FEMSA Stay – Luis Barragán House and Studio Presents the “Rose Marble” Exhibition - FEMSA
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FEMSA Stay – Luis Barragán House and Studio Presents the “Rose Marble” Exhibition

Mexico City, May 31st, 2017.- From June 4th to August 27th, 2017, FEMSA Stay – Luis Barragán House and Studio will present Christodolous Panayiotou’s “Rose Marble” exhibition, which seeks to give another meaning to personal and domestic elements that evoke Luis Barragan’s spirituality, sensitivity and sources of inspiration, while at the same time connecting with a political, social and anthropological broader discourse.

Luis Barragan nurtured his great creative imagination by watching and studying the cultures of North Africa, Viceroy America and of the groups that populated the pre-Columbian Mexico. This spectrum of references allowed him to produce a unique synthesis: works that materialized through their solid constructions, as well as through the conduits of their wild and open gardens.

The young artist from Cyprus, Christodolous Panayiotou, has developed an important part of his artistic production as a reflection of his country’s historiographies and narratives. The artist recovers objects and traditions from Eastern Europe, to re-contextualize the country’s history and frame it in contemporary Cyprus. Through the application of elements like copper, mosaic and gold leaf, the artist identifies and reveals the hidden narratives in the visual documentation of history and time. With the same inspiration and sensitivity that Luis Barragán showed in his various buildings, Christodolous will carry out and reorganize installations to contain the energy that flows from each object. Through the colors, materials and lightning, he’ll achieve a modest and spiritual atmosphere that will connect with a more complex environment.

Panayiotou will make specific interventions in Luis Barragan House and Studio’s architecture and garden, subtly modifying its chromatic arrangement and the surface materials of the construction. To do so, he’ll replace, quote, invest and create analogies, exchanging domestic objects with new artistic creations. Thus, the Studio will turn into a warehouse and exhibition at the same time: the objects leave their original positions to be stored or installed elsewhere. This exercise will be carried out by exchanging domestic elements of the house for pieces created by the artist, being this a strictly formal exchange that installs those natural elements of the house, which were previously chosen by Panayiotou, in the studio.

If Barragán explored with artistic rigor the weight of each and every physical element and also researched its possible relation to a religious or anthropological environment, Christodoulos will extend this experience to a political and social environment. Therefore, the works will activate and bring a different meaning in a very specific moment and space.

CHRISTODOULOS PANAYIOTOU

1978 / Limassol, Chipre

Christodoulos Panayiotou is an artist from the coastal city of Limassol, Cyprus, with initial training in choreography and anthropology which, in combination with the performance and conceptual disciplines, have allowed him to develop artworks that are focused on identifying and discovering the narratives hidden among the visual documents of history and time. His works continually refer to the history, culture, traditions and language of the context of his native Cyprus, which has positioned him as one of the most recognized contemporary creators of the world within his generation.

His work has been exhibited individually at the 56th Venice Biennial, The Cyprus Pavilion; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kunsthalle Zürich; Casino Luxembourg; CCA Kitakyushu, Japan; Museum of Contemporary Art, St. Louis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig; Centre d’Art Contemporain de Brétigny; and at Point Center of Contemporary Art, Nicosia, among others.

His work has been part of important group exhibitions presented in the framework of important events and contests, such as the 13th Sharjah Biennial; dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel; 8th Berlin Biennale; 7th Liverpool Biennial; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museion, Bolzano; Migros Museum, Zürich; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Ashkal Alwan Center for Contemporary Arts, Beirut; Artist Space, New York; and MoCA, Miami.

About FEMSA

FEMSA is a leading company participating in the beverage industry with Coca-Cola FEMSA, the largest franchise bottler of Coca-Cola products in the world; and in the beer industry, through its ownership of the second largest equity stake of Heineken, one of the worlds leading brewers with operations in over 70 countries. FEMSA participates in the retail sector with FEMSA Comercio, which operates various small-format chain stores including OXXO; a Fuels Division operating the OXXO GAS service stations chain; and a Health Division that includes pharmacies and related operations. In addition, through FEMSA Negocios Estratégicos, the company offers logistic services, point-of-sales cooling solutions and plastic solutions for FEMSA’s companies and external customers.

About FEMSA Stay – Luis Barragán House and Studio

FEMSA Stay is a cultural and artistic platform sponsored by Casa Luis Barragán and FEMSA Collection. Under the curatorship of Eugenia Braniff and Patrick Charpenel, the initiative proposes a series of exhibitions, interventions, performances, academic and educational activities, as well as publications that create a dialogue with the house’s historical context and legacy of Luis Barragán, one of the most outstanding architects of the 20th Century. The curatorial program includes the participation of worldwide recognized artists, whose work reflects on the various artistic disciplines offered by modern and contemporary art.

About Luis Barragán House and Studio

Built in 1948, Luis Barragán House and Studio is one of the most important contemporary architectural spaces at an international level, as recognized by the UNESCO in 2004, when it was named a World Heritage Site. This organization considers it a masterpiece in the development of modernism, for integrating a new synthesis of traditional and vernacular elements, as well as diverse philosophical and artistic currents of all times. Luis Barragan’s influence in the architectural world increases day by day, and it has been faithfully preserved as he inhabited it until the day he died in 1988. It is a fundamental site for architectures and art connoisseurs world wide.

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