Crewest Presents: Before The Revolution by Gumano Cesaretti



"A hundred years ago, Emiliano Zapata conscripted Our Lady of Guadalupe to serve as the symbol of the Mexican revolution. In Gusmano Cesaretti's world, she's made flesh and walks among us, facing her devotees' oppressors, packing heat, and reminding us that the first duty of the artist, like the revolutionary, is to survive." - David Em

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

A Solo Show Exhibition by Gumano Cesaretti

On view from May 1st, 2010 through May 30th, 2010

Los Angeles, CA – Crewest is proud to announce Before the Revolution a solo show exhibition by Gusmano Cesaretti. Before the Revolution is Gusmano Cesaretti’s first installation show at the gallery.

The artist, who emigrated from Italy to Los Angeles in 1970, has decided to exhibit for the first time in public, his three-part fine art installation, Before the Revolution, with which he had long experimented privately while continuing to exercise a parallel vocation, photographing ethnic enclaves of Greater Los Angeles during the past thirty years. Here, the photographic image becomes a raw material for the Image Grid, central to the installation. The artist prints his JPEG files on standard 8½ x 11 copy paper, and, with glue stick, affixes other images to the copy paper, re-photographs them, and reprints the results on sheets of discarded Japanese packing paper formerly used to pack porcelain as a measure against breakage. This Japanese paper has a greater rag content than most Western paper, so without risk of damage, the artist can crumple it to generate texture.



The Image Grid: Like the readymade, the Image Grid removes a functional element to a space for viewing art, and thereby alters it, effectively by destroying its original function and investing it with an aesthetic functionlessness contrived by the artist.

But unlike the readymade—or its expansion to encompass mass-produced packaged objects as in early Warhol—the functional elements that Cesaretti uses are not objects at all, but images, i.e., functional image-signs (gang totems that demarcate zones of hegemony and monopolized territories of commerce, murals that are equally functional, informal and artisanal advertising, etc).

The Virgin Series: Contrary to the operation of the Image Grid that would reassert the aesthetic image over the functional image-sign, the Virgin Series, in a sense does the opposite by re-investing the metonymic image with a functional content as image sign—even though this function is a supernatural one: the function of the Blessed Virgin as Protectress.

The Pink Cross: The third principal element of the installation, the Cross, is a fully realized synthesis of image and functional image-sign, and GC’s re-interpretation of it emphasizes this synthetic aspect of it by compelling the viewer’s attention to its role as an image totality that would encompass the world it would save. This world includes traces of the shamans who predated its revelation, and who continue to persist despite it. It includes weapons (here, also protection), organic elements, and a host of images that would compete with it for devotion.

While exposing the kinship of its roots in Pop Art and Arte Povera, Before the Revolution, illuminates the distinction between aestheticized image and the functional image-sign by revealing their dynamic relation.

Exclusive VIP and Press Event
April 30th, 2010
6-9 pm

Atmosphere enhanced by DJ Phyz Ed spinning hip hop, funk, 80’s and more. As well as special set by DJ Afrika (Afrika Baby Bam of Jungle Brothers) from with live performance by Sew Sew Krafty which is comprised of Wendy Williams and Afrika Baby Bam). More detail to follow.

Opening Reception
May 1, 2010
6-9 pm

Atmosphere enhanced by DJ Phyz Ed spinning hip hop, funk, 80's and more

Artwalk Event
May 13th, 2010
6-9 pm

Atmosphere enhanced by DJ Phyz Ed spinning hip hop, funk, 80’s and more from 6-8. As well as special set by DJ Afrika (Afrika Baby Bam of Jungle Brothers) with a live performance by Sew Sew Krafty which is comprised of Wendy Williams and Afrika Baby Bam) from 8-9. More detail to follow.

Crewest
110 Winston St.
Los Angeles, CA 90013
ph | 213-627-8272



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