Biomythography

Biomythography: Currency Exchange

Curated by Chris Christion and Jessica Wimbley

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East and Peggy Phelps Galleries

August 29 – September 16, 2016|Opening Reception: Tuesday, August 30, 6-9PM 

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Claremont Graduate University
251 E 10th St.
Claremont,  CA 9171

 

cur·ren·cy ˈkərənsē/

noun: currency; plural noun: currencies

1. A system of money in general use in a particular country.

2. The fact or quality of being generally accepted or in use.

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Audre Lorde, self-described as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” defined the term Biomythography, in her seminal piece Zami: A New Spelling of My Name as “combining elements of history, biography and myth." The exhibition Biomythography: Currency Exchange is the third in a series of exhibitions that seek to investigate biomythography as a visual arts practice, curated by Chris Christion and Jessica Wimbley.

 

Biomythography: Currency Exchange will be the second exhibition of the Currency Series.

The Currency Series investigates multiple forms of currency, in particular, cultural currency and the ways in which they are encoded and decoded in our contemporary culture. Artists in the exhibition engage in multi-media practices as a means of revealing and navigating cultural currency. In November of 2015, Biomythography: Currency, opened at Eastside International in Los Angeles ( EXLA ) and included artists Albert Lopez Jr., Maron Robinson, and Glen Wilson.

 

Currency Exchange seeks to extend this investigation, opening up the conversation to a larger group of artists from both the U.S. and Costa Rica who seek to juxtapose historical facts, life experience, pop culture, and mythology; in ways that challenge, form and inform, art history, display, anthropology, identity, and ritual as well as personal, universal, and institutional perspectives and histories.

 

Biomythography as Ted Warburton defines is; “the weaving together of myth, history and biography in epic narrative form, a style of composition that represents all the ways in which we perceive the world.” This expansion of perception exposes a multi-faceted, mediated, dimensional, and mutable consideration of self.

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Placing emerging contemporary artists from Costa Rica and Southern California in context and dialogue under the framework of Biomythography, Currency Exchange provides a platform for emerging international and local artists to be in conversation-exchanging ideas, perspectives and meanings. 

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Artists Included:

Guillermo Bert, Audrey Chan, Christian Salablanca Diaz, Chuck Feesago, Mimian Hsu, Elisa Bergel Melo, Kim Morris, Albert Lopez Jr., Marton Robinson, Javier Estaban Calvo Sandi, and Glen Wilson