Mario García Torres: Illusion Brought Me Here 1

NEWS

Press Contact: Rachel Joyce 612.375.7635 rachel.joyce@walkerart.org Online Press Room: walkerart.org/press-releases Twitter: WalkerArtMedia

WALKER ART CENTER PRESENTS: MARIO GARCÍA TORRES: ILLUSION BROUGHT ME HERE

MINNEAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 24, 2018 — Mario García Torres (Mexico, b. 1975) is one of the most compelling and inventive conceptual artists living today. His work investigates the mechanisms of production of artistic thought and explores the unofficial or un-historicized points of intangible heritage; it is bound up with the facts, fictions, and live testimonials not listed in the typical accounts of conceptual art, its gestures, figures, and practices. Appropriation, narrative, repetition, and reenactment are just a few of the strategies that the artist employs to delve into the often-blurred division between truth and fiction. To express his ideas, García Torres uses a variety of mediums such as video, installation, photography, and sculpture. Each is carefully chosen to best address the subjectivity of historical records and the limitations of memory, which are at the core of the artist’s work. Illusion Brought Me Here is the first US survey to focus on García Torres’s practice. Encompassing both galleries as well as the Bentson Mediatheque, the Walker’s self-select cinema, the exhibition features a selection of 35 works created over the past two decades, as well as two site-specific installations conceived exclusively for the Walker. A newly commissioned piece made from the soundtracks all of the artist’s media-based art serves as a dynamic audio framework to the show Illusion Brought Me Here, the exhibition’s title piece, is an Augmented Reality installation which pretends to acknowledge the fact that works of art are not the product of one man’s work, but the negotiation of personal impulses, and other people’s interests and ideas, and recognizes the participation of a number of the artist’s collaborators. The piece is composed of a group portrait of writers, curators, photographers,

Still from Mario García Torres’ Goodbye, Goodbye, 2018; 8mm film transferred to video, sound, 8:41 min; granite, steel, ink and paint on paper; installed dimensions variable. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center; courtesy the artist and Jan Mot, Brussels; joségarcía, mx; Taka Ishii, Tokyo; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Franco Noero, Turin.

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musicians and gallerists that have all contributed to the development of the artists’ body of work. A 3-dimensional holographic image of each of the collaborators will appear all around the exhibition galleries, which could be accessed through a downloadable app. Each of those holograms will be doing small actions that reference a specific moment in different times and places that has, until now, laid on the memory of the artist. “For the past 20 years, I have been questioning the idea that time and memory, beginnings and ends, arrivals and departures, and the very essence of the artist role in society are stable concepts. At the core of Illusion Brought Me Here (or in between works, to be more precise) is a debate between my own impulses—forces that make energy shift from one world to the other.” —Mario García Torres The exhibition is organized by the Walker Art Center and copresented with Wiels, Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels. After the Walker’s presentation, Illusion Brought Me Here travels to Wiels in May 2019. The exhibition will be accompanied by the first publication to survey the artist’s work, produced by the Walker and Wiels and published by Walther König Verlag, Cologne. Illusion Brought Me Here opens at the Walker Art Center Thursday, October 25, 2018 through Sunday, February 17, 2019 in the Target and Friedman Galleries. Curated by Vincenzo de Bellis, Curator and Associate Director of Programs, Visual Arts, with Fabián Leyva-Barragán, Curatorial Fellow, Visual Arts. ABOUT THE ARTIST Mario García Torres (b. 1975, Monclova, Mexico) received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2005 and currently lives and works in Mexico City. His solo exhibitions have included Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2016), TBA21, Vienna (2016), Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2015), Pérez Art Museum Miami (2014), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014), Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2013), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2010), UC Berkeley Art Museum (2009), and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2007). He has also participated in the Sharjah Biennial (2017), Berlin Biennale (2014), dOCUMENTA13 (2012), São Paulo Biennial (2010), Yokohama Triennale (2008), and Venice Biennale (2007). RELATED EVENTS Performance and Artist Talk: I Am Not a Flopper… Thursday, October 25, 6:30pm Walker Cinema, Free This opening-night celebration of Illusion Brought Me Here. begins with a performance of the monologue I Am Not a Flopper… (2007), written by Mario García Torres and Aaron Schuster, performed by David Dastmalchian. Afterwards, the artist discusses his multifaceted practice in a lively conversation with exhibition curator Vincenzo de Bellis. I Am Not a Flopper… takes as its subject the name Allen Smithee—an official pseudonym used by film directors in Hollywood who wish to disown a project, often

Still from Mario García Torres’ One Minute To Act A Title: Kim Jong-un’s Favorite Movies, 2018; 16mm film (black and white, silent). Commissioned by the Walker Art Center; courtesy the artist and Jan Mot, Brussels; joségarcía, mx; Taka Ishii, Tokyo; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Franco Noero, Turin.

Sketch for Illusion Brought Me Here, n.d. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center; courtesy the artist and Jan Mot, Brussels; joségarcía, mx; Taka Ishii, Tokyo; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Franco Noero, Turin.

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used by members of the Directors Guild of America to replace the director’s name when the author was dissatisfied with the final cut of a film. In this monologue, a fictional Allen Smithee elaborates on the complex relationships between his public persona and his long filmography. Performance: The Cordiality Paradox Thursday, November 29, 6:30pm Walker Cinema, Free Mario García Torres’s The Cordiality Parado (n.d.), performed live by actor Helmut Berger, is the second of three monologues presented in conjunction with the exhibition Illusion Brought Me Here. The Cordiality Paradox highlights Bertrand Russell’s paradox and Zeno’s second paradox of motion, two concepts essential to the foundations of mathematics. In the seemingly impromptu, redeeming story, the protagonist describes a series of recollections in which Russell’s and Zeno’s ideas are surreptitiously relayed. (30 mins.) Screening: Tea Directed by: Mario García Torres Thursday, January 17, 7pm Walker Cinema, Free In collaboration with exhibition: Mario García Torres: Illusion Brought Me Here In search of Italian artist Alighiero Boetti’s creative project One Hotel, Mario García Torres travels to the city of Kabul in Afghanistan from Mexico. Following Boetti’s presumed last trip to Kabul in 1979, Tea traces the artistic gesture of One Hotel 33 years later, while at the same time creating new gestures, parallel histories, and overlapping relationships from Torres’s own journey and reflections. Throughout, the narrator meditates upon the unpredictable nature of art-making, reflecting on

the forces, impulses, and desires that often go beyond one’s self-control resulting in the creation of new artwork and ultimately this film. 2012, 35mm film transferred to video, 64 minutes. A conversation with Curator and Associate Director of Programs, Visual Arts, Vincenzo de Bellis and Moving Image Senior Curator Sheryl Mousley follows the screening. Free tickets available from 6 pm at the Main Lobby Desk. Performance: The Causality of Hesitance Thursday, February 7, 6:30pm Walker Cinema, Free Prior to the closing of Illusion Brought Me Here, The Causality of Hesitance (n.d.), the third in a trilogy of monologues written by Mario García Torres will be performed at the Walker Art Center’s Cinema. Co-written with Alan Page, the monologue is a meditation on temporal subjectivities such as time and causality. The monologue is inspired by the prolific American curator Seth Siegelaub’s interest in theories about time on his early involvement with conceptual art in the 1960s. The work adapts Seigelaub’s theories and expands

Mario García Torres, Cover Letter, 2011 35mm slides transferred to video, Collection Antonio Dalle Nogare, Bolzano, Italy

Mario García Torres, This Painting Is Missing / This Painting Has Been Found, 2006–present. Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City

Installation view of Mario García Torres’ R.R. and the Expansion of the Tropics at Pérez Art Museum, Miami, 2014; 16 mm film transferred to video, digital video, 35 inkjet prints, wood and synthetic resin, acrylic paint on polyester filler on jute, Transfer on chiffon and linen fabrics, installed dimensions variable. Collection Isabel and Agustín Coppel, Mexico City. Photo: Oriol Tarridas

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them, creating a thought-provoking and puzzling performance centered around a man vocalizing obscure and perplexing observations. Gallery Tour Thursday, February 7, 5:20pm Walker Art Center, Free Dive deep into Mario García Torres: Illusion Brought Me Here with a specialized tour of the exhibition. The tour will be led by the artist Mario García Torres along with curator Vincenzo de Bellis, Curator and Associate Director of Programs, Visual Arts. Members Event A Think & A Drink: Mario García Torres Friday, February 8, 7 pm Walker Art Center Explore Mario García Torres: Illusion Brought Me Here on an after-hours member tour followed by complimentary small bites and drinks from the cash bar.

GALLERY HOURS AND ADMISSION

$15 adults; $13 seniors (62+); $10 students (with ID) Free to Walker members and ages 18 and under. Free with a paid event ticket within six months of performance or screening. Free to all every Thursday evening (5–9 pm) and on the first Saturday of each month (10 am–6 pm). Enjoy free gallery admission on Thursday nights from 5 to 9 pm.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday 11 am–5 pm Thursday, 11 am–9 pm Friday–Saturday 11 am–6 pm Closed Mondays Illusion Brought Me Here opens at the Walker Art Center Thursday, October 25, 2018 through Sunday, February 17, 2019 in the Target and Friedman Galleries.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Mario García Torres: Illusion Brought Me Here is organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and copresented with WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels. The Walker Art Center’s presentation is made possible by generous support from the Edward R. Bazinet Foundation, Carlo Bronzini Vender, Isabel and Agustín Coppel, Nicoletta Fiorucci/Fiorucci Art Trust, Karen and Ken Heithoff, Gonzalo Parodi, Jean-Edouard van Praet, Danniel Rangel, and Enea Righi and Lorenzo Paini.

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