André Magaña
Pinopuenteros
January 24 – March 2, 2019

HOLDING Contemporary presents Pinopuenteros, in which Magaña draws on his study of representative sculpture of Western Mexico. He continues a tradition of sculpture that documents daily life, social structure, and worldview, introducing signals of the contemporary to demonstrate the resilience of Mexican identity and Mexican people.

The five hand-rendered sculptures in Pinopuenteros are fabricated with the aid of consumer 3D printers. Three plump figures are suspended in a backbend, bisected by 5-gallon water containers. They appear to simultaneously surrender and charge forward under the weight of the vessels. Each figure takes on the head of a different animal: a man, a duck, and a dog; all are common motifs in pre-Columbian funerary vessels found around the modern-day state of Colima. A model of a municipal Rotoplas brand commercial water container is cut into two halves. A repeated pattern of varied styles of conchas, commonly enjoyed Mexican sweet breads, adorn the inside.

These works are contemporary altars and totems that dethrone the infrastructure aesthetics of colonialism in everyday Mexican society. They imagine a possible future or parallel timeline in which the detritus of Western capitalism is re-consumed as material for the construction of sculpture of the spirit and of the people.

André Magaña (b. 1992) is a Mexican-American artist based in Brooklyn, NY. His work is focused on the ways in which white supremacy is promoted, specifically scrutinizing the systematic destruction of indigenous history and the erection of biased infrastructure. Magaña’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include American Medium (New York City, NY: 2018); 77 Mullberry (New York City, NY: 2018); 100% Gallery (San Francisco, CA: 2018); JACE (Los Angeles, CA: 2017); Wreath (Atlanta, GA: 2017); and Amor Tlalpan (Mexico City, MX: 2017). Recent group exhibitions at Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT), Alyssa Davis (New York), Freight Gallery (San Antonio).

Photos by Mario Gallucci