Tony Chimento
Works & Biography
About Alejandro Mendoza
Artists Statement
I am, by default, the illustrator of my ideas, even though; I seem to lie to myself constantly. Creating is the most “bestial” process of my conclusions.It is the energy of starting something without exactly knowing the actual outcome.My environments are constants on my aesthetic proposal, which is tied to the parallel need to understand common sense and making my interpretationof it more or less acceptable or understandable.Creating is the experience of being constantly unsatisfied. When this happens, I should redo and lie to myself again.
Review of Recent Work
In his new series of psycho-geographical wall sculptures, Alejandro Mendoza creates networks of imaginary topographies that synthesize far away yet oddly familiar urban developments, futuristic cities and natural landscapes.
In them he employs shapes hijacked from the lexicon of constructivist and modernist art and architecture. His wood and acrylic resin pieces are for the most part blank terrains and abstracted map spaces that leave one wondering why they are bereft of humanity. They are also paradoxically freighted with a sense of alienation and a longing for rootedness.
Titled “Location, location, location,” they resonate with Mendoza’s peripatetic wanderings across his native Cuba, the United States, throughout Mexico where he lived and worked for many years, and extensive travels throughout Latin America.
His unpopulated cities, dotted with empty homes, inviting limpid pool and denser suburban outlying areas such as in a work titled From there to here, unmoor the viewer from his bearings and give the impression of freezing moments from both the past and future.
With its biomorphic overlapped shapes and cool color palette, this work both conveys notions of the building of highways in the 1950s and 1960s that bisected neighborhoods and hastened the exodus of businesses and middle-class families from downtown areas to sprawling suburban enclaves, to today’s fragmentation of identity resulting from unrelenting competition in a global arena.
Meanwhile a piece titled I’m coming home baby is loaded with a host of pseudo-sexual and martial underpinnings. At first blush the latticed, black and white vulvic-like housing development, with what appears a man-made waterway flowing from the center, seems not unlike a futuristic community for the rich and famous. But the inviting, flowing waterway is sinisterly penetrated by a nuclear weapon.
It’s title seems to imply a soldier’s refrain to a loved one while preparing to unite back home following the return from wars such as those in Iraq or Afghanistan or other sites of catastrophic transformation. It also reminds us that although the Cold War and the thought of a nuclear holocaust ended twenty years ago, there are still those in the world today whose beliefs and ideologies might sink us further into more drastic devastation. And that’s why all across America’s landscape still today thousands of missiles are housed in silos buried nearby populated centers.
One of his more brightly colored wall sculptures called The Others is rendered in superimposed geometric forms painted in blue, gray, black and a pink that’s almost a flesh tone. Navigating the sculpture and looking at it closely one sees that the dwellings are placed apart on opposite sides of the work in a strict, apartheid type isolation from each other.
It resonates with issues ranging from colonization to immigrant labor, displacement, forced exile, gated communities and even oddly to hopeful communal experiments rising around zones of ruin and emptiness.
Yet another work with martial overtones is We are helping people in which Mendoza has added six cast iron fighter jets to a muted black and white structure reminiscent of a hyper-modern military fortress. Mendoza reminds one that the cost of liberty or democracy in areas across the world, for those rising against dictatorships, foreign offers of assistance can often arrive as wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Mendoza’s bold metaphors for the uncontrollable proliferation of modern cities and the expansion of international communications networks also harkens to urbanism and globalization.
In his own words this series is the result of the constant search for self actualization and symbolic of the spaces which house us, in which we work and where we strive to evolve as individuals and within the framework of the collective.
But to experience Mendoza’s new series and his complex meditations on the subject that our globe during the last century underwent the decolonization of two thirds of its surface gives one plenty to ponder.
These works are a testament to the fact that contemporary society is being reinvented. They are a salient reminder that we are capable of growth, as well as extinction, of trade of constant moving and more importantly of creating new spaces for social change and culture.
Carlos Suarez de Jesus.
Art Critic.
Miami New Time.
Resume
Born in 1967, Havana, Cuba. Lives and Works in Miami.
1987 National School of the Art and Graphics Design, Havana, Cuba.
1992 ISPEJV. Higher Institute of the Art Havana, Cuba.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND INTERNATIONAL ART FAIRS:
FELLOWSHIPS / AWARDS / GRANTS:
ART FAIRS:
I am, by default, the illustrator of my ideas, even though; I seem to lie to myself constantly. Creating is the most “bestial” process of my conclusions.It is the energy of starting something without exactly knowing the actual outcome.My environments are constants on my aesthetic proposal, which is tied to the parallel need to understand common sense and making my interpretationof it more or less acceptable or understandable.Creating is the experience of being constantly unsatisfied. When this happens, I should redo and lie to myself again.
Review of Recent Work
In his new series of psycho-geographical wall sculptures, Alejandro Mendoza creates networks of imaginary topographies that synthesize far away yet oddly familiar urban developments, futuristic cities and natural landscapes.
In them he employs shapes hijacked from the lexicon of constructivist and modernist art and architecture. His wood and acrylic resin pieces are for the most part blank terrains and abstracted map spaces that leave one wondering why they are bereft of humanity. They are also paradoxically freighted with a sense of alienation and a longing for rootedness.
Titled “Location, location, location,” they resonate with Mendoza’s peripatetic wanderings across his native Cuba, the United States, throughout Mexico where he lived and worked for many years, and extensive travels throughout Latin America.
His unpopulated cities, dotted with empty homes, inviting limpid pool and denser suburban outlying areas such as in a work titled From there to here, unmoor the viewer from his bearings and give the impression of freezing moments from both the past and future.
With its biomorphic overlapped shapes and cool color palette, this work both conveys notions of the building of highways in the 1950s and 1960s that bisected neighborhoods and hastened the exodus of businesses and middle-class families from downtown areas to sprawling suburban enclaves, to today’s fragmentation of identity resulting from unrelenting competition in a global arena.
Meanwhile a piece titled I’m coming home baby is loaded with a host of pseudo-sexual and martial underpinnings. At first blush the latticed, black and white vulvic-like housing development, with what appears a man-made waterway flowing from the center, seems not unlike a futuristic community for the rich and famous. But the inviting, flowing waterway is sinisterly penetrated by a nuclear weapon.
It’s title seems to imply a soldier’s refrain to a loved one while preparing to unite back home following the return from wars such as those in Iraq or Afghanistan or other sites of catastrophic transformation. It also reminds us that although the Cold War and the thought of a nuclear holocaust ended twenty years ago, there are still those in the world today whose beliefs and ideologies might sink us further into more drastic devastation. And that’s why all across America’s landscape still today thousands of missiles are housed in silos buried nearby populated centers.
One of his more brightly colored wall sculptures called The Others is rendered in superimposed geometric forms painted in blue, gray, black and a pink that’s almost a flesh tone. Navigating the sculpture and looking at it closely one sees that the dwellings are placed apart on opposite sides of the work in a strict, apartheid type isolation from each other.
It resonates with issues ranging from colonization to immigrant labor, displacement, forced exile, gated communities and even oddly to hopeful communal experiments rising around zones of ruin and emptiness.
Yet another work with martial overtones is We are helping people in which Mendoza has added six cast iron fighter jets to a muted black and white structure reminiscent of a hyper-modern military fortress. Mendoza reminds one that the cost of liberty or democracy in areas across the world, for those rising against dictatorships, foreign offers of assistance can often arrive as wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Mendoza’s bold metaphors for the uncontrollable proliferation of modern cities and the expansion of international communications networks also harkens to urbanism and globalization.
In his own words this series is the result of the constant search for self actualization and symbolic of the spaces which house us, in which we work and where we strive to evolve as individuals and within the framework of the collective.
But to experience Mendoza’s new series and his complex meditations on the subject that our globe during the last century underwent the decolonization of two thirds of its surface gives one plenty to ponder.
These works are a testament to the fact that contemporary society is being reinvented. They are a salient reminder that we are capable of growth, as well as extinction, of trade of constant moving and more importantly of creating new spaces for social change and culture.
Carlos Suarez de Jesus.
Art Critic.
Miami New Time.
Resume
Born in 1967, Havana, Cuba. Lives and Works in Miami.
1987 National School of the Art and Graphics Design, Havana, Cuba.
1992 ISPEJV. Higher Institute of the Art Havana, Cuba.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
- 2012 " THE LAST EMPTINESS" Coral Gables Museum. Anthony R. Abraham Family Gallery.Coral Gables, FL. USA
- 2009 “ MIGRATIONS”, Domingo Padron Gallery, Coral Gables, FL.USA.
- 2008 “ CROSS-ING CULTURES”, CAC. The Chico Art Center, Chico, California, USA.
- 2007 “ CROSS-ING RENO”, “Sierra Arts Gallery”, Sierra Arts Foundations, Reno, NV. USA.
- 2005 “ CROSS-ING LAREDO”, Laredo Center for the Arts, Goodman Gallery, Laredo TX,USA
- 1992 “APOTEOSIS TROPICAL” Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba.
- 1991 “ HECHO EN CUBA” Galería, 23 Y 12, La Habana, Cuba.
- 1990 “ Lo Criollo Eres Tu”, Galería Casa Estudiantil El Castillito, ISPEJV. Habana, Cuba.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND INTERNATIONAL ART FAIRS:
- 2012 Art Wynwood, International Art Fair, Booth 21A, Kavachnina Contemporary, Miami FL, USA
- 2012 Contemporary African Diaspora Memory in Motion. NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, African Presence2012, Ninth Annual Exhibition.
- 2012 Miami International Art, SEAFAIR, Kavachnina Contemporary,Miami, FL, USA
- 2011 Sculpt Miami, Art Fair.Miami, FL USA.
- 2011 Giants in the City, Bay Front Park, Miami Down Town. Public art Project, Miami, FL USA.
- 2011 RED DOT Miami Art Fair, Kavachnina Contemporary, Miami, FL USA.
- 2011 PULSE Art Fair, Kavachnina Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA. USA
- 2011 Art TORONTO, Metro Toronto Convention Center, Projects Gallery, Toronto, Canada.
- 2011 Mask, Juried Exhibition, Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- 2011 The Collection I, artdealermiami,Private Collection Art show, Miami Beach, FL, USA
- 2011 CAFE XII, Art Literature of the Cuban Diaspora,Curator:Leandro Soto, Sandgre de Cristo Art Center, CO, USA.
- 2011 Arte Americas, The Latin American Art Fair, IRREVERSIBLE Art Space, Booth 107, Miami Beach, FL, USA
- 2011 Art Naples, International Art Fair," Miami Wave" Booth 312 Naples, FL, USA
- 2011 MIA ART FAIR, Miami Beach Convention Center, Booth 509, Kavachnina Contemporary and Booth 516, IRREVERSIBLE Art Space, Miami, USA.
- 2011“Factory IV”, Wynwood Exhibition Center & IRREVERSIBLE Art Space, Miami, FL.USA.
- 2010 RED DOT, Miami Art Fair, Kavachnina Contemporary Art Gallery, Miami, FL.USA.
- 2010 “Giants in the City”, Miami International Book Fair, Public Art Project Guest, Miami, FL.USA.
- 2010 “Factory III”, Wynwood Exhibition Center & IRREVERSIBLE Art Space, Miami, FL.USA.
- 2010 “Factory II”, IRREVERSIBLE Art Space, Miami, FL.USA.
- 2010 “Past is History – Future is Mystery”, Freedom Tower MDC Art Gallery System. Miami FL USA
- 2010 “Suenos”, (Dreaming), Contemporary Latin American Art. Noyes Museum of Art, New Jersey, USA.
- 2010 “Factory I”, IRREVERSIBLE Art Space, Opening Group Show, Miami, FL.USA.
- 2010 FIART, International Art Fair, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Sto. Domingo, Dominican Republic, Giants in the City, Special Project Guess.(Artist/Curator).
- 2010 GIANTS IN THE CITY, Inflatable Giants Sculptures, Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Sculpture Garden Program, Miami Beach FL, (Artist / Curator).
- 2010 ARTEAMERICAS Art Fair, Miami Beach Convention Center, Haitian Art Relief Fund, Edouard Duval-Carrie Curator.
- 2010 ARTEAMERICAS Art Fair, Miami Beach Convention Center, Special Project Collaborations “UNTITLED” Monumental Installation, Curator: Norelkys Blazekovic (Artist: Leonel Matheu, Pablo Cano, Lucinda Linderman, Edouard Duval-Carrie, Alex Heria and Alejandro Mendoza).
- 2010 ARTEAMERICAS Art Fair, Miami Beach Convention Center, Giants in the City, Special Project Guess. FL, USA.
- 2010 Art Palm Beach, WEST PALM BEACH, Art Fair, Project Collaboration, IRREVERSIBLE an International Art Project, Booth P1. West Palm Beach, Fl. USA.
- 2010 MIA ART FAIR, Miami Beach Convention Center, Project Collaboration, IRREVERSIBLE an International Art Project, Booth P 02. Miami, Fl. USA.
- 2010 MIA ART FAIR, Miami Beach Convention Center, Booth 520, Projects Gallery. Philadelphia, PA, USA.2009.
- 2010 “Caribbean Canvas” Identity in an Era of Globalization, Multitude Art Gallery, Miami, FL., USA.
- 2009 GIANTS IN THE CITY, Inflatable Giants Sculptures, BAYFRONT PARK, Miami-Dade Parks, Art Basel satellite exhibit, Miami FL, (Artist / Curator).
- 2009 SUMMER SHOW, Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.USA.
- 2009 “IRREVERSIBLE 100 MOST” IRREVERSIBLE An International Art Project at CIFO Art Space, The Cisneros Fontanal Art Foundation, Exhibition Catalogue, Miami, FL.
- 2009 AQUI ESTAMOS (HERE WE ARE): Curated by F. Lennox Campello , Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.USA.
- 2009 ARTE AMERICAS 2009: Artist Selected for Monumental Sculpture Project. The Latin American Art Fair. Miami Beach Convention Center. FL, USA.
- 2009 ARTE AMERICAS 2009, The Latin American Art Fair. Booth 1103. Miami Beach Convention Center. FL, USA
- 2009 THE MAKING OF GIANTS: “Giants in the City” exhibition Catalogue. ARTFORMZ Alternative Gallery, Wynwood Art District Miami, FL. USA.,
- 2008 BRIDGE ART FAIR, Miami 2008, Projects Gallery, Salon 114.Miami, Fl, USA.
- 2008 GIANTS IN THE CITY, Inflatable Giants Sculptures, BAYFRONT PARK, Miami-Dade Parks & Artformz, Art Basel satellite exhibit, Miami FL, (Artist / Curator)
- 2008 “NO EASY PIECES” ARTFORMZ Alternative Gallery, Wynwood Art District, Miami, FL. USA
- 2008 “DIVERSE WORKS” ARTFORMZ Alternative Gallery, Wynwood Art District Miami, FL. USA.,
- 2008 “The Last Picture Show” ARTFORMZ Alternative Gallery, Miami, FL. USA.
- 2008 “Personal Jesus” Two person show Undecurrents Arts, Wynwood Art District, Miami Fl. USA.
- 2007 “Sabores y Lenguas”(Tastes & Tongues) . MAMBA, Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 2007 “Identity in Progress": Flight 19 ArtGallery, Tampa, FL. USA.
- 2007 “Cafe VII: The Journeys of Cuban Artist", Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance Gallery at Arizona State University West, Phoenix, Arizona. USA
- 2007 “DEVIANT BEHAVIOR”, National Juried Exhibition, ARTFORMZ Alternative Gallery, Miami, FL. USA.
- 2007 Two person show “Cuban Identity: Religion, Philosophy and the Visual Arts”, Barry University. Miami Shores, FL.USA
- 2007 “Laudable Latin’s”, Ormond Memorial Art Museum & Gardens, Ormond Beach, FL. USA.
- 2007 Group Show, Walkway Gallery, Lincoln Center, Fort Collins, CO,USA.
- 2007 “Obras”, Contemporary Latin American Artists, Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.USA.
- 2006/07 “It’s so UNFAIR”, ARTFORMZ Alternative Gallery, Miami, FL.. USA.
- 2006 "IX Exposición de Arte Latinoamericano y del Caribe", Museum of the Americas and Broward Community College South Campus, Pembroke Pines, FL, USA.
- 2006 “CONVERGENCE !”, ARTFORMZ Alternative Gallery, Miami, FL.. USA.
- 2006 “Black and White”, Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.USA.
- 2006 “Arte Sagrado 2006”, National Juried Exhibition (Curator’s Juror David Kroft and Eric Gibbons), Art Gallery at Concordia University at Austin, TX. USA.
- 2006 “Memory and Meditation” Robert A. Peck Art Gallery, Central Wyoming College, Riverton. WY. USA.
- 2006 “Rundgang”, International presentation and review portfolio projects, Staedelschule Frankfurt, Germany.
- 2005 “Sensuous Delights”, Lo Pressionism Gallery, Melbourne, FL. USA.
- 2005 “Open Show”, 201 Gallery, Laredo, TX. USA
- 2005 “Between Dimensions”, Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.USA.
- 2005“Feed your senses“, INFUSION GALLERY, Los Angeles, CA.USA.
- 2004 “The Spiritual VII”, International Exhibition, PERIOD GALLERY, Nebraska, USA.
- 2004 “Of Church and State”, 3 person show, 621 GALLERY, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
- 2004 “Nuevas Tendencias #14”, Museo Hispano Latinoamericano”. Miami, FL, USA.
- 2003 “Contemporary Latin Artist” Miami-Dade Community College. North Campus. Miami, FL, USA.
- 2003 “Para los Prójimos”, Galería del Sol, Panamá City, Panamá.
- 2002 “SOHO International Art Competition”, Agora Gallery, New York, USA.
- 2001“Latin American Paintings”. Center for the Arts. Vero Beach, Florida, USA.
- 2001 Feria Iberoamericana de Arte, Caracas, Venezuela.
- 2001“Arte Latin-o-.Americano”, Dos Lunas, New México, USA.
- 2000“Tierra Adentro”, A.Cueto Gallery, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
- 1999“OLD HAVANA”, Freites-Revilla Gallery, Miami, FL. USA.
- 1998“El ARTE DE HACER”, Cuban/American art show, Ottawa, Canadá.
FELLOWSHIPS / AWARDS / GRANTS:
- Grant Winner Miami DDA, Down Town Development Authority, 2011.
- Grant Winner Miami-Dade Community and Tourist Development Council Grants Program 2008, 2010, 2011.
- Grant winner Miami-Dade Division of Cultural Affairs Community Grant Program 2008,2010,2011
- GIANTS IN THE CITY. Miami Premier Project. Founder Artist and Curator.
- Grant Winner The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Awarded a Knight Foundation Arts Partnership Grant 2008
- Best Show. IX Exposición de Arte Latinoamericano y del Caribe, Museum of the Americas and Broward Community College South Campus, Pembroke Pines, FL, USA. 2006
- Spiritual VII International Exhibition “High Standard of excellence”. USA. 2005
- SOHO International Art Competition, New York .USA. 2002
- Winner of Kansas City Artists Coalition's. USA .2002
- Honorable mention Arte Joven, Universidad de las Américas, Puebla México.1998
- Honorable mention Salón Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo Cubano. Centro Wilfredo Lam, Cuba.1990
- Premio Jornada Científica Pedagógica, ISPEJV, La Havana, Cuba .1987
ART FAIRS:
- 2001 Feria Iberoamericana de Arte, Caracas, Venezuela.
- 2008 BRIDGE ART FAIR, Miami 2008, Miami Beach, FL, USA.
- 2009 Arte Americas, The Latin American Art Fair. Miami Beach Convention Center. FL, USA
- 2010 MIA ART FAIR, Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami, FL. USA.
- 2010 Art Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, FL. USA.
- 2010 Arte Americas, The Latin American Art Fair, Miami Beach Convention Center, FL, USA.
- 2010 FIART International Art Fair, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
- 2010 RED DOT, Miami, Florida, USA.
- 2011 MIA ART FAIR, Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami, FL. USA.
- 2011 Art Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, FL. USA.
- 2011 Art Naples, International Art Fair, Naples, FL, USA.
- 2011 Arte Americas, The Latin America Art Fair, Miami Beach, Convention Center, FL, US
- 2011 PULSE Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 2011ART TORONTO, Metro Toronto Convention Center, Canada.
- 2012 Miami International Art, SEAFAIR, Miami, FL.USA.
- 2012 Art Wynwood, Miami International Art Fair.
