Bosco Sodi | Voragine
oragine [Vortex] is the first solo exhibition in Brazil of works by Mexican artist Bosco Sodi (Mexico City, 1970). Its opening on April 1st (Saturday) also opens Galeria Luciana Brito’s 2017 program of events. The exhibition fills the entire gallery with wholly new works by an artist whose poetics explores the relation between nature and culture.
From Latin for whirlwind or vortex, Voragine refers to voracious consumption and is used here as a metaphor for Western lifestyles in which a frenetic pursuit of consumption and information goes hand in hand with destruction / deterioration of the environment and civilization. In this respect, the exhibition is not only a metaphor but also a critique of this typically contemporary behaviour and the works shown pose a reflection. An extensive selection from Bosco Sodi's paintings, sculptures and installations is featured at the show.
As part of Voragine, glass niches delimiting the gallery’s interior gardens showcase an original installation made from small volcanic stones, extracted from the Ceboruco volcano in Mexico, that have been glazed in ceramic and then in gold. Gold here polysemically alludes to both the exploitation and destruction that marked its social history and the symbolism related to its purity and perfection.
The gallery’s annex houses a series of paintings done on linen with substances such as minerals and natural pigments obtained from chemical reactions. On linen for the first time, the effect of the paintings is quite unlike those on canvas, enabling immediate appreciation of the effects of these reactions and drawing attention to their complex textures.
For all intents and purposes, Bosco Sodi's works are extracts from the natural world transformed by human action, in which his intentionality is necessarily present while working in partnership with Nature’s chance. Although it could be argued that nature inexorably attends all human work, the effects of this interaction are not only seen in Bosco Sodi’s case but also cast in a crucial role in his production, well beyond anything consented or intended.
About Bosco Sodi
Bosco Sodi was born in Mexico City in 1970. The artist took part in exhibitions in a varied international institutions, including recent individual shows in Fundación Antonio Perez e Cuenca, in Spain (2016), at the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern in Valencia, Spain (2013) and in Museo Dolores Olmedo in Mexico City, Mexico (2012). In 2016, he was one of the artists chosen to be part of the collective exhibition Wirikuta (Mexican Time Slip) curated by Nicolas Bourriaud at the Museo Espacio in Mexico. Other shows include Pangea (2010) at the Bronx Museum, New York, Un largo camino a casa (2011) at the Galería Hilario Galguera, Mexico, and Ubi Sunt (2011) at Pace Gallery, New York. The works of Sodi can be also found in different public and private collections such as the IBM Building, New York; the De La Cruz Collection, Puerto Rico; the Jumex Collection, Mexico City; the Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt; the Fundación Francisco Godia, Barcelona; MIAAO (Museo Internazionale delle Arti Applicate Oggi), Turin, among others. The artist currently lives and works in New York.
