Event

The Exhibition Formerly Known as Passengers: 2.9 Abraham CruzvillegasPost an Event »

CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

May 5 - May 31, 2009

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360 Kansas Street San Francisco, CA 94103
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CCA San Francisco campus, 1111 Eighth Street, Wattis Institute Reception: Tues., May 5, 7 p.m. Hours: Tues. and Thur., 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Wed., Fri., and Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Info: 415.551.9210 or www.wattis.org The Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas is best known for his sculptures that transform everyday objects, such as found scrap wood and weathered buoys, into elegant compositions. Updating Duchamp's readymade technique while reflecting the specific locale of where the materials were sourced, his work highlights specific socio-economic circumstances around production. The artist plays the role of a scavenger, finding value in the discarded. He engages in an endless transformation process of materials, so that the mass production of buoys or glass bottles, for instance, is only the first step of the ongoing reinvention process in the life of an object. While Cruzvillegas's sculptures address issues of labor and credit, they also convey the purely formalist concerns of balance, structure, and the energy of an object. Exploring notions of instability, his delicate configurations communicate the fragility of an object's structural and seductive qualities. Autoconstrucción: Spatial Development Perspective (2008) is a graceful arrangement of found materials in which the objects appear to be held together of their own will. While preserving the original identity of each separate component, the objects are transformed into a composition with its own character, as though the sculpture has created itself.