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Ivan Navarro

 
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Flash Light (Green) 2006
Fluorescent light bulbs, fixtures, wheel and electric energy
Performance documentation DVD
62 x 70 x 185 cm


More images: www.artnews.org/ivannavarro

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Navarro creates structurally complex and visually arresting sculptures out of fluorescent and incandescent light. Using the actual lighting fixtures as a basic building material, he ingeniously crafts radiant objects, which are at once functional, everyday objects and highly unique artistic inventions. The artist plays with the immediate reference to modern formalism, yet subverting its purity with his baroque interpretations of the mundane and his sharp political subtext. While Navarro uses fluorescent light, a consecrated material of minimalist art, he works it far beyond its mere formal possibilities: maximizing its physical attributes of luminosity and heat in the form of a utilitarian object - such as a lamp, a chair, or a table - in order to convey deep social and psychological meaning.

Navarro’s work Flashlight (2006) consists of a wheelbarrow made of fluorescent lights and a video-clip projection of the sculpture in performance. In the video, we see a solitary character wheeling his cart along desolate train tracks, and periodically stopping to change the colour of the cart’s lights. The action is set to the song “No soy de aquí, no soy de allá” (originally interpreted by Julio Iglesias), which also tells the story of a resourceful drifter as he wanders the city. The piece, both melancholic and optimistic, evokes ideas of displacement and loss of identity alongside demonstrations of ingenious survival and regeneration.

Joy Division I and Joy Division II (2004/5) are two works which at first glance look mostly like modernist coffee tables, but are in fact a pulsating red swastika and a yellow Star of David, in reference to the Nazi’s brutal concentration camp brothels. The combination of beauty and danger is explicit in these pieces extreme furniture.

Each one of Navarro’s sculptures is marked by an emphatic colour choice. A large-scale floor piece, Blade Runner III (2006), has the shape of the five intersecting Olympic rings, made of a chain of small spinning lamps. Here, the five colours of the Olympic rings appear one by one in the individual lamps, looping in a repetitive sequence. Each colour in the pattern refers back to the colour of another sculpture, so that the five colours constantly rhyme within the space.

Using colour as the primary identifying sign for each individual object, Navarro creates a complex chromatic interplay throughout the exhibition, while reflecting upon cultural significance in colour conceptualization.

Ivan Navarro lives and works in New York. Upcoming and recent exhibitions include: The Whitney Museum, New York; MOCA, Miami; Witte de With, Rotterdam. Roebling Hall, New York; Matucana 100, Santiago; Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris; Art Rock Rockefeller plaza, New York; Prague Biennale 2, Prague.
   

Ivan Navarro

1972 born in Santiago, Chile

Lives and works in New York,

Education

1991 –1995
BFA. PUC University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.

Grants

2005
A.S.A.P/Kamp Kippy, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA

2002
Gasworks, Residency Gasworks cultural exchange programme, London
Fondart, Grant Ministry of Education, Santiago, Chile

2001
Art Omi International Artists’ Colony, Ghent, New York
Fondart, Grant Ministry of Education, Santiago, Chile

1999
Fondart, Grant Ministry of Education, Santiago, Chile

Solo Exhibitions

2005
Galerie Daniel Templon. Paris
Jersey City Museum (project room), New Jersey
Shortcuts, Art Rock, Rockefeller plaza (project room), New York

2004
Juice Sucker, CSPS Legion Arts, Iowa
Monuments For D. Flavin, Roebling Hall, Brooklyn

2002
Blade Runner, Gasworks Studios, London

2001
Big Bang, Galería Animal, Santiago, Chile

1996
Camping Day, PUC, Santiago, Chile

Group Exhibitions

2006
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York.
Artificial Light, VCU Anderson Gallery, Richmond, Virginia, USA
Altria, The Whitney Museum, New York

2005
Next Next Art, Brooklyn Academy of Music. Brooklyn, New York
Sept. 11, 1973. Orchard. New York.
Prague Biennale 2, Accion Directa, Karlin Hall, Prague, Czech Republic. Curated by Marco Scotini
Disappeared, North Dakota Museum of Art, North Dakota. Curated by Laurel Reuter
Transformer, Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile. Curated by Mario Navarro

2004
Crude oil paintings, White Columns, New York / Akus Gallery, Connecticut. Curated by Elena Sorokina
Fantasmatic, Millennium Museum, Beijing. Curated by Luz Maria Williamson
Produciendo realidad, arte e resistenza latinoamericana, Prometeo Associazone, Lucca, Italy. Curated by Marco Scotini
Condoros, 24/7 Gallery, London / Galleria Metropolitana, Santiago, Chile. Curated by Galeria Chilena
Bushleague, Roebling Hall, Brooklyn
Biennale Adriatica di Arti Nuove, San Benedetto del Toronto, Italy. Curated by Antonio Arevalo
Terrorvision, Exit Art, New York. Curated by Papo Colo
ARCO-Futuribles, Roebling Hall, Madrid, Spain
Italia & Chile, Instituto Italo Latino Americano, Rome, Italy. Curated by Antonio Arevalo
The Ballroom Blitz, Gimm-Eis, Copenhagen

2003
L Factor, Exit Art, New York. Curated by Papo Colo
Viology, Reynolds Gallery at University of the Pacific, Stockton, California. Curated by Carlida Ponce de Leon
Children of `73, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York. Curated by Keith Muller
BQE, White Box, New York. Curated by Joel Beck and Christian Viveros
Brewster 2003, Brewster, New York. Curated by Pabla Ugarte
Summer Jam, Satellite, New York. Curaed by Franklin Sirmans
Ricos y Famosos, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago, Chile. Curated by Christian Viveros
Frankenstein (or, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye), Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. Curated by Ethan Sklar.

2002
Fantasmatic, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur. Curated by Luz Maria Williamson
Overt Operation, Joseph Helman Gallery, New York. Curated by Peter Ryan
Viology, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco. Curated by Carolina Ponce de Leon
Sudamericanrockers, Hartell Gallery at Cornell University, Uthica, New York

2001
International open studio exhibition, At/OMI, Gent, New York
The place without limit, contemporary art from Chile, (travelling exhibition). Curated by Justo P. Mellado
Museo de Arte Moderno de Guadalajara / Teorética, San José / Museo National de Arte, Lima / Museo Rubén Blades, Montevideo / Museo del Barro, Asunción

2000
Circulation, a public mapping project of Repohistory, Exit Art, New York
Magnetica, Fundación Telefónica, Santiago, Chile

1999 - 2000
Chile-Austria, (travelling exhibition). Curated by Peter Assmann. Landesgalerie-Oberoesterreich, Linz / Kärntner Landesgalerie, Innsbruck / Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile

1999
The selected files, El Museo del Barrio, New York. Curated by Carolina Ponce de Leon
Domestico, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Valdivia, Valdivia. Curated by Mario Navarro

2007, (Mario and Iván Navarro), Galería Posada del Corregidor, Santiago, Chile

1998
Drawings, Archill Gallery, Aukland, New Zealand

1997
Young art in Chile (1986-1996), the ice fields, Museo Nacional de bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile. Curated by Guillermo Machuca

1996
The things and its attributes, (Mario and Ivan Navarro), Galería Gabriela Mistral, Santiago, Chile

Projects

2001
‘Iván Navarro chilean artist lives in US’, Heterogenesis magazine, 10 N.35, Lund, Sweden

1999
‘2007’, (Mario and Iván Navarro), 2007 exhibition catalogue, edit. Galería Posada del Corregidor, Santiago, Chile
‘Works with the line of infinite lenght (hammock)’, The selected files exhibition catalogue, edit. El Museo del barrio, New York
‘Still life with carrots and bulbs’, Chile-Austria exhibition catalogue, edit. Landesgalerie-Oberosterreich, Linz, Austria

1995
‘To laugh heartily’, Taxonomias, edit. Jemmy Button Inc., Santiago, Chile

1993
Cameron, Dan, ‚The age of innocence’, Postmedia 3, edit. Gianni Romano, Milan, Italy

Bibliography

2005
Velez, Pedro. “The Façade and the Rhetoric of Ivan Navarro’s Sculptures,” Arte al Dia. June-July.
Manacorda, Francesco, ‚Entropology, monuments for closed systems’, Flash Art International, Italy, N.241, pp.76-78
Scotini, Marco & Navarro, Mario, Produciendo Realidad exhibition catalogue, edit. Prometeo Arte Contemporánea, Lucca, Italy

2004
Herzberg, Julia, ‚Ivan Navarro, Reviews’, Art Nexus, Vol. 3, N.54, pp.156-157

2003
Smith, Roberta, ‚A Grand Finale of Group Shows Fireworks’, The New York Times, 18 July
Schwender, Martha, Frankenstein (or it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye)’, Time Out New York, N. 411
Flores, Tatiana, ‚Armory Show, Scope’, Art Nexus, US, Vol. 2, N.49, pp.108-109
Johnson, Ken, ‚Overt Operation’, The New York Times, Art in Review, 10 January

2002
Buuck, David, ‚Viology at Galería de la Raza’, Art Week, Vol. 33, Is.9, San Francisco, US
Rojas, Carolina, ‚Chilean artist chellenges the death penalty in the US’, Las Ultimas Noticias Newspaper, 10 Decembre, Santiago, Chile
Dittborn, Eugenio, ‚Where is santiago, Chile?’, Fantasmatic exhibition catalogue, edit. National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2001
Sanchez, Margarita, ‚Escape from social utopia. New art from Argentina and Chile.’, Third text, N.55, pp. 79-80, London, UK
Viveros, Christian, ‚Big Bang’, Big Bang exhibition catalogue, edit. Galeria Animal, Santiago, Chile

2000
Mena, Catalina, ‚Chili neo object’, Beaux Arts magazine, September-October, Parid, France
Mellado, Justo, ‚Between eruption and the object’s wtihdrawal’, Magnetic exhibition catalogue, edit. Fundación Telefónica, Santiago, Chile

1997
Mena, Catalina, ‚Young chilean artists (1986-1996)’, Art Nexus, March, US
Mellado, Justo, ‚From the paradigmatic triangle to the historic block in the emergent chilean art’, Young art in Chile (1986-1996), the ice fields exhibition catalogue, edit. MNBA, Santiago, Chile

   

Ivan Navarro

Union Gallery
57 Ewer Street
SE1 ONR London
United Kingdom

+ 44 207 9283388
+ 44 207 9283389
info@union-gallery.com
www.union-gallery.com

   





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