José León Cerrillo - THE NEW BAROQUE: Stockholm

It is with great pleasure we announce the opening of José León Cerrillo’s second solo-exhibition at Andréhn-Schiptjenko.

Cerrillo explores the possibilities of genuine abstraction through a wide range of media, from printed posters to drawings, diagrams, sculpture, installations and performance. In his work, Cerrillo regards the concretization of the abstract as a series of failed forms; a representation of a void or an absence that inevitably points to certain contradictions in the way we think about abstraction: namely language.

Following on the previous exhibition THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY (2014), THE NEW BAROQUE by its very title continues the idea of seriality but also refers to the idea of the baroque as a self-cannibalising gesture. Where THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY dealt with language in relation to abstraction, THE NEW BAROQUE explores those limits of language as repetition and turns the void into an abyss of content.

Continuing his exploration of space, perception, and interpretation Cerrillo has again transformed the entire gallery space, this time into a reflection upon itself and its history, revisiting it through memory as it were. Pushing the concept of the site-specific, freestanding wall-elements are covered with overlaid images of THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY; creating multiple memories, meanings, shapes and repetitions, taking the event of moment of perception and marking it, turning it into a symbol and returning it to literal flatness by doubling the sculptures as wallpaper, a monument in reverse.

In Echoes, several motifs introduced in the THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY are repeated to create new work. The thermoforms are imprints, to be read literally as such, as footprints in the sand or reliefs from a past action. Some signs mutate from flat to relief, some mimic posters for the past exhibition.

Memory as the work itself. The large work Double Fault transects the space at an angle as it covers floor and stairs in what seems to be a built-to-scale tennis court, distorting both the space as such, the piece itself and our perception of both. Also included in the exhibition are new works from an on-going series of sculptures in cut and welded iron that are simultaneously solid geometrical volumes and graceful drawings in space.

José León Cerrillo (born 1976) lives and works in Mexico City. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and MFA from Columbia University, both in New York. Recent projects include Undisciplined Interludes at LIGA, Mexico City, Okayama Art Summit, curated by Liam Gillick and the Gwangju Biennale, curated by Maria Lind, in 2016 as well as Registro 04, at MARCO Monterrey, Mexico and The New Museum Triennial, curated by Lauren Cornell and Ryan Trecartin, in 2015.