Mexican artist Stefan Brüggemann’s exhibition “On Sociology (The Civilization of Speculation)” opens as part of the program PIVÔ WELCOMES at Galeria Mendes Wood, finalizing a partnership which presented three exhibitions in the gallery inside the Copan building.

“On Sociology (The Civilization of Speculation)” expands on the artist’s long-term interest in the formative aspect of language, and its often forgotten importance in the determination of culture. In the exhibition, Brüggemann fills in the idiosyncratic dimensions of the gallery with an installation of site-specific mirrors which cover each wall, from floor to ceiling. The mirror surfaces are calligraphically obscured by sentences – taken from newspaper headlines and the final lines of popular movies – written in blue, red and silver spray paint.

With a sensation of spectacle which resembles a house of mirrors in an amusement park, spectators are presented with an impression of dreamlike distortion, hilarity and visual upheaval. The mirrors, like language, are fluid and transitory; words pass like thoughts, reflections pass like shadows in their bottomless depths. Through the outsourcing of popular language, Brüggemann underlines the importance of language in the formation of our perceptions. The movies and the news as means of communication are essential reflections of our culture, immediately influencing and manipulating the public’s understanding of society. For the artist, the text extracted from headlines and movie dialogues function as a kind of maxim or idée reçue, offering a tormented internal vision of the construction of social values. In the installation, these maxims loom enigmatically over the image of the spectator in the mirror.

In “On Sociology (The Civilization of Speculation),” Brüggemann employs a pop-culture aesthetic in a perfectly assimilated way, while still maintaining a critical distance in relation to its sociological context.

Stefan Brüggemann (Mexico City, 1975) recently had his work displayed in  Kunshalle Bern (Switzerland); the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago; Yvon Lambert Galerie (Paris); La Coleccion Jumex Mexico; Galeria Parra Romero (Madrid); Schrin Kunsthalle (Frankfurt); the Museum of Contemporary Art (Cincinnati); Fundacion Serralves (Porto); the Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp); Mies Van Dar Rohe Pavillion (Barcelona); Bass Museum (Miami); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Rufino Tamayo (Mexico City).”

Video – Pedro Marques