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Ana Navas March, 2022
Ana Navas March, 2022 Quito, 1984 Lives and works in Rotterdam Working in different media like sculpture, video, painting and performance Ana Navas deals with processes as translation, as- similation and appropriation. She thinks very often of her praxis as going behind the traces of an object’s genealogical tree. What are its possible ancestors, influences or new contexts in which it might reappear? Sometimes this approach can be real, historical, and other times, those connections are rather fictional ones. During her work process, the metaphor of a non-stop domino effect, where things and contents are constantly moving each other, is recurrent. Navas tries to stay far away of the idea of a zero point of creation, thus she questions terms strong related to art making as revolution, creativity or authorship. For her, art is a dialogue with strangers, but this dialogue does not only resonate to the direct participants of the artistic experience, but creates also a wider echo. One of the main questions in her work is how art is perceived and transformed outside the art context and what are the meeting points between different disci- plines as ethnology / art / design / decoration and the relation between high and popular culture. She is interested in mo- ments where these encounters, transformation, absorption and imitation are especially present. This is how in her work a wide variety of themes such as adolescence, forgery, amateur art, song covers or costumes become examples around the idea of willing to copy and to possess. Ana Navas often works in several series in parallel, which then connect in an installation situation unfolding the conceptual relations those series have to each other. Aiming to be consequent on her focus on transformation, she understands the exhi- bition situation as an ‘essay’ moment and not a definite one. This means, the works are understood as modules, which can be reused for new pieces, reappear in another constellations, turn from piece to display or adopt a different meaning each time they are shown.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022 Aura significa soplo During the past few years, Ana Navas’ artistic output has inquired on the multiple interpretations, appropriations, readings and iterations that Modern Art has undergone in the fields of design, fashion, and marketing, among others, and its insertions into the realm of everyday life. Using different production strategies such as translation, appropriation and copying, her work explores the various processes of circulation in which objects and ideologies are inscribed – mainly, what happens in these transits in the manner of Chinese whispers. Aura significa soplo, an idea that can be rendered in English as «Aura is air in motion», brings together four recent series that unfold along a museographic adaptation conceived as a set, and over an oblong painting, specifically made for the exhibition space. The common thread weaving together the more than twenty exhibits is a playful and ironic inquiry on how different systems and groupings for ordering the world come into being. Transparencies, 2020-2021, addresses similar categorizations with an imperial/colonial gaze. It arises from the artist’s interest in the narratives spurred from ethnographic objects and how they are displayed. The series takes photographic records of displays from now-disappeared museums –for example, the Musée de l’Homme and the Musée Ethnographique du Trocadéro in Paris– where objects deemed «exotic» were sheltered in vitrines, following museum models with a scientific approach. These mise-en-scènes, a visual language that constrains the objects within a specific ideology, are meticulously disarticulated by the artist: She deconstructs the photographs into layers and depicts each one of them in translucent fabrics placed over metallic racks and rods. Although these ways of representing the world are now defunct –or have simply been replaced by new trends–, is it possible to proclaim the extinction of such gaze? If Transparencies approaches abstract constructions as containers of ideological frameworks, the series Patterns, 2020-2021, and Dress- Ups, also 2020-2021, evoke an avowed material interest in the different containers that bear the imprint, even if diluted, of the forms of Modern Art. Navas replicates the volumes of a democratic selection of objects –plastic bottles, ergonomic mops, baby seats, busts and sculptures– and translates them into cloths that act as a second skin. These pieces are made of industrial textiles that imitate manual gestures (the drawing of a line, an artist’s signature, a brush’s dripping) and fabrics on which the artist has captured, manually, that very same gesture and transformed it into a pattern. Thus, for example, by reproducing by hand an Ikea bedsheet with a Shibori print, a Japanese artisanal technique to create patterns by dyeing fabrics, Navas restores in the copy –something of lesser value or a mere imitation from a Western logic– the original state and the vigor of the manual quality. As a result, the objects are inserted into a circular cycle: Departing from their industrial nature, they are reintroduced into the field of art. Like a kind of expanded painting, the works from Patterns are displayed on the wall, unfolding a three-dimensional shape into a flat
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022 surface. The artworks create contours as unexpected as evocative, and while mimicking the Rorschach test, their titles denote the figures that friends of the artist saw projected onto them. Dress-Ups employs the same fabrics and figures from Patterns as a covering of curved and organic volumes that dialogue with the language of sculpture and showcase a domesticated version of its modern forms. Here, Navas is interested in what presently constitutes the very notion of «sculpture» or, in other words, the features that an object should possess to be considered as such. The selection of objects mentioned before is proposed within this artistic field, taking its cue from the visual repetitions of its silhouettes. Footnote, the linoleum painting, encompasses the dissimilar references that inform the artist’s idea of «sculpture» and inspire her quest for finding the stranged artistic ancestors of everyday objects like household appliances, medical instruments, kitchen accessories, and mechanisms like doorknobs, among others. Moreover, this visual research draws links among already outdated binary categories like fine arts/applied arts, equally including their «bastard objects» crafted in the practice of design. To abolish these borders has allowed the artist to create new families of objects, grouped together, in this case, for being the residual products of an artistic movement: Their domesticated versions. Lastly, the series Plates, 2019-ongoing, summarizes the interests expressed within the other series. Alluding to the idea of collecting souvenir plates, the series employs as a material basis a wide variety of these food vessels (mostly with dividers) where the artist crafts miniature scenes from spaces that inspire her. A hipster cafe, a glass shop, a sculpture garden, or a «natural history» museum are conjured by employing small props, jewelry elements, buckles, and other materials used to produce decorative objects. With them, Navas portrays spaces where forms of ordering and exhibiting objects become apparent, responding to the over-aestheticization of daily life. These miniature scenes manifest the circulation and transformation of the aesthetics of the twentieth-century avant-garde and neo-avant-garde art movements. In Aura significa soplo, Ana Navas carries out different acts of material dissection –she flattens down forms, disassembles showcases, decomposes images into multiple planes, and tears up props– yet she incurs in more complex operations: She shreds meanings and the consensus behind things (either the colonial approach of a museum or the spatial logic of a tourist shop) by peeling them down. It is through these dissections –which can be understood as movements: transits, circulation, paths– that she carries out an attack against the original forms of an object. This causes them to disappear and reveal their «aura,» that which enveloped them: imaginaries and archetypes such as what is modern, good taste, elegance, the civilized and the primitive, among many others, lurking behind these objects. In Latin, «aura» means wind, breeze, blow, and, in Greek, it is related to the same verb, to blow. It is thanks to those subtle, soft and vaporous movements–like the murmur of a heart, a breath that little by little disarms an object– that such immaterial concepts are carefully re-signified through materiality.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022 Curated by Fabiola Iza Production team: Ida-Simone Brerup, Berke Gold, Paloma Gómez Puente and Diana Mariani Photography: Sergio López The artworks on display at this show were made at Fondation Fiminco’s (Paris) workshops thanks to the support of Mondriaan Fonds.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Aura significa soplo, 2021
Exhibition view
Pequod Co, Mexico
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Aura significa soplo, 2021
Exhibition view
Pequod Co, Mexico
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Aura significa soplo, 2021
Exhibition view
Pequod Co, Mexico
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Aura significa soplo, 2021
Exhibition view
Pequod Co, Mexico
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Aura significa soplo, 2021
Exhibition view
Pequod Co, MexicoAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Aura significa soplo, 2021
Exhibition view
Pequod Co, MexicoAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Aura significa soplo, 2021
Exhibition view
Pequod Co, MexicoAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Un insecto (con antenas y alas), 2021
Industrial textiles and copies of the
patterns painted by hand
180 x 120 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Rebellion Against the Square (in colors),
2021
Silkscreen on translucent textile and
metal stand
185 x 112 x 45 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Tienda de souvenirs, 2021
Acrylic paint, textiles, bijouterie on
melamine plates
21 x 21 x 3 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Swiffer WetJet, 2021
Styrofoam lined in industrial textiles and
copies of the patterns painted by hand
50 x 30 x 60 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Busto de mujer triste, 2021
Styrofoam lined in industrial textiles and
copies of the patterns painted by hand
113 x 48 x 39 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Musa, 2021
Styrofoam lined in industrial textiles and
copies of the patterns painted by hand
112 x 65 x 40 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Leda, 2021
Styrofoam lined in industrial textiles and
copies of the patterns painted by hand
124 x 70 x 40 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022 Rarely True “Power dressing” describes an 80’s fashion trend that focused in supporting the executive woman aiming to “break through the glass ceil- ing”. Various best seller books of the time offered advice on how to dress appropriately to blend in companies sectors dominated by the opposite gender. This project reinterprets this advice in a series of assemblages, each containing a central element: either a key component from these fash- ion consultancies (as, for example, the pussy bow) or a fictional accessory – nonexistent in the market but aligned with this trend’s nego- tiation (as, for example, foam’s shapes to hide the waist or “sideburns” jewelry to be attached to the ear) -. These central elements are placed on two-dimensional collage-like surfaces, where Navas experiments with textiles, patterns, domestic objects and other significant references for her research.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Rarely true, 2019
Exhibition view
Kunstruimte De Nederlandsche Bank,
NetherlandsAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Rarely true, 2019
Exhibition view
Kunstruimte De Nederlandsche Bank,
NetherlandsAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Rarely true, 2019
Exhibition view
Kunstruimte De Nederlandsche Bank,
NetherlandsAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Waistpads (after Moore), 2018
PVC, acrylic, textile, plastic
140 x 100 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Patilleras, 2018
Carpets, cardboard, textile, leather, sil-
ver
130 x 104 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Iron, 2018
PVC, acrylic, metal, textile, ceramics
195 x 62 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Untitled, 2018
Mat, plaster, textile, paper, metal, bullet-
proof vest, piercing
193 x 65 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Pyramid, 2018
Fabric, hair, silk paint, bread, epoxy
145 x 155 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Nuez de Adan, 2018
Fabric, silicone, plastic, silver
147 x 82 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Muy agradecida, 2018
Fabric, a.o fabric used for seats in busses
272 x 295 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022 I had to think of you I had to think of you is a solo exhibition, in which Navas organizes recent and past work according to trends for food franchising image design. The entrance at the Stadtgalerie Sindelfingen’s works as an introduction into the subjects she approaches across the show, such as ethnography, decoration, and gastronomy. Inside the museum’s central spaces she recreates different atmospheres according to image design trends categorized as Modern, Minimal, Urban & Nature. The remaining two spaces merge a series of large paintings of noodles, different music styles and a video projection. In the projection, Navas prepares noodle dough on a Verner Panton’s style children’s chair while an audio piece plays short extracts from diverse versions (bachata, techno, among others) of a single song: Unchained Melody. Bringing back through the melody the memory of a well-known Hollywood scene - Demi Moore making pottery in the 90’s romantic fantasy thriller Ghost - the process of preparing noodle’s dough showed in her video can be read as a sculptural moment.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
I had to think of you, 2017
Exhibition view
Stadtgalerie Sindelfingen, GermanyAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Noodles, 2017
Glazed ceramic, papier-mache, steel,
wood
83 x 140 x 70 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
I had to think of you, 2017
Exhibition view
Stadtgalerie Sindelfingen, GermanyAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
I had to think of you, 2017
Exhibition view
Stadtgalerie Sindelfingen, GermanyAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
I had to think of you, 2017
Exhibition view
Stadtgalerie Sindelfingen, GermanyAna Navas Project selection March, 2022 To cut one’s hair by the moon To cut one’s hair by the moon presented at 45 cbm Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, in which Navas exhibited the body of work produced be- tween two haircuts. Crucial elements of different series are organized as a Gesamtkunstwerk in a densely composed installation that un- folds reflections on design, cultural trends and authorship. Presidents, the first piece of a long-term project, is a central element in the installation. The name of every current head of state in the world is written on a rice grain and placed on a girl’s garment. Each garment consists of a collage of fashion trends observed during the piece’s production year (during 2017, in the case of the mentioned edition). Navas is committed to produce a new piece for this series un- der the same principles every 4/5 years (according to an average presidential period) over the entire course of her life. On the walls, leather numbers form the year 2059, in which, according to current life expectancy, her death would take place.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
To cut one’s hair by the moon, 2018
Exhibition view
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden 45
cbm, GermanyAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Presidents, 2018 - ongoing
Ink on rice grains, children’ clothes,
plinth Variable dimensionsAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
To cut one’s hair by the moon, 2018
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden 45
cbm, GermanyAna Navas Project selection March, 2022 Placing a mirror at the entry area is a gracious way to welcome wealth in Placing a mirror at the entry area is a gracious way to welcome wealth in is an installation composed by different bodies of work. The central one corresponds to a series on forges titled A fake crocodile can make you cry real tears. Departing from different platforms (such as online forums), which provide keys to distinguish fake products from original ones, Navas creates an archive of inaccuracies. Then, she uses these “mistakes” - for example “patterns do not continue aligned in the textile’s seam” or “molding flash remains visible in the final positive form” - as instructions to produce sculptural elements. A publication (designed with Santiago da Silva) reveals the collection of er- rors from which the works originally took their shape.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Placing a mirror at the entry area is a
gracious way to welcome wealth in,
2016
Exhibition view
P/////AKT Amsterdam, NetherlandsAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Placing a mirror at the entry area is a
gracious way to welcome wealth in,
2016
Exhibition view
P/////AKT Amsterdam, NetherlandsAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Placing a mirror at the entry area is a
gracious way to welcome wealth in,
2016
Exhibition view
P/////AKT Amsterdam, NetherlandsAna Navas Project selection March, 2022 Excuses Ana Nava’s artistic practice often focuses on an object’s genealogy, as that object transits different usages and stages of interest through different disciplines, such as art and design. Considering everyday objects that are close to me, such as the luggage trolley, the easel, and domestic items like the ironing board, she creates a collection of textile costumes specifically designed for them. She uses some of those costumes to explore a particular artist’s oeuvre that might have influenced the object’s design, or which have addressed an art historical movement or realm, such as public art. Beyond these original associative references, the costume collection that results from this process aims to create a variety of characters embodying notions related to taste.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Sumas y restas, 2019
Exhibition view
lnstituto Cultural de Leon, Guanajuato,
MexicoAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Sumas y restas, 2019
Exhibition view
lnstituto Cultural de Leon, Guanajuato,
MexicoAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Budhas en nanas, 2019
Jug stand, vynil, fabric, imitation jewel-
lery, sponges
62 x 37 x 125 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Peceras, 2019
Cloth rack, fabric, plastic and acrylic
paint
42 x 80 x 169 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Hi Donalds, 2019
Suitcase, fabric, napkin holders, imitation
jewellery, acrylic paint
25 x 39 x 98 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Excusas (Meret y Henry), 2019
Ironing board, fabric, acrylic paint
42 x 123 x 82 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022 I don’t care if this has been standing here for centuries, it’s ruining my zen garden Departing from the question: how would the mental image of the word “sculpture” look like? Navas reviews sculptures’ depictions such as props for theater, amateur books on learning to sculpt or publicity for sculptors’ supplies. By creating groups through their formal similari- ties she formed different archetypes, which then she sculpts using paper maché and Styrofoam. The series Yet far more often than these text based pieces, one would play pure melodies on the mouth organ II, in which Navas recre- ates objects based purely on their audio guides’ descriptions from ethnographic museums, and a grill covered in paper maché are often placed alongside the sculptures in the space. These two external elements elicit associations of the archetypes, not only with sculptural, but also with “primitive” as well as with design language.
Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Offspring, 2014
Exhibition view
De Ateliers Amsterdam, NetherlandsAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Nespresso, 2014
Styrofoam and Papier Mache
120 x 150 x 80 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Object for backdrop, 2014
Styrofoam and Papier Mache
90 x 150 x 60 cm, 2014Ana Navas Project selection March, 2022
Elegance (Sarah-Jane), 2014
Styrofoam and Papier Mache
150 x 165 x 115 cmAna Navas Project selection March, 2022
Yin-Yang, 2014
Styrofoam and Papier Mache
Variable measuresAna Navas CV March, 2022
Ana Navas Netherlands 2022 boschvavreden, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Quito, 1984 State of Cling, curated by Syzygy collective, om-
2018 stand, Arnhem, The Netherlands Kiosko, Fundación Alumnos 47, Mexico City, Mexico
STUDIES Medias de repuesto en gaveta de escritorio,
Master’s degree in Fine Arts, Academy of Fine Arts Ladrón, Mexico City, Mexico 2021 Callar la protesta, La Fortaleza, Mexico City, Mexico
Karlsruhe, 2010 - 2011, Karlsruhe, Germany Trojan Taco, curated by Marisol Rodríguez, Espa-
To Cut One’s Hair by the Mooon, Staatliche Kuns- cio Temporal, Pantin, France Still Water. Politiken des Wassers, Hospitalhof Stutt-
Bachelor in Fine Arts (Diploma), Academy of Fine thalle Baden-Baden 45cbm, Baden-Baden,Germa- gart, Stuttgart, Germany
Arts Karlsruhe, 2004 - 2010, Karlsruhe, Germany ny Pleins Feux!, Fondation Fiminco, Paris, France
Primitivo fallido, Los 14, Mexico City, Mexico
SOLO SHOWS 2017 Ablar ha defesios, hablar adefesios, defesios ablar
2022 I Had to Think of You, Galerie der Stadt Sindelfin- ha, collective invocation by Víctor Palacios, Pequod 2017
Zigzag & other Ws, Sperling, Munich, Germany gen, Sindelfingen, Germany Co., Mexico City, Mexico 15 / Love, De School, Amsterdam, The Nether-
lands
2021 2016 ||| She Spins the Thread, She Measures the Thread,
Aura significa soplo, curated by Fabiola Iza, Pe- Placing aMirror at the Entry Area Is a Gracious She Cuts the Thread, NEST, The Hague, The Nether- Humble, Garage, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
quod Co., Mexico City, Mexico Way to Welcome Wealth In, P/////AKT, Plat- lands
form for contemporary art, Amsterdam, The Neth- Espejo negro, elefante blanco, El cuarto de máqui-
2020 erlands 2020 nas, Mexico City, Mexico
Caracol, Sagrada Mercancía, Santiago de Chile, Etwas mehr als Arbeit, Kunstverein Göttingen, Göt-
Chile 2015 tingen, Germany Correspondencias de Ultramar #4, Sala Mendoza,
Sometimes, When I Am Alone, I Use Comic Sans, Caracas, Venezuela
2019 Tegenboschvavreden, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Al aire, libre (curated by Tiago Pinto), online proj-
El barro, la culebra y sus principios, Crisis, Lima, ect Amethyst Babyccino (in collaboration with Daniela
Peru Ornament (?), Made of Feathers, String, Stride On Baldelli), Rinomina, Paris, France
Projects, Karlsruhe, Germany 2019
To Roll (One’s) Sleeves Up, Tegenboschvavreden, Sumas y restas (in collaboration with Kiko Pérez), Puras cosas nuevas, Pantalla Blanca, Mexico City,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2014 Instituto Cultural de León, Leon, Mexico Mexico
Offspring 2014, De Ateliers, Amsterdam, The Neth-
Ich traute mich, sie zurückzugeben, weil sie nich erlands El Nudo, Carreras Mugica, Bilbao, Spain Breve, Abra Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela
bissfest waren, Sperling, Munich, Germany Yoga to Go, Die Putte, Ulm, Germany
I Don’t Care if This Has Been Standing Here For 2016
Rarely True, De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, Centuries, It’s Ruining My Zen Garden, Kunst- 2018 Early Spring, Gallery Tegenboschvavreden, Am-
The Netherlands stiftung Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, Germany Justo x Bueno, Binario, Bogota, Colombia sterdam, The Netherlands
13 Is a Lucky Number, SCHUNCK*, Heerlen, The GROUP SHOWS NAP II (in collaboration with Nadia Naveau), Tegen- Apartment Group Show, Apartment_19, Karlsruhe,Ana Navas CV March, 2022
Germany Easily Broken, Gallery Tegenboschvavreden, Am- GRANTS & AWARDS
-
sterdam, The Netherlands 2022, XV illySustainArt Prize Award, illycaffè for
Rompeflasche, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, artists at ARCOMadrid, Spain
Quito, Ecuador RESIDENCIES
2020-2021, Fondation Fiminco, Romainville, 2020, NN Art Award, NN Group, The Netherlands
15 años de intercambio, ENPEG La Esmeralda, France
Mexico City, Mexico 2018, Kalinowski Grant, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Ger-
2020, Sagrada Mercancía, Santiago de Chile, Chile many
St:rung, Akku, Stuttgart, Germany
2019, Granero–CHARCO, Leon, Mexico 2015, Salón de Jóvenes con FIA XVIII (Honorable
2015 Mention), Caracas, Venezuela
Objects Foods Rooms, Galería Proyecto Paralelo, 2019, EMPAC–Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (re-
Mexico City, Mexico search residency), New York, USA 2014, Stipend of the Dutch Ministry of Education,
Culture and Science, Denmark
Velada de Santa Lucía Remix, Hamburg, Germany 2019, SCHUNCK (with the support Mondriaan
Fonds), Heerlen, The Netherlands 2014, Stipend of the Kunststiftung Baden-Württem-
Salón de Jóvenes con FIA XVIII, Centro de Arte Los berg, Stuttgart, Germany
Galpones, Caracas, Venezuela 2018, Escuela Flora Arts Natura (with the support
Mondriaan Fonds), Bogota, Colombia 2011, Stipend of the Landesgraduiertenförderung
Tofu Absorbs Flavor (a project by Daniel Jacoby Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, Germany
and Gerard Ortín), Gallery Sabot, Cluj-Napoca, 2017, Cité International des Arts, Paris, France
Romania 2010, Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes,
2016, Goethe Institut, Salvador de Bahía, Brazil Oaxaca, Mexico
New Harmony (in collaboration with Sara Wahl),
Im Hinterzimmer, Karlsruhe, Germany 2015, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico
City, Mexico
2014
Eau de Cologne, Kunstverein Amsterdam, Amster- 2015, CEAAC (Centre Européen d’Actions Artis-
dam, The Netherlands tiques Contemporaines), Strasbourg, France
The Hidden Picture, Cobra Museum Amstelveen, 2012-2014, De Ateliers, Amsterdam, The Nether-
Amstelveen, The Netherlands lands
Summer In the City, Gallery Tegenboschvavreden, 2012, Forumkunst, Regional Council’s Art Grant,
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