHRISTINA OCHOA (Colombia)

“I’m interested about the way how cultural myths are produced and assimilated, as manipulation strategies to exert power or like part of seeking processes of identity and certanty. From religion, fairy tales to publicity, social behaviour, clichés, genre roles, sex and politics; the myth is fabricated, spread, consumed, and slowly becomes habitual.” From an aesthetic interest for social and collective relations I’ve developed an expensive collage multimedia pratice, dealing with desire as a creative and destructive energy. Whereas the idea of catastrphe and utopia, meets in situations related with obsession, consumption, excess, chaos and contracdiction. I look forward to create collaborative experiences to generate relations, dialogues and communictaion. taking was te and consumption elements, all kind of junk and clichés meant to deconstruct in fragmentary narratives all those subjects; questioning the establishment and the ultimate projections of limite and desire.

CLARISSA TOSSIN (Brasil)

Clarissa Tossin is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work engages with history, architecture and specific socioeconomic conditions. Her recent projects have investigated the social and economic ideals associated with Brazil’s capital, Brasília. She received her MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2009 and BFA from FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil in 2000. She was an artist-in-residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2009 and attended a residency led by Mona Hatoum at Fundacion Botin, Spain in 2010. She has exhibited her work at several venues including Redling Fine Art, Compact Space, REDCAT, Los Angeles; Houston Center for Photography, Houston; Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin; The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas and Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo, among others. She was awarded an Interdisciplinary Grant from California Institute of the Arts in 2008 and a College Art Association LA MFA Award in 2009. She is currently a Core Program fellow at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

CLAUDIA PEÑA (Mexico – United States)

Pierrot, 2011, Wooden Tables, Graphite, Found objects, Lavender Seeds, Garden Owl, Plaster, Paper and Crayola Wax.

Claudia Peña Salinas is a multi-disciplinary artist based in New York.  She is a Jacob Javits Fellow and holds a BFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Hunter College.  Her work has been exhibited at Sara Meltzer Gallery, El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Flux Factory and El Museo del Barrio.

DANA MAIDEN (United States)

Dana Maiden lives and works in Los Angeles.  Her multi-disciplinary practice includes photography, sculpture, video and performance. She earned a BA in Visual Arts, Art History and English Literature from Columbia University (2000) and an MFA in Sculpture and Photography from Claremont Graduate University (2008).  She is the 2008 recipient of the Feitelson Fellowship, and recently completed a residency and solo exhibition, which was part of the 3rd Moscow Biennial, at Proekt Fabrika in Russia. Upcoming exhibitions include a collaborative public art project for Open Field at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and a solo show at RAID Projects in Los Angeles.

DANIEL BEJAR (United States)

"Get Lost! (Mannahatta)", site-specific intervention, custom decals, photographic documentation, variable dimensions, 2009-ongoing

Informed by collective memory, traces, and histories that are embedded in the present, my work looks to create ruptures within established narratives. Utilizing intervention, photography, sculpture, video, and performance my practice appropriates and recontextualize’s familiar signs, systems, and information as a strategy to provoke historical amnesia and ingrained systems of belief. The past can influence the future, and by employing modes of evocation to bring the past into the present, a rupture can be created, which provides an opportunity to reexamine historical and geo-political narratives. Daniel Bejar is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Bejar was recently selected for Smack Mellon’s 2011 Hot Picks program, Brooklyn, NY, and residencies include Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space, Vermont Studio Center Residency, and has participated in the Artist in the Marketplace Program at the Bronx Museum of Art. In 2011 Bejar will participate in El Museo Del Barrio’s (S) Files Bienal, New York, NY. His work has been exhibited internationally, and recent exhibitions include “Loss Generation”, Seton Gallery, University of New Haven, CT / “Get Lost! (NYC)”, Abrons Art Center, New York, NY / “Hope-A-Holic”, “The New Easy”, Artnews Projects, Berlin, Germany, and “How Soon is Now?” AIM 28, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY. He is a 2007 MFA sculpture recipient from the State University of New York, New Paltz, and received his BFA from the Ringling College of Art & Design, Sarasota, FL.

DANIEL AGUILAR (Mexico)

untitled
pen on paper
17 cm x 26,5 cm
2010

(León, 1988). Visual artist. His work is basically made in two platforms: the drawing and the collage. He has edited two magazines: Balbuceo and Gallina Volteada. He manages an art space called “Bikini Wax” in Leon, Guanajuato.

DANIELA HUERTA (Mexico)

'Silent Dialogue', Ink on thread, metal, and ceramic tiles, Dimensions variable, 2008

My work tends to explore and reveal the poetry of ordinary things. I am interested in the dialogue which is created between objects and the space around them and I tend to undertake the act of drawing as a deliberate activity to trace the world and capture fragments of time through various media. The motivation behind this attempt lays in my conviction that by engaging myself with the things I perceive and sensitively look at, a whole new world is created and a new relationship between me and the materials is formed. For the past several years I have been living in different places, constantly acquiring experiences which have shaped my essence and altered my notions of life. This knowledge has given me a spirit of inquiring sensitive approaches and more intimate ways of looking at the world. I generally do not have a preferred material since I adopt them in the process. Things that appeal to my aesthetic seem to present themselves as things within themselves. This is my departure point.

DOMINGO CASTILLO (United States)

Domingo Castillo (born January 12, 1951) is an American law professor and wind-surfer. Raised in Newark and Wilmington, Delaware (and later as a teen in Wayne, New Jersey), Castillo has a degree in fine art from the University of Michigan, B.F.A. 1973, and graduated first in his class from New York University School of Law, J.D. 1981. He clerked for Judge Leonard B. Sand in the Southern District of New York and practiced law in the litigation department of Sullivan & Cromwell.

Since 2004, he has wind-surfed along the coast of Lake Michigan, commenting on politics, and popular culture. In 2009, he announced his engagement to a life-guard he had met through his wind-surfing exploits, a story that attracted coverage in the underground wind-surfing press and the New York Times. In September 2006, Castillo sparked controversy in the underground wind-surfing press by publishing an entry on his Facebook under the title “Let’s take a closer look at those breasts.” that accused feminist wind-surfer Jessica Valenti of wearing “a tight knit top that draws attention to her breasts” while posing for a picture with former president Bill Clinton.

FEDERICO MARTINEZ (Mexico)

…

JENNIFER NICHOLS  (United States)

Der Mode von Übermorgen, 2011, stretched fabric and pineapple, 22 ½ x 20 inches

Jennifer Nichols lives and works in Boston where she is pursuing an MFA in painting at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a certificate in museum studies from Tufts University.  She was recently awarded a fellowship to study for six months in Hamburg, Germany at the Hochschule fur Bildende Künste.  She holds a BFA in painting from Cornell University with a concentration in architecture.

JILL FRANK (United States)

Human Form #2, 2009

Jill Frank is a Chicago-based visual artist working primarily in photography.  Recent projects explore the history of photographic representation by creating alternate versions of images dominating the vernacular of western culture.  She holds a BA in photography from Bard College and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Her work has been shown at GOLDEN, Chicago; Contemporary Art Workshop, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Harvard University, Cambridge and the Chelsea Art Museum in New York.  She currently teaches photography at Lake Forest College and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

JULIANA BITTENCOURT (Brasil)

On-Off, 2011 (installation with photographs, photogravure and video)

Juliana Bittencourt is graduated in Photography and is a visual artist, image collector, conservator and etc… that was born in Sao Paulo and lives in Mexico City. Her work tends to be done in an interchange of this activities and reflect the relation between production and appropriation, art and power, image and matter and the creation of strategies, that include collective actions, to exhibit it. Her recently work goes to the analysis of the social circulation of images as a critical start point. Her exhibits include “Bestiário” at Galeria Kreatori in Rio de Janeiro and with the Núcleo Trânsfugas published the dossier Art and Power at the magazine “Sala Preta” in 2007.

KIMBERLEE CÓRDOVA (United States)

Double Dog L'dare You, year: 2011, medium: collage

Kimberlee Córdova is a Los Angeles based artist, employed at Colliers International where she is a Business Development Coordinator specializing in investment sales and distressed asset valuation and disposition services. She volunteers as the Emerging Arts Leaders Los Angeles Network / Community Partners Liaison and Head of the EAL/LA Visual Artists Hub. In these roles she works with EAL/LA’s fiscal sponsor, Community Partners, and members of the EAL/LA network to facilitate the administration of the network. Prior to joining Colliers and EAL/LA, Córdova served as the Education and Public Programs Coordinator at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum where she planned and implemented 9 different arts education programs geared toward children, teens, adults, and Spanish language only adults. She received her B.A. in painting and art history from UCSB’s College of Creative Studies. She will be enrolling in the California College of Art’s MFA program in the fall.

MARTIN ROTH (Austria)

I was born 1977 in Graz, Austria. I live, work and study in New York. As an artist I often take on different roles, such as landscaper, farmer, caretaker or tour guide. But I see myself mainly as an interventionist who tries to alter the reality of my surroundings. After setting a certain situation in motion I assume a passive role and let my materials (birds, ducklings, ants, crickets, etc.) “perform” in real time. I come into the studio not to make work but to take care of and look after my work. As Kaprow wrote: “Doing life consciously was a compelling notion to me.” Because this caretaking is the only thing I do in my studio for long periods of time, I try to do it as consciously as possible. Because my work is often ephemeral, many of my projects mainly exist in story form. Most people only heard about my work but have never seen it. The moment something is only talked about it quickly takes on the quality of rumor, fable, or myth. I am trying, in a sense, to poke holes in our realty in order to create a new language that could reenter the world and affect change.

NATALIA REBELO (Brasil)

I’m interested in the fail of human relationships. I collect images, circunstances and create a narrative. I do drawings, silkscreens, installations and performance.
I investigate the performance space and its borders.
Natalia Rebêlo was born in Brazil, in 1987. In 2010 she got a National Diploma of Fine Arts from the École d’Art d’Aix en Provence, France. Since last August she is a student at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, where she will be graduating June 2012.

NURIA MONTIEL (Mexico)

Nuria Montiel (México City, 1982). Studied Visual Arts at Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, ENAP-UNAM. Has obteined Jóvenes Creadores 2005-
06 FONCA Grant. In 2007 she won the Premio Nacional de Arte Joven Aguascalientes XVII with her artist book “Di Vagancia”. Since that year she has been working collectively with JOKUS group and in the seminar of Medios Múltiples, which with them they printed the book MM2 (2009). Her work has
been exposed in many collective expositions in Mexico, U.S.A, Italy and Poland; in different museums and cultural spaces, between them we can emphasize: Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Museo de
Arte Carillo Gil (MACG), el Centro de la Imagen and Galería kurimanzutto.
Nowadays, she lives and works in Mexico City. She obtained for second time the Jóvenes Creadores FONCA/2010 grant in the discipline of alternative media with her project “Moblie Printing Press”. She is member of the Academic Program in contemporary art PEC-SOMA. She´s also part of the printing workshop Blanco Ediciones and of the public art project “La Galería del Comercio”.

PABLO ÁNGEL LUGO (Mexico)

Marianne, Intervención en vitrinas, Medidas Variables, Saint Ouen, Francia

The nature of my work is influenced by my experience of being a political prisoner in my college years. And the circumstances that led me to it. Believe in utopia, find and create the conditions under which it arises, and art has given me a way to say things that are politically impossible. However with the art I have the opportunity to reach more people. Ironically, the art has a greater impact. This situation means that my work starts from a specific idea, concept development, research environment, and many other things that are going to define the means by which the idea will take body. This is the reason why I work with multiple mediums. Commonly work with three-dimensional works, because I think it’s much easier to relate to them, because with the vast amount of information that exists in cities, two-dimensional works are lost. Today I dedicate much time to relate theoretically the art and ethics, because I definitely don’t think that everything is worth in art.

RAQUEL DE ANDA (United  States)

One of five billboards produced in collaboration with participating youth organizations in New Orleans, LA as part of the Pospect. 1 Biennial, Education Department

Raquel de Anda is a curator and arts facilitator originally from Laredo, TX. Raquel received her BFA from Middlebury College, VT and then migrated to San Francisco, CA where she worked for seven years as Associate Curator at Galería de la Raza, a contemporary Latino arts organization founded in 1970. From exhibitions to public art interventions, online forums and panel discussions, Raquel creates programs that cross-pollinate experiences and develop avenues for artists and activists to bridge their formats through the experience and discussion of cultural production. Recent events and exhibitions include Roots and Re-visions, a project of the Prospect.1 Biennial Education Department, New Orleans, LA, Strategies for the Shift, a series of panel discussions and films examining the political shift in Latin America via the critical lens of alternative artist led projects, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA, ChicaChic, an exhibition of contemporary Chicana artists, California Institute for Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, and The Persistence of ‘Home‘, an oral history based, public art project for Roots Fest 2011, Baltimore, MD. Raquel has also juried several panels for organizations including The San Francisco Arts Commission and The National Performance Network.

ROSA SIJBEN (The Netherlands)

Untitled, one out of a series of four edible sculptures, size: 30x18x18 cm, materials: cake, candy, merengue, edible pigments and rolfondant

Being a student of Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, I make art about the position of people in their context of objects. This can manifest itself in shapes varying from an interactive performance to an edible sculpture. Let’s call them situations, because it’s not only about what is there to be looked at or thought about, but also about what is really happening right there at that moment, and you’re a part of it. Since my work so often interacts with its context, I try to explore a large variation of these. I take part in very different kinds of shows and do self-initiated artist residences on locations I consider interesting to react on, or make a suitable work for and with.

SARA BARUCH (United States)

Sara Garcia Baruch was born in Los Angeles, California in 1988. She attended California Institute of the Arts receiving a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Photography and Media in May 2011. Her work asks questions about the meanings and constructions of social identity and knowledge production and the subjective alienation and mysticism of these things. She has previously worked with photography but is currently exploring other mediums and forms of interaction.

SUSANA REISMAN (Venezuela)

Susana Reisman was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1977. She received a BA in Economics from Wellesley College (Boston, MA) in 1999 and an MFA in photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, New York) in 2005. After teaching photography for a number of years, Susana now dedicates her time to making art and running Circuit Gallery (www.circuitgallery.com). She lives and works in Toronto and is represented by Peak Gallery.

SUSANA RODRIGUEZ (Mexico)

Olvida usted algo? - Ojalá, 2009, Bricks, concrete, ceramic tiles, wooden door, Dimensions variable

Studied visual arts at the University of Guadalajara. She was founding member of the art Collective of Action and Artistic Creation who organized several projects and exhibitions. In 2006-
2007 she received the grant for young creators of FONCA. Her solo shows are: -Olvida usted
algo? – Ojalá, Casa del Lago Juan José Arreola, Mexico City (2009), El día de la langosta, Museo Raúl Anguiano, Guadalajara (2008), Melody, Museo de la Ciudad, Querétaro (2007), Mil meses, Arena México Arte Contemporáneo, Guadalajara (2005). Group shows: The comunication, coordination, consideration, Kate Werble Gallery, New York (2009), The best art work in the World (or the portrait of the artist), Charro Negro Galeria, Zapopan (2008), Standing on one foot, Triangle Projects Space, Texas (2007), El equilibrio y sus derivados, Casa del Lago Juan José Arreola, Mexico City (2006) among others.

SZU-HAN HO (United States)

Rate of Recharge IV poles, 1/4" irrigation tubing, waterbed bladder, ferns, water 2011

Szu-Han Ho is in an interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses the intersection of spatial practice, material culture, and affective knowledge. Her research interests have revolved around the shared metaphors of economics and ecology. After receiving a BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley, she launched a three-year collaborative project integrating art installation, architectural proposals, performance, and agricultural research on a 250-acre site in West Texas. She holds degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received an MA in Visual and Critical Studies and an MFA in Film, Video, and New Media. Recent projects include a mobile exhibition at the Center of the US (in conjunction with the Center for Land Use Interpretation), a performative property survey at Mildred’s Lane Historical Society, and a travelling exhibition of analogue models to psyches and natural systems. Szu-Han currently teaches in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

XIMENA DÍAZ (Colombia)

Ximena Díaz is a Colombian artist based in Bogotá. Her videos and installations deal with the paradoxes of modernity in contexts of political and social fragility. A 2004 Fulbright Scholar, she holds an MFA in Digital Media from the Rhode Island School of Design (2006) and a BFA from Universidad de Los Andes (2001) in Bogotá. Her work has been presented in Colombia at Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Museo de Arte Moderno, Galería Santa Fe (Bogotá), Museo de Antioquia, Museo de Arte Moderno (Medellín), and Festival de la Imagen (Manizales), among others; and abroad at Nominimo (Guayaquil), RichMix (London), Tompkins Projects and Zora Space (New York) and Sol Koffler Gallery (Providence). She has been an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Art (2010) and at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center (2007). Since 2009 she is Associate Professor at UJTL in Bogotá. With the group COOPERATIVA she got the 2010 curatorial research grant for the 14 Salones Regionales de Artistas for the development of an autonomous association of artists.

Group Critic

At the studio of Tania Candiani

Shoghig Halajian, Matthew Schrader and Aliza Nizenbaum

Workshop with Larissa Harris

At the studio of Marcela Armas

Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst piñatas. A project by Claudio Sodi and Debora Delmar

Jeff Koons wins!

Seminar with Jeniffer Teets

Matthew Schrader, Aliza Nizenbaum, Ezra Tessler, Elaine Byrne and Denise McDonagh

Seminar with Vicente Razo

Workshop with Sarina Basta and Rita Ackerman

Workshop with Pedro Reyes

Trip to Teotihuacan pyramids

At Teotihuacan

Lecture by Ricardo Dominguez and Amy Sara Carroll

WEEK 1 – Monday July 05 to Thursday July 08
Basis of Reality – 8 hour workshop with Yoshua Okon
This workshop explore different strategies in representation that question conventional notions of reality. Departing from the idea that our understanding of reality is very limited and full of clichés, the workshop discuss different artworks which, by blurring the conventional lines between reality and fiction, allow us to re-consider and propose more nuanced and complex versions of what constitutes reality for us.

Tactics and Strategies of Appropriation in Contemporary Art – 12 hour seminar with Nate Harrison

This four-part seminar introduce the art of appropriation in the U.S. since the rise of “postmodernism” in the 1970s through to the present. The class use primary theoretical and legal texts to interrogate the criticality and political efficacy of appropriation given its position within a “culture industry” and its antagonism towards regimes of intellectual property. Comparisons to other non-U.S. (or even non-Western) historical contexts are encouraged.

Individual critics: Carla Herrera-Prats

Visit to: kurimanzutto gallery

WEEK 2 – Monday July 12 to Thursday July 15
Children and Revolution – 12 hour workshop with Larissa Harris
Larissa Harris will use the class as a pretense to explore hands-on ideas and projects past and future along the theme of “children and revolution,” including toy theater plays, international childrens’ book traditions, and the oeuvres of Alighiero e Boetti and Fischli and Weiss.

Special session: Larissa Harris in conversation with Pedro Reyes

Studio visit: Gonzalo Ortega

Individual critics: Edgar Orlaneita

Visit to: Museo Rufino Tamayo, Museo de Arte Moderno

WEEK 3 – Monday July 19 to Thursday July 22
Mexico City’s Art Scene – 12 hour seminar with Carla Herrera-Prats
Since the early ‘ 90s, Mexican artists have occupied an increasingly prominent role in the international art scene. This course allows participants to engage some of the key figures who have helped shape it over the last two decades. Visits to artists’ studios, museums, and galleries are scheduled. Participants regroup after guided visits to share their opinions. This semester visits will include: Magalí Arriola, Chief Curator, Museo Tamayo; Jorge Reynoso, Chief Curator Academic Program, MUAC, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo; Enrique Jezik, artist.

Studio visit:

Individual critics: John Menick, Yoshua Okón, Larissa Harris

Visit to: Teotihuacan, OMR gallery

WEEK 4 – Monday July 26 to Thursday July 29
Off side Mexico City, a site specific workshop, 8 hour workshop by Eduardo Abaroa
The course will include four sessions. The workshop takes place in four different surprise non-academic places around Mexico City. Each session will be a group reflection and discussion on the concepts of site-specificity and the possibilities of art to comment on specific cultural, political, social and geographical situations.
- Mercado de Sonora
- Hotel de México
- Juzgados
- Bandera de San Jerónimo

CoBrANyM e – 12 hour workshop with Sarina Basta and Rita Ackerman
CoBrA was an active group of people around Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam generally considered to have lasted from 1949 to 1951. Members of the group focused their activities around themes such as freedom of form, and spontaneity versus automatism. CoBrANyMe is a fourth days encounter that proposes a new form of interaction among participants. Based on readings, and the analysis of works by Karel Appel and Asger Jorn and their respective strategies, careers, and aesthetic programs, the group will be invited to produce a phantom collaboration with CoBrA. CoBrANyMe will be examining cultural appropriation and disappropriation, the formation of a collective groups, de-skilling, the erasure of authorship, ground/figure relationships and films where collective action both generates energy and possible failure within cultural representation post-1968, with a particular focus on the genre of cinéma vérité. This week aims at giving participants tools in analyzing artists’
strategies of the 20th century, identifying ideological positions and re-applying them to other contexts. A bare-bone of film and lectures are provided as departure points. In between these moments participant’s reactions and associations are key in defining the turns of the conversations and any possible production. These encounters can lead to individual work from each participant, or a short collective experience. Some sessions of these encounters will be recorded.

Studio visit: John Menick, Rita Ackerman

Individual critics: Eduardo Abaroa

Visit to: Jumex Collection, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros

WEEK 5 – Monday August 02 to Thursday August 05
Theory and Criticism – 12 hour Workshop with Mariana Botey
Art criticism has the function to produce a system, or method through which to think the field of art.
Contemporary art practices are inevitably linked to the production of critical discourse and to referents of theory and forms and figures of theorization. Working a distance that allows us to grasp art beyond notions such as representation or, as language and communication, the workshop will approach the relation between theory and art criticism trying to understand these forms of discourse as a supplement to contemporary art interventions— that is, analyzing them as specific and particular forms of social practice. Against the grain of a formalist reading or a historicist explanation of art, the idea of the course is to experiment with a materialist critique: by articulating the contradictions between institutional practices and the theories by which they explain and justify themselves and each other. Throughout the course we will work through examples from the canon of modernist theory and from criticism discussing contemporary artists, while at the same time looking for a comparative model and working these ideas within the specific localization of Mexico City.

Special session: M ariana Botey will be in conversation with Cuauhtémoc Medina

Studio visit: Yoshua Okon, Gonzalo Ortega, Carla Herrera-Prats

Individual critics: Jennifer Teets, Vicente Razo, Mariana Botey

Visit to: Museo de arte Carrillo Gil, MUAC

WEEK 6 – Monday August 09 – Thursday August 12th
The Origins of M odernism: A Brief I ntroduction to the M exican and Latin American Vanguards of the
20th century – 8 hour seminar/workshop with Vicente Razo
This workshop will be an experimental introduction to the avant-garde movements conceived in Mexico and Latin America through the 20th century. The course will provide students a new perspective and access to a history often overlooked in western academia of the ways in which modernity has been constructed and designed. Through the reading of primary texts, manifestos, poems, instructions and insults that generated the local avant-garde, the student will be introduced to the dynamics of creation and crisis proper to Mexico and Latin America.

How a writing dipped in diverse Liquors may be read * – 12 hour workshop with Jennifer Teets
* from John Baptist Porta – “Natural Magick” – thanks to Asli Cavusoglu.

This workshop looks to the writing process (fiction and non-fiction) as an incubator for the art event and exhibition. In particular, it looks to writing and the use of the site to bring about relevance to the exhibition itself, which is in effect, created for and by the artists. In this sense, it negotiates an exchange of formats between event and exhibition. How does this differ from ordinary and conventional procedures of exhibition making? What role does the site have in the making of the work and the exhibition? Where does the artist fit or come into the process in the context of the writer and vice versa? A case by case study will be conducted drawing from contemporary writers and artists such as philosopher Aaron Schuster (Belgium), curator/writer Francis Mckee (UK), sci-fi writer Mark von Schlegell (USA/Germany), artists Mark Aerial Waller and Gilles Round (UK), cultural critic/novelist Norman Klein (USA), curator/writer Raimundas Malasauskas (Lithuania/France), writer Maria Fusco (UK), and more. The seminar initiates with the activation of an event around the use of a site, the writing process, and the involvement with a local writer.

Aliza Nisenbaum was born in Mexico City in 1977.  She completed her MFA receiving a Trustee Merit Scholarship in painting and BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, along with two years of course work in Psychology from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. She has taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and as a critique panelist at Columbia University in NYC. She currently teaches at LaGuardia Community College in Queens.  Solo exhibitions include Julius Caesar in Chicago, March 2011, Illinois State University and Shane Campbell gallery in Chicago. Select Group exhibitions include Swiger gallery in Vienna, Austria; Tony White Gallery in Chicago,  50/50 Gallery, and Heaven gallery in Chicago, Hudson Franklin in NYC, and University of Texas at Tyler. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Anna Marie Rockwell is an interdisciplinary artist. She was born in 1980 in Greenbrae, California. Rockwell received her BFA in painting from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2007.  She will receive her MFA through the San Francisco Art Institute in 2012.Her current body of work examines the ‘body’ as a temporal being, and ‘concept’, which is atemporal. Memory serves as a double agent between these two modes of being, in which varying degrees of tension arise. Rockwell’s work is a concentration of paintings, sculptures, and photographs, which investigate human contradiction, temporality and the failure, which is disclosed as the inability of reason despite an inexhaustible human imagination. The question she asks is how does art-ness meet the earth? Or where does ‘concept’ interconnect with the ‘body’, and what happens when concept is unable to immortalize a thing?

Arianna Vanini

Claudio Sodi

Claudio Sodi was born in Mexico city 1986, studied filmmaking, he focused his studies to experimental filmmaking, using collage as a very important working base. Soon decided to express himself with other mediums, and currently developing a theatre play and a full length film. Lives and works in Mexico city.

Debora Delmar

Denise McDonagh is a Visual Artist, working in the mediums of painting, drawing, printmaking, video, sound and installation. Her current research is driven by the uses of technology in the everyday and how this influences and changes the individual’s interactions within society, the fluid nature of language and inter-personal understanding of signs and symbols when using communication technology.  We are in affect creating avatars or digital versions of ourselves. In her recent work she has been interested 3D and 4D creating another element and reality to her work and also concerned with collaboration and the engagement of participants in social processes. Denise’s work practice has been about adapting low-fi, household technology to engage participants in social processes. “Social skills demonstrated through my working with other artists and co-founding and development of arts organisations continue to be refined through projects that include video compositions developed from group engagement with SMS text messaging to social networking and the integration of the mobile phone as part of an artistic process”.

Elaine Byrne working primarily with video, photography and neon, her work investigate the state of the inner psyche, focusing on the notion multi layered identity.  These multiple layers of personality are explored as a reality within the self, rather than a form of a psychological disorder. In examining this I particularly the experiences which shaped us – she explore the psychoanalytic model of the human personality, in which stories and memories carry important messages to the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious mind, on whatever level each is functioning at the time. She is interested in memory’s role – in helping us accept the problematic nature of life without being defeated by it. She is preoccupied by the nature of communication and languages inherent problems as well as the role of the artist as supposed communicator.  Language is an intermediary between the individual and society – with meaning not residing in language but in the individual. Her methodology includes engaging and conversing with the audience and responding to these conversation – collecting stories, sharing specific memories, fairy tales etc.

Ezra Tessler lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.  He is a Jacob Javits Fellow and doctoral candidate at Columbia University.  He holds previous degrees from Harvard University and Cambridge University.  His writings have appeared in various publications in the US and abroad, most recently in the edited volume, Roots, Rites, and Sites of Resistance: The Banality of Good.  His next solo show will be at the Cigar Factory in Philadelphia, PA, in fall, 2011.

Kathryn Oberauch is from Bolzano, Italy. In 2007 she graduated in New Media at Merz Academy in Stuttgart, Germany. Currently she is studing space strategies at Weissensee in Berlin and working as an independent filmmaker and curator.

Matthew Schrader is an artist based in Brooklyn New York. After receiving a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007 he has shown projects both in New York and abroad. He was featured in Labyrint 09, an exhibition of text based works at Botkyrka Konsthall in Botkyrka Sweden. In 2010 he will be included in a two person show, Dig Site at BARNABY LTD, in New York. Images are stills from a looping digital projection.

Suzy M. Halajian is a curator and artist from Los Angeles, with a background in economics and international relations. She is the co-founder of experimental performance arts space, Eighteen Thirty Collaborations in Los Angeles, which now operates as a roaming collective (2007-Present). In 2008, Halajian developed Concept Store, a collaborative sculptural and fashion project that critically explores fashion design practices and notions of utilitarianism. She is currently working on FOOL/ these aren’t obligations, but I want to, a publication on ideas of failure. Halajian is a 2012 M.A. candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

Shoghig Halajian is a curator and artist who is involved with a number of experimental art venues and projects in Los Angeles.  In 2007, Halajian co-founded Eighteen Thirty Collaborations, an alternative performance art space in Los Angeles. She has also been involved with LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) as the full-time Outreach Coordinator, where she assisted in the gallery’s programming and communications for the last two years.  In addition to her curatorial practice, Halajian produces a line of work for Concept Store, a project that blend fashion and sculpture to examine traditional design trends.  She holds a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles in English Literature with a double minor in Philosophy and Women Studies (2003).  Halajian is currently a MA candidate in the Critical Studies program at CalArts, where she will be exploring her research interests in performance art and its relationship to the marginalized body, alternative spaces and fictions, the posthuman world, and notions of the grotesque in art.