Flux is proud to present Geometry of Ruins, a breakout solo exhibition and salon by Brazilian artists Andrezza Valentin and Guilherme Marcondes. This exhibition is the poetic exploration of modern ruins and their power to raise contradictory feelings in us. In front of our dreamy eyes they reveal themselves as magical and mysterious. We can imagine all sorts of fantastic phenomena being bred inside. All of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, we can’t help but realize they are also the sad proof of failure of those same dreams. This conflict is never resolved and we are constantly being seduced deeper into its promise.
The works, consisting of photography, animation and a video installation, were produced over a period of one year in three of the largest contemporary cities in the world–Los Angeles, New York and São Paulo. Though the subject is the same in all cases, each place has its own unique, contemporary, abandoned structures. Each city creates different dreams and its varying degrees of architecture influence the resulting works in a definitive way–the melancholic photo shoot of the ruins of an unfinished art center in our hometown São Paulo, the menacing glamour of artificial lights over one crumbled wall of the only Californian socialist colony and the abstract rigidity of Manhattan’s grid reflected in a mirror box, multiplying fragile structures to infinity.
Andrezza Valentin was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1978 and is current living and working as an artist and designer in New York City. She has a technical degree in Graphic Arts at SENAI and graduated in Fine Arts at FAAP (Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado). Andrezza also spent six months in an exchange program at the École Nationale Supérieure de Beaux-Arts in Paris at the atelier of renowned French artist Christian Boltanski. While in Brazil, Andrezza was part of one of the most important and experimental art galleries in South America, Galeria Vermelho. She was one of the first artists to join the gallery in 2002, the year of its opening and left in 2006, when she moved to Los Angeles. Andrezza’s process employs a plural body of work with performances, ephemeral installations, site specifics, video and animation. She usually works on the concept of the passage of time, especially the relation between man and the knowledge of his mortality. Andrezza has already had two individual shows in renowned institutions in Brazil and more than 20 group exhibitions, including international shows in Australia, France, Germany, USA and Singapore.
Guilherme Marcondes is a New York based filmmaker and animator from São Paulo, Brazil. He has a degree in Architecture though ironically, he has never worked in the field and instead has become one of the most acclaimed, young filmmakers to come out of his country. For five years Marcondes was part of the Brazilian animation studio Lobo were he worked on a wide range of projects from television commercials to music videos, while developing his own short films on the side. In 2005, he spent 3 months in London as freelance director for MTV International. Upon his return to Brazil, he directed his third short film, ‘Tyger’, that won more than 20 awards around the world, including two at Clermont Ferrand Film Festival in France. Shortly after, Marcondes moved to Los Angeles to work at the renowned studio Motion Theory as an Art Director. A year after, he left the company to work as an independent director and move to NYC where he continues to develop film and art projects alongside his commercial animation works.
Geometry of Ruins | Thursday, June 18, 8-11pm | Flux Salon, 326 Sunset Avenue, Venice, CA 90291
