RICARDO RENDON

Los Angeles, May 28, 2015 – Fabien Castanier Gallery is proud to present Multifarious Abstraction, a group exhibition featuring the work of five Latin American artists, Magdalena Atria (Chile, 1966), Antonio Muñiz (Mexico, 1969), Ricardo Rendón (Mexico, 1970), Mariángeles Soto-Díaz (Venezuela, 1970), and Rubén Ortiz-Torres (Mexico, 1964). This exhibition is guest curated by Cecilia Fajardo- Hill, a British/Venezuelan art historian and curator. Multifarious Abstraction brings together these five artists to explore diverse themes related to art and experience through individual practices of conceptual abstraction. Multifarious Abstraction is an exhibition that questions traditional understanding of the nature of abstraction as a modern field separate from reality. The five artists participating in Multifarious Abstraction present conceptually challenging, loaded and sometimes political explorations of abstract vocabularies in art, which point to unique ways to experience and think on contemporary culture.

The five artists are from Latin America, where the division between high and low culture is not as central or as marked as in The United States and Europe. The abstraction proposed here moves away from modernist utopian ideals and pure aesthetics, to dialogue with industrial and popular culture, daily life, inner struggle, politics and gender.

Ricardo Rendón's work is informed by his interest in traditional trades and materials, which are for the artist places of "creative learning". He states: "My work is presented as a system of questioning of the creative practice, of the execution, productive realization and notion of work." His mediums range from industrial materials, to sand paper, felt and leather; and his techniques from perforating, cutting, nailing, grinding, sanding, gluing, to welding. For Multifarious Abstraction, the artist exhibits work from the two series: Work Area and Lighting Circuits, with materials such as copper and industrial felt. He transforms a plumber's purposeful and precise procedure for joining copper tubes into the method for creating free standing sculptures which reflect both on traditional knowledge and on contemporary art's expansive possibilities.

Cecilia Fajardo-Hill is a British/Venezuelan art historian and curator. Fajardo-Hill specializes in modern and contemporary art with a focus in Latin American art. She has a PhD in Art History from the University of Essex, England, and an MA in 20th Century Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England. From 2005- 2008, Fajardo-Hill served as Director and Chief Curator for CIFO and the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, and from 2009-2012 served as Chief Curator at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach, CA. Presently, Fajardo-Hill is guest curator at the Hammer Museum, the Chief Curator of the Sayago & Pardon Collection and Abstraction in Action, and a visiting scholar at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. She is currently based in Los Angeles, CA.

Group Exhibition featuring Magdalena Atria, Antonio Muñiz, Ricardo Rendón, Mariángeles Soto-Díaz, Rubén Ortiz Torres.