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'Reclinados' by Andre Filipek-Magana at Prairie, Chicago

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In Reclinados, André Filipek-Magaña presents figurative sculptures that evoke and evolve the decorative language of pre-Columbian Colima ceramics, an art form practiced in Western Mexico from roughly 300 BCE to 500 CE. In the sculptures, reclining figures adorned with the trappings of ballplayers – citizens who engaged in both sport and war to resolve civil disputes in pre-Columbian society – clutch tacos, styrofoam cups, pastries, and street corn. Laid across the gallery floor, the horizontal ballplayers might initially recall the aftermath of a battle, but upon closer inspection the scene is one of enjoyment, leisure, humor, and celebration.

Today Colima ceramics find themselves in the collections of museums and his-torical institutions across the world. Small in stature, weathered, and contained on plinths and within vitrines, they follow the Western institutional script of his-toricization: inactive, memorialized, and frozen-in-time. One may also find these sculptural motifs deployed in artisanal souvenirs in West Mexico. Constructed in a similar fashion and with similar materials, these contemporary works are designed to replicate their archived counterparts.

These petite ceramic sculptures have become primary symbols of Western Mex-ico’s roots prior to its colonization, Spanish influence, and capitalization. Fili-pek-Magaña’s contemporary variations are scaled up figures interspersed with common objects of present-day Mexican identity, suggesting a lineage between ancient Mesoamerican people and contemporary Mexican culture. With Reclina-dos, Filipek-Magaña subverts outmoded colonial notions of barbarism in pre-Co-lumbian Mexican society by presenting a scene that is radically relaxed.

25.5.19 — 7.7.19

Prairie

'ABSINTHE', Group Show Curated by PLAGUE at Smena, Kazan

'Pupila' by Elizabeth Burmann Littin at Two seven two gallery, Toronto

'Auxiliary Lights' by Kai Philip Trausenegger at Bildraum 07, Vienna

'Inferno' by Matthew Tully Dugan at Lomex, New York

'Зamok', Off-Site Group Project at dentistry Dr. Blumkin, Moscow

'Dog, No Leash', Group Show at Spazio Orr, Brescia

'Syllables in Heart' by Thomas Bremerstent at Salgshallen, Oslo

'Out-of-place artifact', Off-Site Project by Artem Briukhov in Birsk Fortress, Bi

'Gardening' by Daniel Drabek at Toni Areal, Zurich

'HALF TRUTHS', Group Show at Hackney Road, E2 8ET, London

'Unknown Unknowns' by Christian Roncea at West End, The Hague

'Thinking About Things That Are Thinking' by Nicolás Lamas at Meessen De Clercq,

‘Funny / Sad’, Group Show by Ian Bruner, Don Elektro & Halo, curated by Rhizome P

'Don’t Die', Group Show at No Gallery, New York

'Almost Begin' by Bronson Smillie at Afternoon Projects, Vancouver

'I'll Carry Your Heart's Gray Wing with a Trembling Hand to My Old Age', Group Sh

'hapy like a fly' by Clément Courgeon at Colette Mariana, Barcelona

'Fear of the Dark' by Jack Evans at Soup, London

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