Duo 4/5: Claire Chassot & Alexis Mata
This fourth edition of the DÚO exhibitions brings the work of the artists Claire Chassot and Alexis Mata, beneficiaries, through Atelier Solar Cultural Association, of the Aids for Contemporary Creation and National and International Mobility 2019 of the Madrid City Council.
The work of Claire Chasot (Switzerland, 1989) is based on performative gestures that define the spaces in which the body moves. These movements and spaces are represented by modular structures produced with wicker and thread in delicate shapes that remind us of structural forms of architectural models or pieces of crafts from unknown cultures. Lines that hang from the ceiling, a fabric that embraces a wicker reticular structure, an ellipse formed by rods in tension … the simplicity of these forms are projected between the walls of the gallery, suggesting the infinite possibilities of movement of the bodies in space.
Chassot develops her work as a set designer in parallel with her plastic work, in such a way that both practices are contaminated and feed back. She has designed from the scenography of Madama Butterfly for Jean-Michel Fournereau in 2013 or the Gagosian booth at ArtGenève 2014 to the production of choreographies for Herwann Asseh or Adrian Schindler. On the artistic level, his exhibitions at the Cité des Arts in Paris (2016), the Zoo Gallery in Nantes (2017), Suttle 19 in Paris (2018) or the Parliament of Brittany (2019) are noteworthy. In May 2020 he participated in the collective exhibition Corriente Alterna / Corriente Continua, in this same New Gallery. In it, Chassot’s work left the gallery throughout Doctor Fourquet Street, reaching out to audiences who could not enter the gallery due to the restrictions caused by COVID 19.
Alexis Mata (Mexico City, 1981) explores, through painting, drawing, graphics and collage, how the imagery of Mexican culture is deformed and distorted from a nationalist prism, using references to glitch and digital error. The Mexican painter José María Velasco created a landscape imagery that has resulted in the creation of a kind of scenery for the history of the Mexican nation. The archaeological pieces extracted from the native peoples and relocated to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City represent, in the same way, a historical distortion as a result of the State’s interest in creating a narrative of national unity. Mata represents this deformation in the form of a fracture, stain, glitch or collage.
Alexis Mata’s production has developed around urban art for many years using the pseudonym Ciler. This relationship with popular and street iconography influences his current work, full of references to his Mexican culture. His work has been exhibited individually and collectively in art centers in Mexico City such as the Carrillo Gil Art Museum, the MUCA Roma, the Carrillo Gil Art Museum and MAIA Contemporary, the Fine Arts Exhibition Hall in Puebla, Soze Gallery in Los Angeles, Brick Lane Gallery in London, Galerie Goldshteyn-Saatort in Paris or the Knew Conscious Gallery in Denver. His work “Atlantes” could also be seen here in Galería Nueva in the exhibition “Whoever wants to hear and whoever doesn’t, then no”, organized by Galería Galería de Ciudad de México.
Organiced by:
