As a Satellite Space: La Panadería

As a Satellite was a special program of the Visual Arts Department of Americas Society. This program invited independent cultural initiatives in Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean to use Americas Society as their satellite for the production of exhibitions and event-based projects in New York. For the purposes of As a Satellite, an independent cultural initiative was defined as an organization run by a collective of artists or by other types of cultural workers, such as curators and critics. It could include non-profits, exhibition spaces, publishing groups, web-based organizations, and other forms of collective practices. Governmental organizations and for-profit galleries did not apply.

La Panadería (1994-2002), an artist-run center in Mexico City, was the first participant of As a Satellite. Their plans at Americas Society emphasized some of its characteristics: not merely an exhibition space but a versatile, multi-purpose, activity-based art center, a place for gathering. La Panadería organized a month-long program at Americas Society consisting of four specific programs/projects: a tertulia, a dance-party, a single-day exhibition, and a publication.

The tertulia was an informal gathering, open to the public, to converse with founding and current members of La Panadería and with a group of artists and writers who had participated in their exhibitions, residencies, and programs. This was an occasion for a casual presentation of La Panadería’s past programs, a discussion of their current activities, and an open think-tank for potential projects.

The Dance Party featured live music by Silverio and Sonido Lasser Drakar. Silverio participated in events at La Panadería, and collaborated with several artists in Mexico. These included video and musical performances with artists Miguel Calderón and Carlos Amorales. Sonido Lasser Drakar was a collective that had composed the music of a recent performance by artist Gustavo Artigas, and was one of the collaborators of Volúmen (Mexico), a new magazine of music and visual culture. This was the first performance of Sonido Lasser Drakar for La Panadería.

The 'exhibition' took as exhibition space the Mexican Room and the Salon Simon Bolivar of Americas Society, where a selection of videos was presented continuously over the course of a day. This exhibition gathered videos presented at La Panadería in Mexico City, and recent works by artists who had exhibited there in the past.

La Panadería invited the artist collective Heróico Comité de Reivindicación Humana (HCRH) to produce a new, text-based work. This work took the form of a pamphlet designed by –1:0:1 and published and distributed by Americas Society.

Participating artists:
Gabriel Acevedo (Mexico, 1974) and Andrea Ferreyra (Uruguay, 1970); Nikolenka Beltrán (Mexico, 1974), Samuel Chenillo (Mexico, 1973), and Renato Ornelas (Mexico, 1975); Kirby Conn (United States, 1975); Rubén Gutierrez (Mexico, 1973); Gonzalo Lebrija (Mexico, 1972); Christopher Lipomi (Unites States, 1975) and Pilar Wiley (United States, 1976); Gonzalo Lebrija (Mexico, 1973); Carlos Julio Molina (Venezuela, 1971); Yoshua Okon (Mexico, 1970); and Renato Ornelas (Mexico, 1974).

^{La Panadería was a non-profit, artists-run center in Mexico City. Their 2002 exhibitions, artists’ residencies and programs were sponsored by the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes and the Patronato de Arte Contempóraneo, A.C.}

As A Satellite Space: La Panadería was generously sponsored by the Asuntos Internacionales del Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes and The Mexican Cultural Institute of New York. Additional support was provided by P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center. As A Satellite was generously supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support has been provided by the Elliott Family Foundation. Its media sponsors were Art Nexus, Parachute, Latin Arte, Arte al Dia, and Latinarte.com

^{Installation views. As A Satellite Space: La Panadería. Americas Society. 2002.}