Cecilia Mandrile
FIG Bilbao 2020

26.11.20 14.12.20

Fundación´ace para el Arte Contemporáneo is pleased to introduce Cecilia Mandrile, invited artist to ´ace representation at FIG Bilbao 2020 | International Printmaking and Art on Paper Festival in the beautiful city of Bilbao, Spain from November 26th to December 14, 2020.

During years of moving, Mandrile was performing and recording ephemeral installations, observing cities and their crevices through a portable reference: sight-less dolls. Several versions of a disguised self-portrait were printed on canvas and attached to objects found or kindly given in various locations. Carrying and curing objects in buses, stations, streets, airplanes, (the self and) the self-portrait was tinted by the crossing of borders. Revisiting the journey, photographs made evident how (even apparently unanimated) displaced subjects have individual responses to the new background imposed.

The process of translation has a double significance in the practice of migrant artists: translation as a means to move subjects/objects from one place or condition to another; translation as a technical means to articulate an image in order to interpret its behavior in changing contexts. Through the dual translation of photographic fragments, the artist proposes disjointed narratives rehearsing a dialogue between portable objects and found places.

Quitapenas : A Genealogy of Stateless Dolls

The making of prints has traditionally involved the displacement of visual information from a source (plate, file, numeric code) to a range of substrates (paper, canvas, wood, plastic, glass, clay), generating multiple images with new physical identities, each with their own sentient body, I believe. In current times when most sensorial interactions are paused through invisible frontiers, and touching is made believed as a death sentence, print processes remain at the core of creative practices, evidencing that the ubiquity of virtual communication coexists with the urge to engage with a tangible outcome.

In Latin America, it is a common practice for children to place tiny dolls under the pillow, tell them their worries, sorrow, fears, letting this tiny dolls do the worrying on their behalf and take the sorrow away. Exploring paper and porcelain as vulnerable matter, these Quitapenas mean tangible iterations of printed fragmented dolls that has wandered with me for over two decades, translated into ephemeral and resilient substrates via various technical processes and diverse geographies. Cut out, stitched, faded, broken apart and reconstructed along the journey several surviving pieces were rescued, assembled as new bodies, sorrow dolls that open up to a new decade of wandering and mending.

Cecilia Mandrile
1969|Argentina
Independent artist, liveas and works in New York City, USA

STUDIES
2004| PhD. University of the West of England, Bristol; UK
1997 | Master of Fine Arts. University of Maryland at College Park, USA
1991 | Bachelor of Fine Arts. Major: Printmaking, National University of Córdoba, Argentina

SOLO SHOWS
2018-2019 | The Desert Inside. Emilio Caraffa Fine Arts Museum and Fernando Bonfiglioli Museum, Córdoba, Argentina
2016 | Fragile Fragments. Prints Gallery. St John’s University, New York, USA
2015 | The Perfume of Absence. Five Points Gallery. Torrington, CT, USA
2014 |Solitary Objects, Collaborative Making. Bower Ashton Gallery, UWE, Bristol, UK
Quitapenas. Arten Gallery/International MegaPixel Print Festival. Budapest, Hungary.

AWARDS
2019-20 | Centre for Fine Print Research. Artist Fellowship. Bristol, UK
2015 | MET Merit Award. International Digital Art Triennial, Szekszard, Hungary
2014 | Excellence Award in Creative Research, University of New Haven, USA
2003 | City Museum of Art Acquisition Award. VII International Biennial of Graphic Art. Gyor, Hungary
2001 | XV Maximo Ramos Print Award. Ferrol, Spain.

RESIDENCIES
2009 | Makan-Bait International Residency Program. Amman, Jordan
2003 | Tallinna Kunstihoone, Tallinn, Estonia
2002 | Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA.
2001 |Frans Maseerel Graphic Center, Kasterlee, Belgium
and Gasworks Studios, Triangle Art Trust, London, UK

Related Activities

International Projects, Fairs

FIG Bilbao 2020
Artists in dialogue

26.11.20 14.12.20

After the landing of ´ace at FIG Bilbao2019, with Argentina as the guest country and the will of both organizations to expand their international networks, we have signed a collaboration agreement between both institutions: FIG BILBAO and Fundación´ace. Alicia Candiani, director of ´ace, becomes part of the Management Committee of Open Latin America with the aim of giving mobility to artists and their works on an international level. Also, this year we have once again been invited to participate in the fair, for which a prestigious group of international professional artists has been selected.

The International Fair of Printmaking and Art on Paper (FIG Bilbao) has positioned itself as one of the most important in Europe. This year, FIG Bilbao celebrates its 9th edition and, although it cannot aspire to attract more than 11,000 visitors in four days as happened last year, it has not hesitated to reinvent itself in an online format and, furthermore, it does not neglect face-to-face proposals insofar as their possibilities. Today the digital platform www.figonlinefair.com will premiere, offering 50 galleries and more than 500 artists that will be active throughout the month of December.

The works cover a wide range of prices and visitors will be able to enjoy the free and personalized advice of expert Elisa Hernando, who is in charge of the Approach online service. Among the creators present in this edition, it will also be possible to pledge on emerging talents such as Juan Escudero and Kepa Garraza, or already established such as Joan Miró and Eduardo Chillida.

Three containers have been installed next to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. Inside, all the works from the fair catalog will be projected on led screens that will change their content every 15 minutes. Until December 14 (from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.) they will be available to passersby. These are spaces that fulfill the function of the stands of FIG Bilbao, adapted to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, and are complemented by the QR codes of each gallery that will allow access to the digital platform.

Related artists

REPRESENTED ARTISTS
Alicja Habsiak-Matczak (Poland)
Guy Langevin (Canada)
Bárbara Madsen (USA)
Cecilia Mandrile (Argentina, lives in New York)
Kestutis Vasilinius (Lithuania)
Zhang MinJie (China)

Artist-curator
Alicia Candiani (Argentina)

FIG PLATFORM

International Projects, Exhibitions

The World IN a Handkerchief
´ace´s genealogy

23.03.22 06.05.22

The World IS a Handkerchief : El mundo es un pañuelo
A Wandering Genealogy curated by Claudia DeMonte & Cecilia Mandrile
The World IN a Handkerchief : El mundo en un pañuelo
Guest Curator, genealogy Proyecto’ace: Alicia Candiani
Exhibition of pieces
selected from the Fundación´ace´s collection and Alicia Candiani’s personal collection of the participating artists in “The world IN a handkerchief”

For a month and a half, the Políglota Room is hosting three exhibitions on a rotating basis. From March 23 to April 1, “The world IS a handkerchief” and “The world IN a handkerchief: the genealogy of ´ace” were exhibited simultaneously, paying special tribute to the Argentine artist Graciela Sacco. While the original series returned to New York from where it will soon travel to England, the ‘ace genealogy collection was joined by a new exhibition of large format pieces of the participating artists, some belonging to the Fundación’ace collection and others to the private collection of Alicia Candiani.

The World IS a Handkerchief is a travelling exhibition rooted in the Spanish saying ‘el mundo es un pañuelo,’ which translates into English as ‘this is such a small world’. The project traces serendipitous encounters, moments of discovering personal connections in distant places or unexpected contexts. The project began with the meeting of Claudia DeMonte and Cecilia Mandrile as a mentor and student respectively at the University of Maryland, United States in 1995 and has expanded through an international collaborative network between mentors, students and
peers.

The World IN a Handkerchief is a new chapter of the project, a graphic, soft and traveling portfolio curated by guests artists from the core genealogy. Artist and curator Alicia Candiani, essential mentor of this genealogy, Founder and Director of Proyecto´ace, has been invited to curate this new collection that reflects her close creative family.

ABOUT THE WORLD IN A HANDKERCHIEF by Cecilia Mandrile

Handkerchiefs have accompanied people in celebrations and farewells in many cultures for centuries, offered bodily protection and coverage, and sustained expressions of political tenets and spiritual beliefs. In this project, handkerchiefs become vessels of memories and itinerant narratives; containers of emotions; translators of wounds, signals of ideological resistance. Each piece epitomizes a soft space that holds disappearing recollections of homeland as well as reflections on displacement and identity that can be carried as a tangible memento. In times when touch appears as a dangerous sense, every single printed handkerchief means a meaningful testament of the continuous nurturing mentorship among artists and educators, reminding us that the soft touch remains both an intimate and universal need of communication.

To celebrate this constant and sustained creative dialogue, in 2019 the curators developed a portable exhibition of 50 handkerchiefs that explored the meaning of belonging and interconnectedness that this Spanish saying so tangibly evokes. In the reconstruction of this alternative family made up of artists and collectives from different latitudes and generations during the last two decades, both printed an edition of 25 handkerchiefs, and sent a printed handkerchief along with a blank handkerchief to 50 invited artists to intervene with their own reflections
on home, identity and belonging. From this exchange a “wandering genealogy” was born, a tribute to the strong threads that have woven this shared territory as itinerant artists and educators.

A limited edition catalogue including the work of 50 invited artists was published by Impact Press, Bristol, UK and includes an essay by Gill Saunders, Senior Curator of Prints, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Currently, the catalogs of workshops and portfolios remain as digital publications, thus allowing to document the constant growth of this genealogy. Chris Knollmeyer, a sound artist in residence at ´ace at the same time, composed for this exhibition a special piece: “Sound of the Handkerchiefs”. The piece is a piano study made up of 25 melodies. Just as the handkerchiefs are tied to each artist’s history and sense of home, Chris feels a connection to the piano.

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