Manuel Arturo Abreu

manuel arturo abreu @ INCA, Oct 15 – Nov 26

14 October 2016

manuel arturo abreu is presenting solo exhibition resilience at Seattle’s INCA, opening on October 15 and running to November 26.

Curated by Bergman & Salinas, abreu’s new body of work explores the social practice of ‘bouncing back’ under capitalism and looks at the way the language of neo-romanticism and “contemporary modes of resilient individualism naturalize capitalism’s violence, and invoke not nature as the sublime, but capital itself.”

abreu is a poet and artist who works with text, photography and ephemeral sculpture that explores the space of precarity and slippage between “art/thought, attention/care, performance/inhabitation, and relation/labor.”

There will be an artist talk on October 22 at 3pm.

Visit the INCA event webpage for more details.**

manuel arturo abreu, untitled 2015). Courtesy the artist.
manuel arturo abreu, untitled (2015). Courtesy the artist.
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[In Confidence] @ As It Stands, Oct 7 – 20

6 October 2016

The [In Confidence] group exhibition is on at Los Angeles’ As It Stands, opening October 7 and running to October 20.

The show comes with little information in regards to the themes, aside from a list of artists — including Manuel Arturo Abreu, Cristine Brache, Devin Kenny, Winslow Laroche, Alec Recinos and Amalia Ulman —and a question that asks “What are you hiding?”.

That’s followed by a list of nine garbled lines of numerical and alphabetical characters that look like a encrypted code or a URL, followed by a “key” that says “confidence”. In this case the appropriate definition of the word is probably less about self assurance and more about secrecy.

See the FB event page for details.**

Cristine Brache, 'Nothing But Violence' (2016). Courtesy the artist + Team Gallery, New York.
Cristine Brache, ‘Nothing But Violence’ (2016). Courtesy the artist + Team Gallery, New York.

 

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Future Jetsam # 3 @ hq Objective, Aug 29

29 August 2016

An evening of readings called ‘Future Jetsam #3’ is on at Portland’s hq Objective on August 29.

Announced with a text and opening with the tagline “……..caught in a circle of interconnected slimes…….”, the event is presented by Lauren Lollie Nelson and James Curry-Castillo, and features manuel arturo abreu, Hannah Mizar, Demian Dinéyazhi’, Eileen Chavez and Curry-Castillo. A floating event, it is the third in the series Future Jetsam which brings together various writers in different locations. It has previously been held in intimate spaces such as Nelson’s home or a cafe. This event in particular will host performances by poets and comics.

The press release describes the evening as  “a node between lives. Possibly a collapsing, a dissolution to nothingness, or—maybe it’s a transition, a dissolution to something else.” Both Nelson and Curry-Castillo are artists’ and writers’ who live in Portland, Oregon.

Visit the FB event page for more details.**

manuel arturo abreu @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung.
manuel arturo abreu @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung.

 

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General Fine Arts + Asta Meldal Lynge publication launch, March 8

8 March 2016

General Fine Arts and artist Asta Meldal Lynge are having a joint publication launch at London’s All Hallows Church’s a.m. London on March 8.

e-publication General Fine Arts introduces the first issue of their second volume, ‘Values’, which is guest-edited by Tom Clark, while Asta Meldal Lynge will introduce ‘Real state’.

There will be a video reading by manuel arturo abreu and a presentation by Anna Zett at 8pm.

‘Values’ contributors include audio, text and image-based work by the above, as well as William Kherbek, Imran Perretta, Marina Vishmidt, Martin Kohout and Eleanor Ivory Weber whose text will also feature in visual essay ‘Real state’.

See the FB event for further information on the two publications.**

manuel arturo abreu, untitled 2015). Courtesy the artist.
manuel arturo abreu, ‘untitled’ (2015). Courtesy the artist.

 

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‘home school’ reading #1 online, Jan 10

8 January 2016

Pop-up art school home school is hosting a reading series to launch online and from Portland, Oregon, on January 10.

The first reading will feature what the press release calls four ‘makers’ working “in a slippage between art and poetry”. Those include Melbourne-based artist and poet Aurelia Guo, Harlem-based writer and performer Sophia Le Fraga, as well as manuel arturo abreu and Jamondria Marnice Harris based in Portland.

A press release written by Hamishi Farah elaborates on a quote from Sianne Ngai and the apparent powerlessness of poetry in commodity society, going on to draw a link between “the problem of poetry” and global white supremacy, “unless it comes from the mouth of whoever cannot speak. Is that the shadow of poetry?”

See the home school website for details.**

Header image: Quisqueya Henriquez, ‘Helado de Agua de Mar Caribe (Caribbean Seawater Ice Cream)’ (2002).

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home school @ Composition gallery, Nov 27

27 November 2015

A free pop-up art school called home school is launching at Portland’s Composition Gallery on November 27.

Hosted by manuel arturo abreu and Victoria Anne Reis, the event has been organised to encourage “critical engagement with contemporary art and its issues” within an open and welcoming environment, and to provide a deeper understanding of “the casual rigor of the etymological origin of ‘school’.”

The programme includes an exhibition by Reis, abreu and Taj Bourgeois, and improvised performance by Eleanor Ford, a screening of Hamishi Farah‘s ‘marginal aesthetics’ (2014) video, music by Eric Fury, a poetry duet by Reis and Giovanna Olmos, and more.

See the home school website for details.**

Hamishi Farah, ‘Dog Heaven’ (2015) Install view. Photo by Hugard & Vanoverschelde. Courtesy the artist and monCHERI, Bruxelles.
Hamishi Farah, ‘Dog Heaven’ (2015) Install view. Photo by Hugard & Vanoverschelde. Courtesy the artist and monCHERI, Bruxelles.
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Reclaiming the rapport de face à face by D. Dragonetti

23 November 2015

“Emmanuel Lévinas’ face-to-face relation (rapport de face à face) describes the duties between beings in the IRL encounter. Faces “order and ordain” us into “giving and serving” the Other. But with the corporatization of the internet revealing the illusory nature of the URL/IRL split, the two merge to reconfigure the face-to-face encounter, conflate the face with the selfie, and re-inscribe systemic inequality through the trap of visibility. As such, these poets interrogate the “defenseless nudity” of the Levinasian face in digitality. Working with found text, digital practice, post-confessional lyric, and other poetic forms, the four readers explore the reconfiguring effects of trauma on memory and temporality, working in a mode that, to paraphrase Bunny Rogers, exists in a perpetual mourning which still retains jouissance.”

…so goes manuel arturo abreu‘s text written for the press release of the Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti poetry reading held at New York’s Hester Gallery on November 7. Featuring manuel, Sophia Le FragaBunny Rogers, and yours truly, the room where we read is also home to Erin Jane Nelson’s Dylaninstallation. Her use of strong sensory elements, such as aromatic teas and spices, thermodynamic textiles, and glass-blown figures is evocative of a body, literally engulfing the space. It’s an immersive experience that effectively becomes part of the event, (re)orienting us from digitality to the physical present, with an intention that’s not dissimilar from our own, in reinterpreting digital or digitized works for a physical space.

manuel arturo abreu @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung.
manuel arturo abreu @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung.

The URL/IRL split refers to the relationship of the internet to so-called ‘real life.’ Our work contends that the perceived split is a fallacy, considering how the online has altered, to draw on philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas, the face-to-face relation. One of the ways in which digitality does this is through uncovering what is ‘hidden’ by the individualized, affective relationship. The Levinasian rapport de face à face encompasses only the one-on-one interaction, the ‘subject’ to the ‘Other’.  The position of the subject -as each and every individual self from the perspective of that self -is mediated by the larger context of society, connecting the two positions to subjectivity as an ideological structure. When we question the relation of the artist or performer to the audience, we must therefore also question how their subjectivity is socially evaluated.

Die Ashley @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung.
Die Ashley @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung.

All of the works read involved the reconfiguration of narrative and trauma. manuel read from a collection called areítx, which they describe as “a refusal of colonial narratives regarding the ‘original Dominicans’, the Taino people, arguing instead that these post-apocalyptic survivors of European settler genocide passed down their traditions through syncretic coalition with escaped African slaves”. Sophia read from ‘I DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE INTERNET’, suggesting conflict: a rejection of or exhaustion with the corporatism of the URL, coupled with a #neoneoneoromantic reuse of classical elements in post-technical contexts. I read an email sent to a man who aggressively fetishized me, presented as found text, between two other works about gendered violence wherein I practiced self-flagellation. Bunny read from ‘My Apologies Accepted’, a work that, through reliance on simple language and conventions, seeks to reveal the brutality of the norm. Lévinas writes of the gaze of the Other as saying, “do not kill me”; Bunny writes, in the poem ‘Not my mama’s feelings’, “if you want to kill someone / U hav every right to / Best wishes from my kitchen to yours.”

Sophia Le Fraga @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung.
Sophia Le Fraga @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung.

Our works are representative of how colonialism, gender, and capitalism mediates the affective expression of the oppressed. And though incorporating sociological context into the face-to-face experience modifies the rapport, we cannot reclaim our selves. Foucault writes, “visibility is a trap”: we have no control over the audience’s subjective experience, or their interpretation of our work, of us. As manuel touches on in their text, we also cannot transcend the mediation of our expression by both digital and physical institutions -hence the capitalism of visibility, the appropriation of ‘invisible’ identities to be curated, co-opted, and synthesized into a new hegemonic discourse. The institutions of society mediate the Levinasian rapport, exporting violence to where it is ‘hidden’; our curation of a rapport ‘unhides’ the violence but does not prevent our experiences from being assimilated.  **

Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti was on at New York’s Hester Gallery on November 7, 2015.

Header image: Bunny Rogers @ Rapport de face à face. Rogers / Le Fraga / Abreu / Dragonetti @ Hester, New York. Image courtesy Ijin Chung. 

 

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