LA BIENAL 2013: Here is Where We Jump!
June 12, 2013 – February 15, 2014
This is the seventh edition of El Museo’s biennial exhibition. Under the title Here is Where We Jump!, La Bienal features work by artists, from newly-minted to mid-career, who live and work in the greater metropolitan area of New York City. La Bienal is a collective exhibition, a research project oriented towards a better understanding of the conditions under which artistic communities produce, present and think through art in our city. The artists’ methods and processes are of significance, as is the context in which they are interpreted. Curated by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado and Raul Zamudio.
Uptown To Oblivion/Del Uptown al olvido, 2013
Ink on drywall
For La Bienal 2013, Ernest Concepcion created this site specific drawing that imagines what East Harlem might look like during a moment of chaos or perhaps if it were being moved by a series of cranes to another location. Among the images in the work is his rendering of the Romanesque-inspired forms of historic St. Cecilia Church as well as one of the typical multi-story tenement buildings from the neighborhood. The artist’s drawings are typically an amalgamation of many sources, including the films and cartoons he watched growing up. Here we see the impact particularly of a number of recent “doomsday” films in which the entire sections of familiar landscape are disrupted in some way.
Doom Machine (Here Is Where We Jump Ship)
Maquina de ruina (es aqui donde saltamos del barco), 2013
ink, acrylic, cardboard, sticks, glue, enamel paint on drywall
Ernest Concepcion’s drawings are an amalgamation of many sources, including the films and cartoons he watched growing up as a new immigrant. His self-professed “obsession” with Filipino, American and Japanese visual culture and his fixation on detail has defined his work. In his imagery we see furniture, humans, aliens, and mythical beings deeply engaged in battle. The figures serve to define the landscape he creates as well as to invent the visual narrative the artist weaves.
For more info visit El Museo Del Barrio.
The exhibition was also featured in The New York Times.
