Curator Culture: Abraham Cruzvillegas & Elena Reygadas

Over the past two years, the Curator Culture series at The Bass has brought together prominent artists and leading architects, scientists, journalists and influential leaders from many fields for public conversations about fostering creativity in a complicated world. The world has suddenly become much more complicated. We now ask questions such as – How do we respond to the profound economic and cultural disruptions that are unfolding during this global pandemic? What actions are being taken in the dismantling of systemic racism amid protests and outrage over police brutality?

Generous support for Curator Culture provided by The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Additional support for this project provided by Art Bridges. If would like to support this series and future programming, please consider making a 100% tax-deductible donation to the museum.

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ABRAHAM CRUZVILLEGAS
Abraham Cruzvillegas (Mexico city, 1968) is an active member of the Intergalactic Taoist Tai Chi Society. He is professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, in Paris. Cruzvillegas is best known for his ongoing project Autoconstrucción, inspired by the harsh landscape and living conditions of his childhood neighborhood in Mexico City where houses were collaboratively built on uncongenial land in ingenious and precarious ways according to the personal needs and economic resources of its people. Cruzvillegas assembles sculptures and installations, as well as creates paintings, drawings, and videos, based on the investigation of his own paradoxical aesthetic of this concept, while exploring the effects of improvisation, transformation, and decay.

Autocontusión, on view in The Willfulness of Objects, is an expansion of Autoconstrucción, is a reflection on the life cycle of cities and objects in which the artist sees some cities in the world as permanent construction sites and permanent destruction sites in terms of politics, economy, ecology, and nature.

ELENA REYGADAS
Elena Reygadas (Mexico city) chef and mother, is one of the most important figures in the Mexican gastronomic scene. She is chef and owner of Rosetta restaurant, but also of a group of popular restaurants and bakeries: La Panadería Rosetta, Lardo and Café Nin.

Elena Reygadas is a chef committed to defending the local Mexican product. She has publicly rejected the use of transgenic corn in Mexico and supports various initiatives in favor of small producers and traditional sustainable agricultural systems. In 2019 she published her first book, Rosetta, edited by Sexto piso.

TOM HEALY
Tom Healy is an award-winning poet, curator and activist. He is the chair of O, Miami Poetry Festival and a trustee of PEN America, the organization of writers protecting freedom of expression around the world. Under President Barack Obama, Tom led the international Fulbright Scholars program. He is a curator of public programs at The Bass.