On June 3, Art Sonje Center presents a Screening & Artist Talk to accompany the solo exhibition of Abraham Cruzvillegas. Shot on location in the artist’s hometown of Ajusco, Mexico City, Autoconstrucción: The Film intertwines static footage of the area’s volcanic landscape with unscripted moments of intimacy and encounter. History of the neighborhood’s is portrayed through the predictable and mechanistic structure of early pornographic movies to build a nonlinear narrative of fragments that collapse past and the present. This video portrayal of the artist’s methodology, autoconstrucción, presents that his artistic practice of endowing new life upon found objects is in fact rooted upon his family’s and neighbors’ pioneering way of having built lives on barren lands. After the screening, there is to be an artist talk in which Abraham Cruzvillegas, currently located in Mexico, will be invited via video conferencing. This program will be an introduction to the work process of the arts presented at Autodestrucción8: Sinbyeong and serve as an opportunity for the audience to further comprehend not only the theme of this exhibition but the art of Cruzvillegas as a whole.

About the Artist
Abraham Cruzvillegas
Born in 1968 in Mexico, Abraham Cruzvillegas studied Pedagogy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and was a member of Gabriel Orozco’s workshop from 1987 to 1991. He has participated in diverse artist run projects like Temístocles 44 and La Panadería. He is also the founder of La Galería de Comercio that opened in in 2010.

His work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions worldwide, including a major exhibition Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstrucción Suites at the Walker Art Center in 2013 which traveled to the Haus der Kunst, Münich, Germany (2014); Fundación colección Jumex, Mexico City (2014) and Museo Amparo, Puebla Mexico (2014). He has also participated in Documenta (13), Kassel, Germany in 2012; Gwangju Biennial, South Korea also in 2012; 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba in 2009; and the 50th Venice Biennial, Italy in 2003. Cruzvillegas was awarded the Yanghyun Prize in 2012 and is to present a new project at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall this coming October.

*This exhibition has been made possible by the Yanghyun Foundation.