Betsabeé Romero: Vulnerable Windows
Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York
March 4 - April 2, 2005
Galeria Ramis Barquet is pleased to announce Vulnerable Windows, an exhibition of the most recent work of Mexican artist, Betsabeé Romero.
Throughout her career Betsabeé Romero has dwelt on traditional genres and handcrafting techniques to comment on aspects of contemporary Western culture, from the standpoint of her Mexican identity. For almost a decade, the automobile has been a recurrent theme in her paintings, sculpture, photography and site-specific installations. From toy cars transfigured into quasi Dadaist objects, “ex-voto” paintings on car parts like hoods and doors, to actual reconfiguration of automobiles as public sculptures, With poetic wit and ingenuity, Betsabeé Romero has transformed these artifacts into commentaries on the conjunction of technology and craft and the recycling of form and function.
For Vulnerable Windows, utilizing pre-Columbian geometric patterns and motifs, the artist pierced a series of eight used tires taken from the public buses of Mexico City. The tires are covered in gold leaf that also suggests a strong Baroque influence. Two other tires are carved with patterns of Indian iconography inspired by a recent visit to the Taj Mahal. Here, instead of recurring to the use of semiprecious stones, the artist uses chewing gum, an emblematic element of American culture, to fill the carved motifs on the tires.
Some other works from the exhibition, which are also a common example of Betsabeé Romero’s oeuvre, are comprised by found car windows, which she regards as lenses that protect us from urban violence. The windows are carved and grinded with different depictions alluding to this symbolism as protectors from the outside world.
Betsabeé Romero was born in Mexico City in 1963. She has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Latin America. Romero recently participated at a group exhibition of Mexican artists titled ECO: Mexican Contemporary Art at the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain (2005). Recently, she has also participated in biennials such as the Havana Biennial and the Sao Paulo Biennial. She currently lives and works in Mexico City.
GALERIA RAMIS BARQUET
532 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
www.ramisbarquet.com
