FD13 at the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C. and various venues in New York City

May 18, 6:45–8:45pm
Adriana Lara. The Club of Interesting Theories 
Public event with Adriana Lara at the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C. 

May 22, 6–8pm
Artist talk with Adriana Lara in New York 
moderated by Sandra Teitge 
Cleopatra’s, 110 Meserole Ave, Brooklyn, New York 11222 

September 18–October 1
Chantal Peñalosa in residency in Washington D.C. 
Please check the FD13 website in August 2017 for details. 

October 16–29
Lorena Mal in residency in Washington D.C. 
Please check the FD13 website in August 2017 for details. 

FD13 residency for the arts will collaborate with the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C. and various venues in New York City from May through October 2017.

In times of political uncertainty FD13 suspends and expands its mission to promote an international network of artistic exchange in Minneapolis/St. Paul and, instead, will operate from the heart of the U.S. government with three invited Mexican artists who will develop context-specific projects for the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C. 

Adriana Lara will develop and present her ongoing project Club of Interesting Theories, a proposal for the potential visualization of the processes of theory-making and thought-production, this time with a focus on Mexican-U.S. American relations. An accompanying publication will include the theories paired with the artist’s abstract graphics that materialize the theories into abstract shapes. At the public event, a series of projected graphics from Lara’s visual system will be in dialogue with readings of a few selected “interesting theories” along with a site-specific installation that will unfold as the evening advances.

Lara examines the instability of meaning, the structures and patterns, in which content and form merge, reflect on each other, and dissolve. Through this line of exploration Lara’s practice takes on many different formats and shapes as she experiments with different contexts with an open-ended, non-academic approach. Under the collective Perros Negros, she continues to curate exhibitions; she also edits the fanzine Pazmaker. Lara’s work has a.o. been shown at dOCUMENTA (13), Kunsthalle Basel, and most recently at the Sculpture Center, New York and Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden.

Chantal Peñalosa will investigate the history of the murals along the staircase of the Institute that were created by Rivera student Cueva del Río and will create a sound walk in relation to it. The murals show the history of Mexico ranging from the depiction of pre-Columbian times via Aztec culture and the landing of Columbus to rural Mexican scenes and agricultural festivities along with the celebration of industrialization. One part, the Pan-American Mural, portrays the friendship between the countries of the Americas—North, Central, and South—and is particularly relevant in these times of political uncertainty. Peñalosa will invite the public to critically engage with these depictions.

Peñalosa’s research-based practice is inspired by small gestures and interventions in everyday life, which are meant to expound upon notions of labor, waiting and delay. Repetition is a crucial element in her process, functioning as an allusion to the absurdity, weathering, and alienating effects of work. For Peñalosa, repeating actions evoke latent states in which dialogue appears unilateral and time suspended. Most recently, her work has been shown at Casa del Lago in Mexico City and at AIR Antwerpen.

Lorena Mal will elaborate on her interest in sound and sound systems that manifest themselves in public space. Her work investigates the transformation of the social and physical territory in a political, ideological, and acoustic sense. Timeline: 500 years of resonance in 42 bells (2015), for example, reconstructs Mexico City’s history marked by the presence of bells as the beginning of the colonization conquest in 1521. In Negation (2012), two Mexico City-based war bands play contradictory musical commands from the Mexican army, which are impossible to execute and urge the public and the musicians to decide between paralysis or disobedience.

Mal focuses on the relationship between individual perception and the construction of social meaning around certainties and elusiveness. Mal received the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Fellowship in 2016, and the Young Creators Program of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) in 2011 and 2015. Mal has exhibited internationally in venues such as the Armory Center for the Arts, California; Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City; the Jumex Foundation/Collection.

FD13 residency for the arts is a nomadic residency program that was started by Sandra Teitge in Saint Paul/MN in 2014 with the aim to promote an international network of artistic exchanges.