CARDIOVASCULAR
An exhibit of new work by Sarah Barsness and Veronica Sahagún
An exhibit of new work by Sarah Barsness and Veronica Sahagún
Inaugural Exhibit
Galería de la Torre de la Facultad de Artes
Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos
Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
November 14 through December 16, 2008
In this textile-based exhibition,
American artist Sarah Barsness and Mexican artist
Verónica Sahagún investigate ideas of the body and memory. Cardiovascular is currently open in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and will travel to San
Francisco in 2009.
For Barsness and Sahagun, fabric and yarn are stand-ins for organs, skin
and arteries; they contain the residues of memory and DNA; like the
body, fibers are fragile and vulnerable but they are also flexible,
reparable, and able to withstand continuous stress and pressure. The
acts of weaving, sewing, knitting, and crocheting are acts of
construction, connection and repair.
Each artist has several individual pieces in the exhibit, but the title piece is a collaboration in which Barsness and Sahagún have reversed their normal artmaking “roles”; Barsness has created enfolded hearts and blood cells, while Sahagún has constructed a web of arteries and veins. They have brought them together as a room sized installation that visitors can enter and explore. This role reversal allowed each artist to enter, engage and appropriate the other’s personal and cultural sensibilities, in their individual and ongoing practice as well as the collaborative installation.
Cardiovascular also includes an original sound installation by Mexican artist Felipe Noriega, completing the sense, for the visitor, of entering into a living organism. And on opening night, November 14, saxaphonist Natasha Gawlinski performed Noriega's original composition inside of the exhibition space. This exhibit brings together American and Mexican visions of the body in a unifying dialogue about intimate, personal experience.
Each artist has several individual pieces in the exhibit, but the title piece is a collaboration in which Barsness and Sahagún have reversed their normal artmaking “roles”; Barsness has created enfolded hearts and blood cells, while Sahagún has constructed a web of arteries and veins. They have brought them together as a room sized installation that visitors can enter and explore. This role reversal allowed each artist to enter, engage and appropriate the other’s personal and cultural sensibilities, in their individual and ongoing practice as well as the collaborative installation.
Cardiovascular also includes an original sound installation by Mexican artist Felipe Noriega, completing the sense, for the visitor, of entering into a living organism. And on opening night, November 14, saxaphonist Natasha Gawlinski performed Noriega's original composition inside of the exhibition space. This exhibit brings together American and Mexican visions of the body in a unifying dialogue about intimate, personal experience.
Cardiovascular was made possible with the generous support of these sponsors:
Click here to listen to Felipe Noriega's sound piece.
Installation view of Cardiovascular, at the opening reception.
Installation view of Cardiovascular.
