"Other Dead Flowers", 2019, (detail), adaptation for mezzaterra11 - flat gallery
Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan
mezzaterra11 – flat gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of the New York-based artist Alejandro Cesarco (b.1975, Montevideo, Uruguay), presenting Other Dead Flowers, 2019, (detail). Flowers have appeared in Cesarco’s work numerous times before: in videos, in photographs of his desk area, as witnesses to crimes, and as actual bouquets sent to artists he admires. In this iteration the reproduction of flowers is perhaps an inquiry about the difference between art and culture. More generally, Cesarco concerns his art with the construction of narratives and the practices of reading and translating. In other words, he is interested in questioning the stories we tell and the way we tell them and in the space between what is said and what is refrained. In so doing he creates a shape of poetry conveyed by reduction of language and implicitly borrowed images. His work is influenced by literature, the history of Conceptual Art, and fragile relationships that exist in between imagery, language, and meaning. Through different media and strategies, his photographs, text works, videos, prints, and installations with autobiographical elements as well as literary references summon re-definition of authorship and subjectivity. One distinctive characteristic of his work is its slow tempo that requires the specific viewer’s time and attention to fill in the gap and complete the work by adding a personal narrative of one’s own memories, experiences and awareness. And that allows creative misinterpretations.
Alejandro Cesarco represented the National Pavilion of Uruguay at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. Recent solo exhibitions include: Tactics & Techniques, Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, Lithuania (2019); Apprendre la langue, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2018); Song, The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2017); Public Process, Sculpture Center, New York (2017); The Inner Shadow, A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam (2016); Prescribe the Symptom, Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2015); Secondary Revision, Frac Île-de-France/Le Plateau, Paris (2013); A Portrait, a Story, and an Ending, Kunsthalle Zürich (2013); Alejandro Cesarco, mumok, Vienna (2012); One without the Other, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2011); Present Memory, Tate Modern, London (2010). Group exhibitions include: Affective Affinities, 33rd Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2018); Question the Wall Itself, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2016); Under the Same Sun, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2014); New Ways of Doing Nothing, Kunsthalle Vienna (2014); and The Imminence of Poetics, 30th Bienal de São Paulo (2012). In addition to his studio practices, Cesarco has curated several exhibitions and runs a non-profit organization, Art Resources Transfer (A.R.T.).
