By the Well
Untitled, Miami Beach, United States
December 4 – 9, 2018
Collaborative Installation with Ben Van den Berghe, Alexey Shlyk and Jillian Mayer presented in A Group of People Walking Through the Space
For Untitled Art Fair Miami Beach’s Special Projects Program, the curatorial platform AGUAS presents three sculptural installations gathering artists from Mexico City, Miami, Paris, Brussels and Buenos Aires. Taken as an ensemble, AGUAS’s collaborative special project, titled A Group of People Walking Through the Space, deploys time-based works to reflect on aspects of collectiveness, presence and migration. The visual and conceptual nucleus of AGUAS’s Special Project is a set of metallic structures that describes circular lines in the space, displaying the different artworks and generating its own logic and exhibition space. Within this sculptural gestures, the works - most of which were produced expressly for the occasion – unfolds to the viewer over time, indicating AGUAS’s stance toward instability and change as an artistic statement.
«The French-Mexican artist, Rodrigue Mouchez, who today lives in Mexico City, places a heavy emphasis on found materials and objects to create situational installations that respond to their environment. Much of the premise surrounding the project at Untitled reflected this practice, which stands at the crux of Mouchez’s proposition as both artist and curator. “I really want to let the materiality of things that surround us appear and get real strength and a certain depth,” says Mouchez. While in Miami, Mouchez reflected on his Mexican surroundings and produced a sculptural installation for the AGUAS program. Mouchez suspended a series of natural bowls, filled with agua de jamaica - a staple in many Mexican households derived from the hibiscus flower - in net bags that typically hold merchandise from Mexican markets. “This is really about how matter can transform itself in different states, which is why I used materials that have these multi-functions,” he says. The ‘Jamaica’ (Hibiscus flower), for example, is sometimes a pigment, sometimes a candy, and often drank once infused as though it were water. With this work, the artist hoped to create a ‘living’ artwork, one that reflects how human bodies are just in the middle of a pre-existing cycle and intertwined with their immediate contexts.»
Nicole Martinez for Culture Conductor
and The Fountainhead Residency, Miami Beach, December 2018
