Pablo Rasgado

Steve Turner Contemporary is pleased to present Wall to Wall, Pablo Rasgado’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, featuring ten paintings created during the last year. Six contain splatter gestures that Rasgado extracted from public sites in Mexico City; three are made from automotive exhaust and dirt that accumulated on a wall that was exposed to intense traffic; and one contains names that were scratched into the wall of a building in Havana.

Rasgado’s work functions as an archive of contemporary human behavior. His process involves daylong wanderings in Mexico City and other urban centers where he searches for unusual occurrences within the metropolitan setting. When he finds something of interest, he seeks to record it, not in the typical manner of a photograph or other representation, but by extracting a subtle mark from the observed site. In so doing, he makes works that are at once poetic and visual as well as politically and socially relevant. Within his practice, he creates politically charged abstract paintings by using strappo , a Renaissance technique that enables him to extract painted/graffitied pictorial content from walls around the world. In so doing, he transforms political gestures into abstract paintings of transcendent beauty that make visible the paradox between a real event and the representation of it.

Pablo Rasgado reconfigures material from everyday life into new abstractions. Much of his past work has been made from painted public walls, some extracted from busy city streets, others from temporary museum exhibitions. Sometimes the walls have political or social content. Sometimes they simply contain an image that the artist wants to capture and present in a new way. Whatever the source, Rasgado seeks to represent a frozen moment. In the case of the Unfolded Architecture paintings, they represent specific moments within a museum’s history and indeed in art history.

Pablo Rasgado (born Zapopan, Mexico, 1984) studied at the Autonomous University, Morelos, Mexico and has had solo exhibitions at Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles (2011 & 2012) and Arratia Beer, Berlin (2012). He also has had solo exhibitions at Zona Maco (with Steve Turner, 2012) and at Art Basel Miami Beach (with Arratia Beer, 2012). His work has also been included in numerous museum group exhibitions including When Attitudes Became Form Becomes Attitudes, curated by Jens Hoffman, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2012) and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit (2013); Lost Line: Contemporary Art from the Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2012); Los Irrespetuosos, Carrillo Gil Museum, Mexico City (2012); Donde el lenguaje es el material, Casa del Lago, Mexico City (2012) and Tiempo de Sospecha, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico (2012). He lives and works in Mexico City.

Born 1984, Zapopan, Mexico
Lives and works in Mexico City

Education

2010
Proyecciones y Superficies Workshop, National Center for the Arts, Mexico City
Ejercicio de Correspondencia Workshop, SOMA, Mexico City

2007
Diploma Course in Museology, Centro Cultural Casa Lamm, Mexico City

2003
Diploma Course in Photography, Centro Morelense de las Artes, Mexico

2006
BFA, Autonomous University of the State of Morelos, Mexico

Solo Exhibitions

2012
Monochromatic Muralism, Arratia Beer, Berlin
Fragmental, Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles
Victoria Pírrica, ATEA, Mexico City

2011
Arquitectura Desdoblada, The Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City
Wall to Wall, Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles

2008
Eternity in an empty room, Arcaute Arte Contemporáneo, Monterrey, Mexico

2005
Baba, Casa Emergente Visual Lab and Gallery, Cuernavaca, Mor. Mexico

2004
Sobre la certeza, Alberca artes Gallery, Mexico

Art Fair Solo Exhibitions

2012
Pablo Rasgado, Art Basel Miami Beach, Arratia Beer, Berlin
Paint Study, Zona Maco Sur, Steve Turner Contemporary, Mexico City, curated by Patrick Charpenel

2011
Pablo Rasgado, Art Berlin Contemporary, Arratia Beer, Berlin

Selected Group Exhibitions

2013
When Attitudes Became Form Becomes Attitudes, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit
Lost Line: Contemporary Art from the Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Proyecto Basurto, Steve Turner Contemporary, Mexico City

2012
Los Irrespetuosos, Group Show, Carrillo Gil, Mexico City
When Attitudes Became Form Becomes Attitudes, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco
Donde el lenguaje es el material, Group Show, Casa del Lago, Mexico City
Tiempo de Sospecha, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico
Prorroga Recuperada, Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City
Bienal Tamayo, MACO, Oaxaca, Mexico

2011
Transitio_ MX 04 – Festival of Electronic Arts and Video, Mexico City
Destello, Colección Jumex, Ecatepec de Morelos, Mexico (curated by Osvaldo Sanchez)
Cartography, ICOCULT, Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico
Interconnects, Contemporary Art in the FEMSA Collection, Pinacoteca Diego Rivera, Veracruz, Xalapa

2010
This is about…Plataforma arte Contemporaneo, Guadalajara, Mexico (curated by Ruben Mendez)
Cimbra: Formas especulativas y armados metafísicos, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City
Open Day, Stonehouse, Alakuko, Lagos, Nigeria
IX Bienal Monterrey FEMSA, Galería de Arte Moderno y Contemporáne Ángeles, Espinosa Iglesias, Casa de la Cultura de Puebla and San Pedro, Museo de Arte, Puebla, Mexico
Second Comino, Hessel Museum of Art & Center for Curatorial Studies Galleries at Bard College, (curated by Carlos Palacios, Andre Torreblanca, Gabi Ngocobo)
IX Bienal Monterrey FEMSA, Cecut, Tijuana

2009
IX Bienal Monterrey FEMSA, Centro de las Artes, Parque Fundidora Monterrey, Mexico
Open Art México, Open: International performance art festival, Collaboration with Kelly Kleinschrodt, Beijing
Diorama: la reinvención del paisaje, MUCA Roma Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte, Mexico City (curated by Gonzalo Ortega)
Staybite: Modes of Operation, The University of Texas at Dallas, Visual Arts Building, Dallas (curated by Karla Diaz and Evelyn Serrano)
Needle in a Haystack, Eagle Rock Center for the Arts, Los Angeles (curated by Nate Garcia)

2008
Exchange Rate, Sea and Space Explorations, Los Angeles
Exchange Rate, Remy’s on Temple, Los Angeles
Preservación de forma y equilibrio #2, Collaboration with Luis Ordoñez, Orizaba 203-2, Mexico

2007
Principio de incertidumbre, Forum universal de las culturas, Centro de las Artes I y II, Parque
fundidora Monterrey, Mexico (curated by Fernando Delmar)
Montañas Fototeca de Veracruz, Veracruz, Mexico (curated by Patricia Martín)

2006
Ejemplares: Libro Objeto, Museo Nacional de la Estampa, Mexico (curated by Albert Dilger)
Sueño de una Noche de Verano, Collaboration with Luis Ordoñez, Centro Cultural
Muros, Cuernavaca, Mexico (curated by Andrea Torreblanca and  Paulina Cornejo)

2005
Preservación de forma y equilibrio, Collaboration with Luis Ordoñez, Casa Emergente, Cuernavaca, Mexico

2004
Lo que no explica la vida lo explica el fuego, Collaboration with Luis Ordoñeze, 21 Gallery, Cuernavaca, Mexico

Residencies and Awards

2012
Bancomer MACG Program 2012 Fellow
Triangle Art Trust Artist’s Workshop, New York

2011
Artist-in-residence, La Chambre Blanche, Québec
International Residency Program at the École Superier d’ Art et Design, Saint Ettienne, France

2010
CCA Lagos – Triangle artist Workshop Nigeria, Center for Contemporary Art Lagos, Stonehouse Alakuko, Lagos, Nigeria
Young Creators Grant, Painting, National Fund for Culture and Arts, Mexico

2009
Honorific Mention at the IX Monterrey Femsa Biennale
1st place, Printed mediums, at the international Journalism Award Can Cun
International Residency Program at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, Nebraska

2007
Mexican American Fellowship, Mexican American Foundation
Residency Program at the Vermont Studio Center, Jonson, Vermont

2006
Young Creators Grant, New Mediums, National Fund for Culture and Arts, Mexico

Selected Publications

2012
“Arquitectura Desdoblada/Unfolded Architecture,” Beau Dessordre Press, First Edition, Mexico
“La Repercusion de la Linea en el Espacio,” Taller de Ediciones Economicas, First Edition, Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico 2012
“Nieve,” Malpais ediciones, First Edition, Mexico 2012

2010
“Desde las entrañas de Teotihuacan,” México Desconocido Magazine #404, year XXXIV, October 2010

2009
“Preservación de Forma y Equilibrio,” Oráculo, Revista de Poesía #29-30, año 9, October 2009
“Six years on paper,” Bard Free Press, volume 10, issue 5, March 2009 (Curated by Andrea Torreblanca)

2004
“De Ciudad Juárez a Parral, ahí vienen los villistas,” México Desconocido Magazine, #334, year XXIX, December 2004
“De Ciudad Juárez a Parral, Para escuchar el silencio,” México Desconocido Magazine, #333, year XXIX, December 2004

2000
“Montalbán y los Zapotecas,” Pasajes de la historia Magazine, special edition, October 2000

Bibliography

2011
Josianne Desloges, “Fantomes, de Pablo Rasgado, Quand les murs Parlent,” Le Soleil Arts Magazine, December 17, 2011
Paulina Ascencio, ¨Pablo Rasgado, Tiempo y Negacion.” Taxi around the art, No. 04, September-November 2011
Carlos Palacios, “La pintura en las Ruinas, obra de Pablo Rasgado.” Tierra Adentro Magazine, No. 170, June/July 2011
Bartolomé Delmar, “De lo bueno, una probadita,” Chilango, año 8/ numero 90, May 2011
Gonzalo Ortega, “Arte Joven desde Latinoamerica, Pablo Rasgado,” Codigo 06140, No. 62, April-May 2011
Tobias Ostrander, “Pablo Rasgado,” Tomo, No. 32, April 2011

2010
Ricardo Sánchez Riancho, “Entrevista con Pablo Rasgado,” Textofilia, revista de literatura y arte, No. 19
Obidike Okafor, “The Triangle of arts,” Next Newspaper, October 31

2009
Silas Martí, “Ruínas urbanas dão o tom de bienal Mexicana,” Folha de S. Paulo, November 23, 2009
Verónica Gerber, “Metamorfosis del Paisaje,” Letras Libres Blog de la redacción, July 13, 2009
Elana Mann, “Exchange Rate: 2008,” Exhibition Catalogue, Lulu press, 2009

2008
Fernando Delmar, “Principio de Incertidumbre,” Exhibition Catalogue, Forum, 2008

2007
Erick Vásquez, “trail and Error,” ArtNexus, Vol. 68, December 2007
Daniel Saldaña Paris, “Ejemplares: Libro-objeto,” Letras Libres, Año IX No. 99, March 2007
Anarela Vargas, “El Libro Imaginario,” Milenio Newspaper, January 30, 2007
Mónica Meyer, “Ejemplares.” El Universal Newspaper, January 12, 2007
Jorge Ocheterena Bergstrom, “Descripciones Habitables.” Mileni Newspaper, January 9, 2007

2006
Francisco Hinojosa, “Sobre Pablo Rasgado.” Tierra Adentro No. 141, August 2006