Andréhn-Schiptjenko at The Armory Show: Art fair

 

We are delighted to invite you to The Armory Show 2022 where we will be presenting a solo-booth of recent work by gallery artist Cecilia Bengolea.

 

Cecilia Bengolea, born 1979 in Argentina, is a multidisciplinary artist using dance as a tool and a medium for radical empathy and emotional exchange. Her work translates into video, sculpture and installation as well as two-dimensional works such as lenticular prints and works on paper. Through collaboration with others – artists, performers, djs and dancers – Bengolea develops a broad artistry where she sees movement, dance and performance as animated sculpture, where she herself is both object and subject in her own work.

 

At The Armory Show we will be presenting Deary Steel and Maria’s Transformation, two new video-works commissioned by The European Capital of Culture Esch2022 and Mudam Luxembourg, as well as a series of new works on paper.

Deary Steel takes as point of departure the historic steel industry of Belval, inactive since the late 1990s. The piece explores the genesis of the social and material dimensions of the industrial era, and how they have choreographed the post-industrial era including connections to the early 20th century dance form danse libre (Free Dance). Collaborating with dancers from Jeune Ballet du Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse de Lyon (CNSMD Lyon), Bengolea has choreographed the moving bodies of ballet dancers and superimposed depictions of rituals that involve fire as a symbol of energy, destruction and healing. Images of the active ArcelorMittal Belval steel plant are juxtaposed with found footage from Manga, images of Chinese medicine and archival footage portraying the struggles of female industrial workers and early twentieth century leisure activities.

 

Collaging gestures, images and sounds from the past and present, Bengolea reveals ‘new synthetic narratives’ within a location where she says ‘the roughness and strength of metal, the hardship of strikes, the mechanical choreography of industrial work and the beauty of dance come together.’

 

Maria’s Transformation reads as an invocation of the sci-fi character of the Metal Woman from Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis, superimposed upon the evolving industries of steel for which Belval is known. The film functions as an exploration of hard manufactured objects, their alchemical secrets and memory. Its central character - a 3D avatar of a pregnant body – dances through the inventory of history and the militarization of the objects that simultaneously construct and threaten our ecosystem.

 

Bengolea is currently working on a new commission for the exhibition Sections/Intersections, 25 years of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection in October 2022. In 2023 she will present a new body of work in Yes, It Moves at Copenhagen Contemporary in collaboration with Dark Cosmology Centre (DARK), the astrophysics research centre of the University of Copenhagen. She will be doing a solo show in our Paris gallery in the spring of 2023.

 

Bengolea’s work has been extensively exhibited at institutions such as the The Guggenheim Bilbao (2021, 2022), the Gwangju Biennial (2014, 2021), Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris (2021), La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2021), Tank Shanghai (2020), Centre Pompidou (2010, 2016, 2019), SFER IK Tulum (2019), Fondation Giacometti, Paris (2019), Performa, NY (2019), Desert X, Salton Sea (2019), TBA21, Venice and Madrid (2018, 2019), Dhaka Art Summit (2018), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015, 2018), ICA London (2015), Elevation 1049, Gstaad (2017), Dia Art Foundation (2017), Hayward Gallery, London (2016), Biennale de Sao Paulo (2016), Tate Modern, London (2015) and the Biennale de Lyon (2015) to name a few. Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections including TBA21 Academy, MIRE - Fond cantonal d’art contemporain de la Ville de Geneve, The Vinyl Factory, Le CNAP, Le Consortium Dijon, Fiorucci Art Trust, The Tank Shanghai, Fundación Arco, Museo Reina Sofia, and KADIST.