Those of you out there who are allergic to latex, you may want to keep your distance from this upcoming exhibition in Brooklyn, New York.
Last night marked the opening of Portuguese artist Filipe Cortez’s first solo exhibition at the Department of Signs and Symbols.
Titled Disenchantments, the exhibition will feature his most recent installation Fossils, as well as a more site-specific work, where Cortez exhibits his original ‘contaminate’ process.
In Fossils, Cortez creates his own set of modern fossils that are latex casts and plaster replicas made from abandoned objects found on the streets of New York City. Here, Cortez aims to highlight our modern day mass-consumerism culture by manipulating its own decay.
The ‘contamination’ process is what Cortez considers the counterpart to his Fossils installation. On an all-white wall of the exhibit he bears some semblance to degradation and ruin by ‘contaminating’ the area with graphite powder. Considering it is Cortez’s first solo exhibition, he excels at visually transforming inanimate objectivity into controversial beauty.
This ‘contamination’ act is supposed to mirror disease, adulteration, and architectural disintegration.
The Department of Signs and Symbols has a strong program in Brooklyn for emerging artists, focused on integrating different artists and curatorial voices. By allowing artists the additional project space, they can receive more exposure and diverse opinions from surrounding collaborators.
Cortez’s exhibition will be on view in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn until July 29th.
