The Immortal
- Caroline Achaintre
- Lorena Ancona
- Tonico Lemos Auad
- Dan Coopey
- Marta Jakobovits
- Antonio Pichillá
15th July – 14th September 2022
Curated by Maria do Carmo M. P. de Pontes
Elizabeth Xi Bauer announces the upcoming group exhibition The Immortal. Featuring works by Caroline Achaintre, Lorena Ancona, Tonico Lemos Auad, Dan Coopey, Marta Jakobovits and Antonio Pichillá. The show draws upon how these artists employ ancient knowledge and techniques to their respective practices.
The title is in reference to a homonymous tale in Jorge Luis Borges’ The Aleph (1949) which follows a man who accidentally obtained immortality – then struggles to lose it, as he lives through the centuries. The artists featured in The Immortal focus on vernacular techniques and the non-written information generations choose to retain to pass on to the next. Contemporary conflicts as well as the pandemic have brought to the public conscience the importance of identifying both how we consume and create and the fundamental significance of being able to take agency of various aspects of life, such as agriculture, art and craft.
All the six artists on show come from different parts of the Americas and Europe. Some of them live and work in their native countries, whilst others have chosen to reside in a country which is not their birthplace. However, the shared value they place on craft techniques link their practices.
Caroline Achaintre’s work, Primitivist in style, draws on traditions of carnival and tribal masks and the act of being both attracted to and repulsed by an object. German Expressionism and post-war British sculpture also influence her practice as these movements convey the trauma of a war-time generation.
These artistic movements inspire Achaintre as they act like intersections between the ancient and the contemporary and the psychological and the physical. The artist likens her work to anthropological museum displays, where objects from another place in time are presented in a contemporary context.
Lorena Ancona explores the ethnological qualities of materials as well their significance in creating memories. Ancona works mostly with fabrics and ceramics and uses dyes, pigments and natural materials. The artist examines the intangible: lost traditions, ancestry and identities.
Tonico Lemos Auad investigates the personal and cultural significance that everyday objects hold. Auad’s practice employs traditional techniques including embroidery, woodcarving and stonemasonry which serve as a reminder to the viewer of the skills of humankind. His sculptures act as a tool for ideas exploring faith, acts of repair and resistance.
Dan Coopey’s practice also elevates the significance of everyday objects. The ancestral act of basketry in Coopey’s work explores the organic quality of materials as well as how objects from the past hold an eternal link with previous generations. The question of permanence is central to Coopey’s work.
Marta Jakobovits’ ceramic works constantly question the formative potential of materials, texture, colour and the energies they possess. The artist’s works connote feelings towards the future, present, history, and ancient times. Having lived under one of the most brutal and repressive dictators in history, the Romanian Nicolae Ceaușescu (‘The King of Communism’), the Jakobovits family, whose heritage is a mix of Armenian and Hungarian, lived on the border between Hungary and Romania, in the town of Oradea. A sense of displacement and adapting to new surroundings was an early influence on Jakobovits’ practice. At the time of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime Marta’s practice became a form of release from the oppressive forces around her. Along with her late husband, the renowned painter Miklós Jakobovits, Marta became part of the inner circle of the important Transylvanian artists who were vigilantly creating art as an act of resistance against the dictator and a regime which did not allow for such freedoms.
Antonio Pichillá focuses on the ever-developing connections between western contemporary art and the vernacular tradition of craft. Using natural materials Pichillá draws from Mayan epistemology to: “…restlessly look for a bond that integrate(s) with the environment as something inexact, uncodified. I struggle to give form to transitory states,” as he explains. Examining the ancient culture of his native Tz’utujil heritage and the postcolonial notion of a homogenous national identity, Pichillá’s works are an act of resistance to otherness and binary constructions of identity. Instead, his work celebrates the heterogeneity of everyday contemporary Tz’utujil life. From his studio at Lake Atitlán the artist’s practice is driven by anthropological research into Guatemala’s urban and rural regions.
Notes to Editors
Caroline Achaintre (born 1969, Toulouse, France brought up in Germany) lives and works in London. Achaintre obtained a scholarship at the Kunsthochschule in Halle, following this she moved to London to study at the Chelsea College of Arts and then at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her works have been collected by the Tate collection and in 2015 Tate Britain held a solo exhibition of Achaintre’s work titled Art Now. Solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have been held in Cologne and New York. Her work has also been part of group exhibitions in Dublin, Brest, Paris, Brussels, Toronto, Norway and Munich.
Lorena Ancona (born 1981, Mexico, where she lives and works) studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and at Escuela Nacional de Pintura Escultura y Grabado La Esmeralda. Ancona’s work was exhibited at Museo Jumex, Mexico City, in Normal Exceptions: Contemporary Art in Mexico a thematic survey of contemporary art in Mexico over the past 20 years. Her work has also been exhibited at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; Zapopan Art Museum, Zapopan, Mexico; Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico and at the La Bienal de Nicaragua.
In 2021 she participated in a symposium at the British Museum, London, discussing the cultural and historical value of the Maya blue pigment.
Tonico Lemos Auad (born in 1968 in Belém, Brazil) lives and works in London. In 2021 Cample Line in Nithsdale, Scotland, held a solo exhibition of Auad’s work. In 2020 the artist exhibited at Biennale Gherdëina VII in Ortisei, South Tyrol, Italy. In 2019, Stephen Friedman Gallery presented two separate solo projects by Auad and Mamma Andersson at Frieze London, winning the 2019 Frieze Stand Prize. In 2016, Auad was the subject of a major solo exhibition at De La Warr Pavilion in East Sussex, UK. In 2011, a collection of specially commissioned sculptures titled ‘Carrancas and Reflected Archaeology’ were exhibited as part of the Folkestone Triennial in Kent, UK. His work is included in the public collections of Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, New York, USA; Pizzuti Collection, Ohio, USA; San Diego Museum of Art, California, USA; FLAG Art Foundation, New York, USA and Tate, London, UK.
Dan Coopey (born 1981, UK) lives and works in São Paulo. In 2009 the Hayward Gallery presented a solo exhibition of Coopey’s work and his work has been shown at Turner Contemporary, Margate. In 2011 he was commissioned by Up Projects and Arts Council England to produce a touring public installation work.
Coopey has participated in two residencies and solo exhibitions at the non-profit cultural association Pivô, Brazil. In 2003 Coopey was awarded The Hamad Butt Fine Art Award for most promising Student awarded by Goldsmiths College. He was also the recipient of the BT Digital Media Award which included a yearlong residency awarded for outstanding use of digital media.
In 2021 ESPAÇO C·A·M·A, São Paulo, held a solo show of Coopey’s work entitled Brunches at Wonderwerk and in 2017 Pivô, São Paulo, presented the solo exhibition Interiors.
Notable group exhibitions that featured Coopey’s work include Neither, curated by Fernanda Brenner, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels, 2017, and Mingei Now, curated by Nicolas Trembley, Sokyo Gallery, Kyoto, 2019.
Marta Jakobovits (born 1944, Satu Mare county, Romania) lives and works in Oradea, Romania. Jakobovits’ career as a ceramic artist began in the 70s following the completion her degree at the Institute of Fine Arts in Cluj. In 2006 the University of Budapest awarded her a doctorate degree in Liberal Arts and in 2013 she was awarded the Hungarian Knight’s Cross of Merit, by the President of the Republic of Hungary. Jakobovits’ work has been exhibited extensively in Romania and Hungary and the artist has had solo exhibitions in Italy, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. She has exhibited in international group exhibitions in Hungary, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Croatia, England, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland and Japan.
In 2016 Jakobovits participated in the Biennial of Ceramics Glowing Metaphors in 2016 in Romania, the International Ceramics Biennale (Museum of Art Cluj-Napoca Romania), the International Triennial of the Decorative Arts in Romania, the International Biennial of Ceramic Art in France and the International Triennial of Applied Arts in Poland. Her artworks are in collections across Romania, such as the Contemporary Arts Collection Bucharest, Public Art Collection Covasna and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Peter Jecza Foundation Collection of the International Ceramic Studio in Hungary and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Romanian Academy in Rome.
Antonio Pichillá (born 1982 in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala) lives and works in San Pedro La Laguna. Pichillá earned his BFA from the Rafael Rodríguez Padilla Art School in Guatemala City. In 2017 Pichillá received the Juannio Award an important recognition for Guatemalan artists. The artist participated in the 2002, 2010 and 2014 editions Bienal de Arte Paiz, Guatemala. In 2020 Pichillá work was exhibited in the Berlin Biennale.
His work has been exhibited at Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; the Museo de arte Moderno, Guatemala Museum, Guatemala City, Guatemala; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany; Para Site, Hong Kong; Hessel Museum of Art, New York, USA and Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil.
Pichillá’s work is in collections including Tate, London, UK; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Lars Romer Copenhagen, Denmark and Dexter Lelain San Francisco, USA.
The Immortal runs from 15th July – 14th September 2022, open Wednesday through to Saturday, 12 – 6 pm or by appointment. A Private View will be held on 14th July 2022, 6 – 8 pm, in the presence of some of the artists. They will be available for interviews.
