FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, July 9, 2007
Reception: Friday, July 20, 2007, 5:30 – 7:30pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, July 21, 2007, 4:30 – 5:30pm
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO–Eight Modern is pleased to present Time as Metaphor, Carlos Pérez Vidal’s first exhibition in New Mexico. The exhibition will showcase new video, performance, painting, sculpture, and mixed-media work by the Cuban artist.
Addressing the issues of personal identity, historical memory, and cultural stereotyping, Pérez Vidal communicates his sociopolitical observations in a visual language that surreally compounds parodic, tragic, and uncanny elements. The artist is known for creating confrontational dialogues between diverse iconographies and the specific framework of the Spanish Colonial altar. Drawing upon the cultural diversity of the Americas, Time as Metaphor reveals unexpected connections between seemingly disparate religious, political, and art-historical icons.
These complex tensions and correspondences will also be addressed during his multimedia installation and performance, “Time is Over” – a work inspired by the 20-year prison sentence mandated to Pérez Vidal’s friend and fellow artist Armando Martinez Rueda. The performance will take place during the artist’s reception: Friday, July 20, from 5:30 – 7:30pm. On the following afternoon, Saturday, July 21, from 4:30 – 5:30pm, the artist will discuss his life and work.
Carlos Pérez Vidal has been a central figure in the recent Cuban art movement that is known as the Cuban Renaissance. In the mid-1980s, he founded the independent art group La Campana, which was committed to the creation of art that reflected the sensibilities of his generation – voicing its ethical challenges to Cuba’s political leadership and social order. The group met with strong state censorship, inclusive of official prohibition as well as a renewed policy of forced emigration of artists and intellectuals. Currently living and working in Miami, the artist has participated in more than seventy exhibitions internationally. Most recently, he took part in Killing Time, Exit Art’s exhibition of contemporary Cuban artists.
Time as Metaphor signifies Eight Modern’s continued commitment to premiering works by internationally acclaimed artists who have never before been represented in Santa Fe. The exhibit will run from Friday, July 20, through Sunday, August 26. Eight Modern is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30am to 6:00pm, and 11am to 4pm on Sundays, at 231 Delgado Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501. For further information and image requests, contact Alex Ross via email at alex@eightmodern.net or by phone at (505) 995-0231.