For A Trilogy, Miguel Angel Ríos’ first exhibition with Gallery Wendi Norris, he will exhibit three of his most recent video works: Piedras Blancas, Mulas, and Landlocked. Ríos first became recognized in the late 1980’s and early ‘90’s for his paintings and collage works, and has since gone on to create video work that has influenced seminal contemporary artists working today. The exhibition highlights his unique artistic practice that addresses issues of power, apathy and violence, while incorporating an innovative use of social and political narratives and original production techniques.
The new video projects are site-specific and grounded in an approach to Land Art, where Ríos challenges traditional modes of representations within the landscape – works that he describes as the most ambitious and challenging video projects of his career. The works are similar in that they all take place in the open, arid and mountainous landscapes of South America. To produce them, the artist worked under conditions that he describes as “difficult, dangerous, and impossible,” three qualities that are required to pique his interest in making an artwork. These projects are carefully conceived performances that rely on an impossible plot: the choreography of chance. In all of them, the artist works with gravity and mediates objects and/or animals to tell a story: white balls in Piedras Blancas, pack mules in Mulas, and stray dogs in Landlocked.
Related paintings, works on paper, drawings and photographs all created in preparation for or alongside the videos will be on display as well, providing insight into the artistic process. After shooting video footage during the mornings and afternoons, Ríos spends his evenings making one painted or drawn work, a storyboard of a shot he envisions recording the following day.
ABOUT MIGUEL ANGEL RÍOS
Born in 1943, Miguel Angel Ríos studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires before moving to New York in the 1970’s to escape the military dictatorship in Argentina. He subsequently relocated to Mexico and now divides his time between New York and Mexico City.
The artist has had solo exhibitions at Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe; the Des Moines Art Center, Iowa; Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; The Art Museum of the University of Houston; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. His videos have been screened at La Biennale de Lyon, the Liverpool Biennial, and the Biennale of Sydney. Rios’s work is featured in collections around the world, including the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami; Colección Isabel y Augustín Coppel; Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zürich; La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museo Nacional, Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Philadelphia Museum of Art, among numerous others.
