Mariana Castillo Deball: To-day project

Period

Sep/ 2 – Oct/29/2023

Visiting hours

Wednesday to Saturday, from 1PM to 7PM
Sundays, from 12PM to 6PM

Entrance

Free entrance

Pivô will host an unprecedented exhibition by Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball starting from September 2nd. The exhibition is curated by Fernanda Brenner, artistic director of Pivô, and Ana Roman, Pivô’s curator.
Mariana Castillo Deball brings to Pivô an edition of the TO-DAY project, previously exhibited at the Liverpool Biennial and the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum. At Pivô, the project edition is titled “A Noite” (The Night). The project comprises a large stage-like installation that occupies the main exhibition space of Pivô, along with a kind of newspaper. The installation features a fictional character who exists only on one specific day, over the years. This character can freely navigate this date across different years, moving back and forth within a 24-hour time span.
The artist takes September 2nd as the starting point. This date, which marks the opening of her first solo exhibition in Brazil, is also marked by the 2018 fire at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. Deball indirectly revisits the remains of the collection at the National Museum after the 2018 fire. The 20 million cataloged items that disappeared and the remaining traces of their existence serve as the starting point for a reflection on memory and museological devices.
In the installation, Deball fictionalizes real events from September 2nd while incorporating sounds and songs collected from folk and popular survey expeditions, such as those collected by the 1938 Folklore Research Missions undertaken by Mário de Andrade during his tenure at the São Paulo Department of Culture. Throughout the installation, there are events that encompass the life of a country on the periphery of capitalism, combined with international events – some of which are imbued with humor. The viewer is invited to sit or move around in this kind of public square created by the artist.
Throughout her work, Castillo Deball reveals the fissures and complexities of the colonial museum apparatus, prompting us to rethink not only what was lost in the fire but also what is constantly obscured and silenced. Through this exhibition and her body of work in general, the artist reminds us of the importance of reconstructing these devices, seeking a more inclusive and truly representative understanding of culture and history. Deball is interested in how knowledge and culture are produced, represented, and disseminated. Since her early works, the artist has sought to understand how chance – a result of the passage of time, erosion, fragmentation, and human intervention, among other factors – greatly influences how we acquire knowledge about the world and construct narratives. This interest has led her to examine the history of certain artifacts and their transformations, reproductions, appropriations, and disappearances.

A Noite
Mariana Castillo Deball
Curated by Fernanda Brenner
Cocurated by Ana Roman

Opening
Saturday, September 2nd, 2023
From 1PM to 7PM

Free Admission

 

Audiodescrição das obras
Convite em Libras | A Noite - Pivô Arte e Pesquisa

About

Mariana Castillo Deball, 1975, lives and works Berlin, Germany

Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, Mexico, 1975) earned a BFA from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1997. In 2003, she completed a postgraduate program at Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands. Deball has been awarded with the Prix de Rome (2004), Zurich Art Prize (2012), a fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute (2012), and the Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst (2013). She was an artist in residency at the Berliner Künstlerprogramm in Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) in 2011.Her solo exhibitions include: To-Day, February 20th, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum of Art, United States (2018); Pleasures of association, and poissons, such as love, Galerie Wedding – Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin (2017); Feathered Changes, Serpent Disappearances, Walter and McBean Galleries, San Francisco Art Institute, United States (2016); ¿Quién medirá el espacio, quién me dirá el momento?, MACO Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico (2015); Mariana Castillo Deball, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon, Portugal (2014); Mariana Castillo Deball, Parergon, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2014); “What we caught we threw away, what we didn’t catch we kept”, CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland (2013); Zurich Art Prize: Uncomfortable Objects, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland (2012); Este desorden construido, autoriza geológicas sorpresas a la memoria más abandonada, Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City (2011); Between You and the Image of You That Reaches Me, Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, United States (2010); Kaleidoscopic Eye, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland (2009); Estas ruinas que ves, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2006); Prix de Rome: Institute of Chance, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2004); among others.Additionally, her work has been included in group exhibitions such as: Hello World. Revision einer Sammlung, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2018); Statues Also Die: Contemporary reflections on heritage and conflict in the Middle-East, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2018); Lecturas de un territorio fracturado, Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2017); Alors que j’écoutais moi aussi David, Eleanor, Mariana, etc. La Criée centre d’art contemporain, Rennes, France (2017); El orden Natural de las Cosas, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2016); Ce qui ne sert pas s’oublie, CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France (2015); Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2014); Arqueológicas, Matadero Centro de Creación Contemporánea, Madrid (2013); Resisting the Present, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2012); Æther – Une proposition de Christoph Keller, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011); For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London (2010); The Malady of Writing, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Spain (2009), among others.She has participated in biennales such as: Sharjah Biennial 13, Tamawuj, United Arab Emirates (2017); Documenta 14, Athens (2017); 8 Berlin Biennale (2014); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012); 54th Venice Biennial (2011); AB2 HEAVEN 2nd Athens Biennale (2009); Manifesta 7, Trentino – Alto Adige, Italy (2008); 7th Shanghai Biennale, China (2008), among others.