ARTnews writes about Beatriz Cortez and rafa esparza's exhibition at Americas Society
ARTnews writes about Beatriz Cortez and rafa esparza's exhibition at Americas Society
The works included in the show "honor antiquity from the ancient Americas, not unlike the artist’s past collaborations," says the art magazine.
Temporal dislocation—the sensation of experiencing multiple temporalities at once—can be felt inside three galleries of New York’s Americas Society /Council of the Americas, now host to the latest collaboration of Beatriz Cortez and rafa esparza.
Titled “Earth and Cosmos,” it’s exhibition of sculpture and installation art with vast ambitions. Here, visitors will pass through the planet’s core, exiting in southern Mexico, where the ancient Olmec civilization began, with a side trip to Los Angeles’s Boyle Heights neighborhood. And all without leaving Manhattan.
“The Americas Society is linked to the idea of a nation, to the idea of how the United States relates to Latin America, what kind of power is in that relationship,” Cortez told ARTnews, speaking within the gallery. “[David] Rockefeller himself established this place, and he’s the one who moved the [Olmec artifacts].”
For both artists, the extraction of art to the United States is where this show begins. Cortez, who immigrated to the US from El Salvador when she was 18, and esparza, who was born and raised in Los Angeles by Mexican immigrants, both draw heavily on the material, memories, and myths of their ancestors. Nearly all the works on view at the Americas Society honor antiquity from the ancient Americas, not unlike the artist’s past collaborations.
'The Americas Society announced “Earth and Cosmos” (through May 17) as the first in a series of shows that invites two longtime collaborators to build an exhibition based on their relationship without the intervention of a curator. In press materials, the institution has said it’s team is there for the purpose of “facilitating dialogues” between the artists, if needed...
