MARIANA CASTILLO DEBALL DEEPENS THE COGNITIVE EXCHANGE BETWEEN THE ARTWORK AND THE SPECTATOR
On January 22nd at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, 1975) presents Finding Oneself Outside. Under Natalie Bell’s curatorship, the exhibition aims to describe the consequent sensations of study and experience in foreign cultures.
The multidisciplinary artwork of Mariana Castillo Deball -the artist produces sculptures, installations, paintings and photographs- is characterized by a common objective: the knowledge and cultural heritage production. According to the New Museum team, the language used by the Mexican artist has Mesoamerican iconography and narrative traits in its fusion-it would be more prudent to say "submission" -with the early colonial culture.
The work that will give form to the exhibition is an installation constructed in wood that represents a colonial map of San Pedro Teozacoalco, in Mexico. Conceived as the traditional European maps of the time, the incrustations within the pieces of wood were specially commissioned by Castillo Deball to imitate the colonial style in the best possible way.
In addition, Do ut des (from Latin: I give so that you will give), a series of perforated notebooks, and Mathematical Distortions will be exhibited. Both works talk about the consequences of positions shift over knowledge. In this way, Finding Oneself Outside places the spectator in that scenario, making it more permeable and conducive to cognitive exchange.
The inauguration of the exhibition will take place on January 22nd and will remain in the New York museum until April 14th.
