Dolby Chadwick Gallery is pleased to announce Empire, an exhibition of new works by Gonzalo Fuenmayor, on view from May 2 to June 1, 2019. Born in Colombia but resident in the United States for most of his adult life, Fuenmayor has cultivated a practice that explores processes of cultural assimilation, colonialization, and exoticization. Empire draws on these past through-lines while also advancing beyond to think through new tensions and, in the process, reconsidering the visual language of his charcoal-on-paper medium.
This exhibition examines how we survive past empires, both political and personal. Though these empires today lie in ruins, their rules and structures often remain present, dictating norms and behaviors regardless of whether they are compatible with our professed contemporary values or ideal ways of being. Fuenmayor invites symbols of these past realms into his works and juxtaposes them with elements that oppose or resist. His goal is to set up complex matrices that instigate a thoughtful negotiation on the part of the viewer. How does the coming together of these disparate elements force one to look at the past’s impact on the present in new ways? How does it shift our expectations about our cultural and political realities as well as our individual emotional and psychological terrains?
Several of the works in this exhibition are monumental in scale—new territory for Fuenmayor. He explains that his decision to “go big” was influenced by his understanding of how the outsize works of Barnett Newman and Robert Longo impress upon the bodies and spatial experiences of the viewer. As a result of working in such a large scale, however, the way Fuenmayor applies the charcoal has had to necessarily change. From afar, the drawings seem almost Pop or even Op in their photorealistic pretense; however, when viewed up close, the marks are painterly and brushlike, a departure from the tightly rendered compositions of earlier.
Gonzalo Fuenmayor was born in 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia, and lives and works in Miami, Florida. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2000 and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2004. Fuenmayor has exhibited extensively across the United States, Latin America, and Europe, including in the Florida Prize 2018 at the Orlando Museum of Art; in a 2015 solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and as part of Caribbean Crossroads at the Queens Museum, New York, in 2012. In 2019 he will be resident at the South Florida Art Center. This is his third solo exhibition at the Dolby Chadwick Gallery.
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This exhibition examines how we survive past empires, both political and personal. Though these empires today lie in ruins, their rules and structures often remain present, dictating norms and behaviors regardless of whether they are compatible with our professed contemporary values or ideal ways of being. Fuenmayor invites symbols of these past realms into his works and juxtaposes them with elements that oppose or resist. His goal is to set up complex matrices that instigate a thoughtful negotiation on the part of the viewer. How does the coming together of these disparate elements force one to look at the past’s impact on the present in new ways? How does it shift our expectations about our cultural and political realities as well as our individual emotional and psychological terrains?
Several of the works in this exhibition are monumental in scale—new territory for Fuenmayor. He explains that his decision to “go big” was influenced by his understanding of how the outsize works of Barnett Newman and Robert Longo impress upon the bodies and spatial experiences of the viewer. As a result of working in such a large scale, however, the way Fuenmayor applies the charcoal has had to necessarily change. From afar, the drawings seem almost Pop or even Op in their photorealistic pretense; however, when viewed up close, the marks are painterly and brushlike, a departure from the tightly rendered compositions of earlier.
Gonzalo Fuenmayor was born in 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia, and lives and works in Miami, Florida. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2000 and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2004. Fuenmayor has exhibited extensively across the United States, Latin America, and Europe, including in the Florida Prize 2018 at the Orlando Museum of Art; in a 2015 solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and as part of Caribbean Crossroads at the Queens Museum, New York, in 2012. In 2019 he will be resident at the South Florida Art Center. This is his third solo exhibition at the Dolby Chadwick Gallery.
Dolby Chadwick Gallery is pleased to announce Empire, an exhibition of new works by Gonzalo Fuenmayor, on view from May 2 to June 1, 2019. Born in Colombia but resident in the United States for most of his adult life, Fuenmayor has cultivated a practice that explores processes of cultural assimilation, colonialization, and exoticization. Empire draws on these past through-lines while also advancing beyond to think through new tensions and, in the process, reconsidering the visual language of his charcoal-on-paper medium.
This exhibition examines how we survive past empires, both political and personal. Though these empires today lie in ruins, their rules and structures often remain present, dictating norms and behaviors regardless of whether they are compatible with our professed contemporary values or ideal ways of being. Fuenmayor invites symbols of these past realms into his works and juxtaposes them with elements that oppose or resist. His goal is to set up complex matrices that instigate a thoughtful negotiation on the part of the viewer. How does the coming together of these disparate elements force one to look at the past’s impact on the present in new ways? How does it shift our expectations about our cultural and political realities as well as our individual emotional and psychological terrains?
Several of the works in this exhibition are monumental in scale—new territory for Fuenmayor. He explains that his decision to “go big” was influenced by his understanding of how the outsize works of Barnett Newman and Robert Longo impress upon the bodies and spatial experiences of the viewer. As a result of working in such a large scale, however, the way Fuenmayor applies the charcoal has had to necessarily change. From afar, the drawings seem almost Pop or even Op in their photorealistic pretense; however, when viewed up close, the marks are painterly and brushlike, a departure from the tightly rendered compositions of earlier.
Gonzalo Fuenmayor was born in 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia, and lives and works in Miami, Florida. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2000 and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2004. Fuenmayor has exhibited extensively across the United States, Latin America, and Europe, including in the Florida Prize 2018 at the Orlando Museum of Art; in a 2015 solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and as part of Caribbean Crossroads at the Queens Museum, New York, in 2012. In 2019 he will be resident at the South Florida Art Center. This is his third solo exhibition at the Dolby Chadwick Gallery.
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This exhibition examines how we survive past empires, both political and personal. Though these empires today lie in ruins, their rules and structures often remain present, dictating norms and behaviors regardless of whether they are compatible with our professed contemporary values or ideal ways of being. Fuenmayor invites symbols of these past realms into his works and juxtaposes them with elements that oppose or resist. His goal is to set up complex matrices that instigate a thoughtful negotiation on the part of the viewer. How does the coming together of these disparate elements force one to look at the past’s impact on the present in new ways? How does it shift our expectations about our cultural and political realities as well as our individual emotional and psychological terrains?
Several of the works in this exhibition are monumental in scale—new territory for Fuenmayor. He explains that his decision to “go big” was influenced by his understanding of how the outsize works of Barnett Newman and Robert Longo impress upon the bodies and spatial experiences of the viewer. As a result of working in such a large scale, however, the way Fuenmayor applies the charcoal has had to necessarily change. From afar, the drawings seem almost Pop or even Op in their photorealistic pretense; however, when viewed up close, the marks are painterly and brushlike, a departure from the tightly rendered compositions of earlier.
Gonzalo Fuenmayor was born in 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia, and lives and works in Miami, Florida. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2000 and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2004. Fuenmayor has exhibited extensively across the United States, Latin America, and Europe, including in the Florida Prize 2018 at the Orlando Museum of Art; in a 2015 solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and as part of Caribbean Crossroads at the Queens Museum, New York, in 2012. In 2019 he will be resident at the South Florida Art Center. This is his third solo exhibition at the Dolby Chadwick Gallery.
show less
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210 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
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