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bermudezprojects · 3 years

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ENRIQUE CASTREJON at Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles

ENRIQUE CASTREJON Mind Heart Rectum

September 11–October 30, 2021 1225 Cypress Avenue, Los Angeles

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With six monumental body sculptures, Enrique Castrejon’s new exhibit “Mind Heart Rectum” puts the Bermudez Projects art gallery in Cypress Park at the crossroads of the human response to cancer, aging, masculinity, and the pandemic.

Yes, it’s a startling title, but Castrejon is trying to direct our attention to our minds, bodies, and souls. The CalARTs grad, whose work has been shown internationally, fills the main gallery with works he says helped him get through the continued decline of his father’s health due to dementia, heart disease, and rectal cancer. The feeling of helplessness and uncertainty Castrejon felt was processed through these works to understand these diseases and come to terms with their debilitating progression. In addition, the anxiety and the unexpected Covid infection of his older sister only propelled Castrejon into his work to ease the stress and uncertainty of this infection during this dark period of time.

“I don’t think I could have made it through that period without those pictures,” he says. “The pictures are about measurement and measurement is my form of control.”

For Castrejon, measurement is the act of assigning numbers to phenomena according to a rule. And much of his work gives us data surrounding and filling-in familiar representations, until the data almost obliterates the form.

Castrejon says his work usually begins with a found design: “Images of beauty, queer bodies, HIV, war, death, destruction, and tragic events,” taken from magazines, newspapers, art catalogues and online sources, and then broken into smaller identifiable geometric shapes. Castrejon says:

“I write measurements or other definable data or units along the side of the shapes to question and describe what I see from the parts of the whole.” And in doing so, “I challenge our perceptions of what is real, forcing us to think critically about information that is constantly changing, bombarding our everyday lives through images selected in directed advertisements, pop-culture sources, editorials and news stories.”

Each body sculpture in “Mind Heart Rectum” is measured in inches and calculated angle degrees; and each length along these fragmented geometric shapes is measured in (x inches) and all angles are measured in calculated angle degrees. With the use of a protector and calculator, Castrejon uses the equation (360°- x°=y°) to uncover the outside angels of each shape accordingly. And, then he uses thin black strips of paper as line indicators that help draw out those units outside the bodies creating a chaotic web or aura made from a rational quantitative process. Measured units are written at the ends of these black strips of paper allowing the viewer to come closer to the bodies, explore the bodies, and find the units’ point of origin within the body. Finally, the bodies are covered with strips of researched data and information concerning dementia, heart disease, and rectal cancer.

Castrejon describes his artistic goal as “ordered chaos.” The artist finds that even the kind of tragic event that words sometimes fail to describe can still be measured by art, and his methodical approach allows him to represent the difficult imagery of disaster, war, and chaos in an analytical manner.

As a senior research coordinator at the LA Gay and Lesbian Center – where he works with researchers studying the effects of drug use on the immune systems of sexually active Black and Latinx men – Castrejon has long explored HIV/AIDS and sexuality. But this new body of work hits closer to home.

“Mind Heart Rectum” examines Castrejon’s personal reaction to the dementia, heart disease, and rectal cancer that afflicts his Mexican immigrant father. As a caregiver for his father along with his mother and sisters, Castrejon saw how the diseases changed his father’s body and mind, and he believes by creating these works and making the private public, we can inspire people to learn more about their bodies and chronic illness, and help them talk about it without stigma.

The massive sculptures – the largest being 9 feet tall – are intentionally created to represent young bodies. Painted in varying hues of brown and black to represent Black and Latinx men, Castrejon wants to re-enforce that his father’s illness did not just appear due to his old age but through contributing factors and behaviors in his younger years. Like so many other men, including many Latinos, his father didn’t want to admit he was in pain, and wouldn’t seek medical care. Making it worse were language barriers, financial concerns, lack of awareness to these illnesses, and a lack of prevention messages.

Castrejon says, “I hope “Mind Heart Rectum” can be a positive experience that encourages introspection and reflection, and uncovers a silver lining in loss.”

Enrique Castrejon (b. 1972) was born in Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico. He received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena; and earned his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. His work has been displayed in venues including the LA Municipal Art Gallery; the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York, the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C.; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City; Museo de las Artes in Guadalajara, Mexico; and the Preview Art Fair in Berlin. He is the recipient of a COLA 2019 individual fellowship grant from the City of Los Angeles. Castrejon’s works are held in private and public collections, including the AltaMed Art Collection, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles.

PRESENTING SPONSOR

Fraijo Family Foundation

Additional support provided by:

MORALES + MORALES

#Enrique Castrejon #latinxartist #latinx #gay #lgbtq community #sculpture #black men

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longlistshort · 5 years

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Every year The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) awards grants to the city’s best mid-career artists. The work created with these grants is then shown in the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) in Barnsdall Park for the C.O.L.A.(City of Los Angeles) exhibitions.

COLA 2019 is made up of 11 artists working in various mediums. Two of the artists, Juan Capistrán and Kim Fisher were also shown together as part of Hammer Museum’s biennial exhibition, Made in L.A. 2014. For this show, Capistrán created large brick sculptures that he placed in sites in South Los Angeles that haven’t been rebuilt since the 1992 LA Riots. In his section of work in the gallery, he includes photos of these temporary site specific installations as well as some of the brick sculptures- two of which have balloons tied to them spelling GRATIS. The bricks can be seen as objects of destruction or building blocks, and the dual meanings work well in the context of the work.

Kim Fisher’s large collages (shown above) capture another side of Los Angeles. From the hedge she used for the largest piece, to the ocean, swimming pools, and car culture, included in her others, the graphics and color come together in a way that feels very much like the traditional ideas associated with the city. The different sections, created to look as if they were torn or cut from magazines, form collages that feel like scattered memories that have somehow arranged themselves cohesively.

Sabrina Gschwandtner took forgotten films made by female directors and stitched them together to form patterns drawn from the history of quilt-making. The use of a craft that is traditionally associated with women and tying it an artistic pursuit that women are only more recently being acknowledged for is an interesting juxtaposition. The resulting work is stunning graphically and reminiscent of Agnés Varda's colorful house of film reels created for LACMA's Agnés Varda in Californialand from 2014.

Enrique Castrejon created sculptures that stem from his work in an LGBTQ center in Los Angeles. His sculptures of fragmented bodies are surrounded by strips of paper with HIV infection rates. The humanity of the figures contrasts with the overwhelming strips of typed documentation that swarms all around them.

All of the work created for this exhibition is incredibly strong and these annual exhibitions are a great way to see some of the best work being created by Los Angeles artists today. If you can't make it to the exhibition there is a video on the site that takes you on a walk through with one of the curators. Also make sure to catch Stephanie Taylor's Municipal Art Song, which plays at the entrance to the exhibition. She created song lyrics based on text from LAMAG and DCA's websites and catalogs, and used them to create sheet music using Schoolhouse Rock! as an inspiration. The result is really funny, especially if you read a lot of press releases.

This exhibition closes 7/14/19.

#cola 2019 #juan capistrán #kim fisher #enrique castrejon #sabrina gschwandtner #stephanie taylor #los angeles municipal art gallery #lamag #los angeles art shows #art shows #cola #dca #art #photography #sculpture #painting

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kikeksworld · 2 years

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Distribuidor Independiente de Kromasol

#Enrique Balarezo Castrejon

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claudioparentela · 6 years

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Enrique Castrejon è online su''The eXTra finGer''...enjoy&destroy!!!!

http://theextrafinger.blogspot.com/2018/06/enrique-castrejon.html

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Enrique Castrejon on online on''The eXTra finGer''...enjoy&destroy!!!!!

http://theextrafinger.blogspot.com/2018/06/enrique-castrejon.html

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metaanatomy · 6 years

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April 9-13 @pureyoganyc MetaAnatomy Essentials 25-Hour Training You are so much more than the sum of your parts and this is so much more than an anatomy training!! MetaAnatomy explores the dynamic beauty and poetry of who you are. Serious scientific knowledge and deep embodied philosophy combine to form a rich view, experience and ultimately a celebration of our differences and an honoring of our connectedness. Our bodies house the philosophy of Yoga. Our cells pulsate with its teachings. If you're looking for a training that just teaches you to memorize anatomical lines, “facts”, and figures- this training is not for you. If you are ready and willing to navigate, investigate and dive deep into your own meat suit If you have a desire to help people reunite with the fullness of who they are, to support their physical as well as emotional health- Join us!! Link in bio for more details and registration 💗🧠🙏 Art by Enrique Castrejon (at Pure Yoga)

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fuzzabledotcom · 7 years

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Fuzz Fact Friday: #16

Fuzz Fact Friday is back for the sixteenth week to supply you with wacky facts so you can run off and impress your friends. So sit back and enjoy. 1. Mexican beauty vlogger Yuya is the most subscribed female on Youtube Despite most assumptions that Jenna Marbles is top of the charts when it comes to ladies online, it is in fact 24-year-old Mariand Castrejon (known as Yuya) who claims the…

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brian-temporary-blog · 6 years

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Enrique Castrejon : Los Angeles, CA There Was An Intense Energy When You Were Around, Now That Your Gone I Can Only Draw It In Inches & Angle Degrees, 2014. Collage, glue, pigmented ink on paper. Measured in inches & calculated angle degrees.

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boudhabar · 7 years

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Enrique Castrejon

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bermudezprojects · 3 years

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THIS IS BERMUDEZ PROJECTS! 10th Year Anniversary 2011-2021

THIS IS BERMUDEZ PROJECTS! 10TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY

2011-2121

May 29–June 26, 2021 1225 Cypress Avenue, Los Angeles _________

In late May of 2011, 150 people took two creaky elevators eight stories above downtown LA’s Garment District and crammed themselves into 360 sweaty square feet for the first exhibit at a new gallery: Bermudez Projects, the brainchild of Julian Bermudez.

The crowd had a great time, swigging free wine and talking art and ideas. And while only a handful of people bought art, netting the gallery a princely $240 that night, Bermudez’s idea – people deserve good art – worked!

Today, despite all the challenges of the last decade, including a certain global pandemic that suddenly halted the gallery’s modus operandi, the idea is still working. With a diverse cadre of artists showing their work in a bright modern building in the historic Cypress Park neighborhood of Northeast LA, Bermudez Projects is one of the LA art world’s most unlikely success stories.

To celebrate, gallerist Julian Bermudez has curated “This Is Bermudez Projects!,” an exhibit of 35 works by 15 artists that reflect ten years of accomplishments:

Rare prints in John S. Rabe’s hyper-saturated helicopter print series nod to the first show, and the gallery’s commitment to reflecting the real Los Angeles;

A small installation featuring sought-after and evocative miniature Southeast LA houses by Ana Serrano, paintings by Nanci Amaka and April Bey, Erynn Richardson’s watercolor and gold-leaf “icon paintings,” and Amanda Beckmann’s collage/video speak to Bermudez Projects’ support of women artists;

Works by Yolanda González and Cindy Santos Bravo, from “Ghetto Gloss: The Chicana Avant-Garde,” demark Bermudez Projects’ participation in two (!) of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time events, a remarkable achievement for a fledgling gallery;

Carlos Almaraz’s monumental diptych silkscreen, “Mystery in the Park,” and works from Enrique Castrejon’s “Intimate Embraces” series, underscore the gallery’s support of Latinx and LGBTQ+ artists long before it was de rigueur;

And, a collaborative sculpture by Kellan Shanahan and Nanci Amaka, along with paintings by Emmanuel Crespo pays tribute the gallery’s SPACELAND Biennial, an often unsettling exploration of LA’s future … with some startling predictive parallels to the pandemic year.

Bermudez Projects hasn’t confined itself to shows at the NELA gallery. Julian Bermudez curated the first exhibit of Chicano art at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington D.C. and the first exhibit of Chicano art at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. He also curated and toured an exhibit of Chicano art through five cities in Mexico. And he curated “Black Art Now,” presenting young Black artists at Southern California Public Radio’s Crawford Family Forum … in 2012!

Bermudez, who has lived for twenty years in the same neighborhood as his gallery, says, “Our commitment to providing equity for traditionally underrepresented artists has been the gallery’s ethos since its inception, and we are expanding our scope to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts with our dedicated projects space and thematic group exhibitions.” But through it all, Bermudez Projects’ commitment to the public remains: the art needs to be good art that’s vibrant, personal, stimulating, relatable, inclusive, and affordable.

As Bermudez says, when asked why he’s stuck with this for ten years, “I know art can change the world.”

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John S. Rabe, This Is Bermudez Projects! 10th Year Anniversary, 2021. Archival pigment print and gold foil on watercolor paper. Courtesy of the artist and Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles.

#Bermudez Projects #John S. Rabe #los angeles

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enriquecastrejon-losangeles · 8 years

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"Anatomy of a Kiss" 2016 Collage, glue, pigment ink on paper. Measured in inches and calculated angle degrees.

#enrique castrejon #kiss #measurement

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ce-sac-contient · 9 years

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Enrique Castrejon - Want us want you, 2012

Collage, glue, pigmented ink on paper (45.7 x 61 cm)

#Enrique Castrejon

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