Luis Miguel Bendaña

Lonesome Wife @ Seventeen, Sep 29 – Nov 5

28 September 2016

The Lonesome Wife group exhibition is on at London’s Seventeen, opening September 30 and running to November 5.

Organised by Attilia Fattori Franchini, the exhibition includes Lisa Holzer, Isaac Lythgoe, Victoria Adam, Adriano Amaral, Noah Barker, Luis Miguel BendañaPatrizio di MassimoJustin Fitzpatrick, and Vanessa Safavi.   

The exhibition takes its name from American novelist William H. Gass’ 1989 book Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife. The press release includes an excerpt that states “…there’s nothing female about a column of air, a gall on a tree – surely both, like bloomers on the swing’s seat… so I’m a spiky bush at least, I like to think, knotty and low growing, scratchy though flowering, a hawthorne would suit me”, alluding to the themes of the show.

Using text as a starting point, Gass creates “a parallel between a concrete use of language and the female body of Babs Masters, both employed as tools of persuasion, absorbing the reader-viewer in a game of intimate eclipse and revelation”. The exhibition explores seduction and how it can serve as narrative tool as well as “an antidote to boredom and disinterest”. Exhibited works hint at the body, the physicality of text and the linguistic capacity of objects. They move between form, process and content, to be read or to be felt.

See the Seventeen website for details.**

Seventeen

Luis Miguel Bendaña, ‘Blush On A Man’ (2015), Detail. Courtesy the artist.

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Luis Miguel Bendaña @ Allen & Eldridge, Aug 19

17 August 2015

Luis Miguel Bendaña brings a brand new solo exhibition called Pig Trough this week, opening at Allen & Eldridge, located within NYC’s James Fuentes gallery, on August 19.

For his solo show, Nicaraguan-American artist who also runs Queer Thoughts knits a composition “in a layer of polyester threads”. Taking the “firing squad” mentality of reality show binge-watching as his point of inspiration, Bendaña examines the schizophrenic and mindless cycle of our “collective trauma”.

Knitting is chosen because it is so elastic, so “soft and painful” and because “it is so absorbent of memory”.  These bits of string are then adorned with paper clippings, a kind of “knitted tableau” that “reveals the artist’s utopian aspirations”.

See the FB event page for details. **

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Small Pillow @ Arcadia Missa, Apr 9 – 15

8 April 2015

Contemporary art gallery Queer Thoughts brings a new group exhibition titled Small Pillow to London’s Arcadia Missa, where it will run from April 9 to 15.

The gallery, directed by Luis Miguel Bendaña and Sam Lipp (both of whom will also participate in the group show), features nine other artists, including Mindy Rose SchwartzLucie StahlPuppies Puppies, and K.r.m. Mooney.

The press release comes in the form of a story by artist Maliea Croy that tells of a woman that “was a child in that way—guilty for things she didn’t cause”, a woman who would “grab at things and unintentionally crush them”.

See the exhibition page for details. **

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Preteen Gallery x Arcadia Missa, Jun 13 – Jul 19

10 June 2014

The latest in their off-site exhibitions with It’s Been Four Years Since 2010 by Mexico City’s Preteen Gallery is running in London’s Arcadia Missa, opening June 13 and running to July 19.

Curated by the infamous Gerardo Contreras of PRETEEN, the group show features the work of artists such as Luis Miguel Bendaña, Petra Cortright, Phoebe Collings-James, Donna Huanca and Genesis P. Orridge among others, as well as a a performance by o F F Love and Leslie Kulesh for the opening.

Meanwhile, the exhibition title points to the time both the Mexico and London galleries have been running as they move toward the tricky five year mark of an independent gallery’s typical life-span, as explored by Arcadia Missa co-owner Rózsa Farkas in her aptly titled essay ‘Five Years’ in last year’s Appendix publication. Here’s to being the exception.

See the Arcadia Missa exhibition page for details **

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