THE COMMUNITY (PARIS)

During these challenging times, we believe that the notion of the community has become more urgent than ever: we need to turn towards new models of support and collaboration amid the ongoing political and social upheavals. The current climate demands us to be more abundant in the ways in which we think about creativity and support.

For the Salon de Normandy, The Community takes over room 519 with the exhibition “The Community Centre”, in which six artists were invited to reflect upon the notion of community, and what it entails and symbolizes for their artistic practices. Brendan Fowler, Marisa Takal, Jesús ‘Bubu’ Negrón, Lele Saveri, Aaron Wiggs, Andrew Price, and Violet Cheverez all work with different collaborative practices and media. We asked them to contribute to the exhibition by asking them to present something that speaks of their personal relationship with their communities: for one, this means sharing a warm meal with neighbours in the nearby parking lot, for other, organising a side-walk sale event with friends to raise money in support of Black Lives Matter. One creates limited t-shirt editions for fundraising events, another organizes an art exhibition with friends in a nearby park. What combines them is the accessibility and open-mindedness of their actions: anyone around them can participate and contribute the way they wish. Their work shows that connecting with one’s chosen family can be done in multiple ways and various spaces: taking over the streets, parks, parking lots.

By presenting these works and diverse ways of community engagement, The Community wishes to urge dialogue that resonates widely across geographies, languages, cultures and aesthetics, as well as personal and political contexts. In The Community’s future space in Pantin, which will be opened later this year, we wish to contribute to mutual respect and understanding among our (future) community members, which will hopefully, in turn, bring forward positive actions and social change within our communities. This can move us toward positive social change and restructure our relationships and ways of thinking.


THE COMMUNITY (PARIS)

Brendan Fowler’s (b. in 1978, Berkeley, California, works and lives in Los Angeles) work spans numerous media and traditions. He started his well-known series, embroidered portraits, in 2012, with the use of an industrial embroidery machine. The pieces range from abstractions to portraiture. As a visual artist, selections from his “crash piece” series of works — assemblages of framed photos that appear to have been violently smashed through one another — were included in the 2013 New Photography show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His recent exhibitions include New Portraits at Richard Telles Fine Art (Los Angeles) in 2017 and Portraits at Mathew Gallery (New York) in 2016. Fowler has interfaced with the worlds of contemporary streetwear and fashion through both the Election Reform! Project, which uses the formal language of fashion as a pathway to start a dialogue around the flaws of the American electoral system and the collaborative brand Some Ware, which he runs in tandem with the artist Cali De Witt.

Marisa Takal (b. 1991, Montclair, New Jersey) received her B.F.A. from San Francisco Art Institute in 2013. Takal has shown in numerous solo, duo, and group shows at such venues as Night Gallery, Del Vaz Projects, M+B, Otis College of Art and Design Bolsky Gallery in Los Angeles; Jeffrey Stark and Company Gallery in New York; Loyal Gallery, Stockholm; and Alter Space, San Francisco. In 2016, she was named the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award and the Stanley Hollander Award. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

Jesús ‘Bubu’ Negrón (1975, Barceloneta, Puerto Rico) is an artist whose work is characterized by minimal interventions, the re-contextualization of everyday objects and a relational approximation to artistic pro duction as a revealing act of historical, social and economic proportions. Negrón lives in the neighbourhood of Puerta de Tierra in San Juan, where he is part of the Brigada PDT - a grass-roots community organisa tion for the preservation and wellbeing of the neighbourhood, its history and its people. Some of Negron’s most notable collaborations include: Abubuya Km0 project organised by Kiosko Galeria, Bolivia; The Obscenity of the Jungle with Proyectos Ultravioleta for SWAB Barcelona in Spain (2013); the 1st Bienal Tropical in Puerto Rico (2011), where he was awarded the “Golden Pineapple” prize for best artist; Inter pretation of the Soneto de las estrellas with Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros in Mexico (2013), curated by Taiyana Pimentel; Trienal Poligráfica in Puerto Rico (2009), curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Julieta González and Jens Hoffmann; Sharjah Biennial in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2007), curated by Mohammed Kazem, Eva Scharrer and Jonathan Watkins; Whitney Biennial in New York (2006), curated by Chrissie Iles and Phillipe Vergne; the T1 Torino Trienale in Italy (2005), curated by Francesco Bonami and Carolyn Chris tov–Bakargiev, and Tropical Abstraction at the Steidelijk Bureau Museum in Amsterdam (2005), curated by Ross Gortzak.

Lele Saveri was born in Rome in 1980. Currently lives and works in New York. Since 2012 curator and founder of 8-Ball Zines and 8-Ball Zine Fair. Since 2013 curator and founder of Muddguts Gallery in Brook lyn.

Aaron Wiggs, Sachiko, Perry - A casual conversation between Sachiko, Perry and myself planted this amaz ing seed that grew into such an impactful movement.. Not knowing what would happen a movement started that just brought so many new and old faces together and that was something that was also needed during a time like this aside from radical thinking and taking care of the people by the people in our own way. It really brought the community together, and Andrew Price just knew he had to do something to showcase this. So in my opinion the reason why sidewalk story” is so beautiful is because of how attached Andrew is to this movement, and he let us the founders Sachiko, Perry and myself really tell our story. thank you andrew.

Violet Cheverez - Violet’s work is collaborative in the sense that the friends, the people, and the space that she works with becomes a part of the making process. Local stomping grounds are often the subjects for her creative projects; what is seen and heard within these spaces becomes the material with which she creates.