SUR: biennial

06/21/2024

OK, this feels like a big one! The 324-page exhibition catalogue for last Fall's extraordinary exhibit at the Cerritos College Art Gallery, "Stock Footage and Outtakes: A Selection of Works by Gronk," is finally complete. The catalogue includes comprehensive documentation of the Gronk exhibition and related public art, performances, and events.

Please note: The joint catalogue covering the exhibitions at all sixteen venues of the 7th SUR: biennial, including the Gronk exhibit at Cerritos College Art Gallery, will not be ready for another few months yet.

Thank you to the Gronk, Surito, and Brian (with funding from the Getty) for helping make this such a wonderful project and Froylan Cabuto, Beatriz Eugenia Vasquez, and Peter Mendoza for contributing their special film/performance to close out the run of the exhibition last year.

Use the link below to preview the entire catalogue:

Bringing together a wide array of both recent and archival objects, the exhibition Stock Footage and Outtakes: A Selection of Works by Gronk offered a rare insight into the broad range of the elusive artist’s ever-evolving practice. Much like the recycled film elements (stock footage) and alternat...

10/15/2023

The Gronk show at Cerritos College Art Gallery is officially over. So hard to say goodbye. Thankfully, we get to keep the amazing mural for our public art collection and (surprise!) a drawing for the gallery’s permanent collection as well!!

10/12/2023

Artist Talk (12pm) and Opening Reception (5-8pm) tomorrow (Thursday, October 12) at Long Beach City College Art Gallery. Part of the 7th SUR: biennial

In conjunction with the SURBiennial, Tijuana born, Mexico City-based performance artist and rapper MU###E presents a captivating multi sensory exhibition that includes photography, sculpture, video, a hologram installation, and music as a process of commemoration of their past masculine self. MU###E will launch segments of their upcoming EP SEMENTERIO at Long Beach City College Art Gallery as part of the exhibition. With SEMENTERIO – a play on words between the word semen and cemetery– the artist aims to lay conceptually and metaphorically all the embodied patriarchal behaviors that coexist within them in order to heal from the damage product of Mexico’s violent macho culture. Considering Mexico’s alarming rates of gender-based violence and mortality, works like SEMENTERIO play a crucial role in comprehending how machismo threatens the lives of women and q***r individuals in a state that values them as disposable.

Exhibition
Thur., October, 12 – Sat., November 18, 2023

Opening Reception
Thur., October 12, 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Artist Talk
Thur., October 12 , 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Curated by Karla Aguíñiga, Art Gallery and Exhibitions Manager

This exhibition was funded with generous support from a grant from the LBCC Foundation Grant and LBCC’s Associated Student Body.

10/11/2023

10/08/2023

SUR: biennial is in full swing today!

10am-4pm: Sidewalk Mercadito at Tonalli Studio

3pm-6pm: Salvadoran artists group show opening at Arts at Blue Roof

6pm-9pm: Walkthru and closing at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles

6pm-9pm: Death-themed group show opening at Torrance Art Museum

10/08/2023

Wonderful artwork at the Torrance Art Museum, and always wonderful to see great friends…

10/06/2023

SUR: biennial overload!!

Two new shows open tonight at Cypress College Art Gallery and Pasadena City College Art Gallery. Then, on Saturday, two more shows open at Arts at Blue Roof and the Torrance Art Museum, along with a Closing Reception and Walk-Thru at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles and a Sidewalk Mercadito at Tonalli Studio that same day. Followed next Thursday by an opening at Long Beach City College Art Gallery.

10/05/2023

Ground Control: Resource Extraction and the Demand for Sovereignty opens tomorrow night at Cypress College Art Gallery. Part of the 7th SUR: biennial

Ground Control: Resource Extraction and the Demand for Sovereignty is a group exhibition that brings together an international roster of 9 artists whose work is driven by a research-intensive critique of the transmutation of the natural world into capital. The collection of photography, installation, sculpture, video, painting and printed material on view revisits Eduardo Galeano’s seminal text Open Veins of Latin America, which fifty years ago shifted the dialogue surrounding the global south away from a focus on the presumed need for economic development. “In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy,” he wrote, “gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison.” Subsequent historiographies have had to acknowledge the role that international monetary policy had—and continues to have—in enacting a project of dependency in these regions.

The projects on view in Ground Control grapple with the colonial legacy in Latin America. From the mining of mineral resources such as copper and petroleum, to the commodification and rarefication of public goods such as water and land, to the compelled migration and exploitation of human labor, the artists’ awareness of the forces of empire inflects their work.

Participating Artists: Eva Aguila, Maria Theresa Alves, Carolina Aranibar-Fernandez, Jackie Castillo, Minerva Cuevas, Maria Laura Hendrix, Minga Opazo, Mayela Rodriguez, Christina Villamor

Curated by Stephanie Sabo

10/02/2023

Thank you to everyone that came out for last night’s closing reception of the exhibition Stock Footage and Outtakes: A Selection of Works by Gronk at the Cerritos College Art Gallery, including the debut of the newly completed mural, STORM EX it a play, now a permanent part of the Cerritos College Public Art Collection. And thank you to everyone that joined us for both The Stranger You Are, a collaborative poetry reading and live drawing session by Gail Wronsky and Gronk, and Tormenta 1985, written and directed by Froylan Cabuto, and starring Peter Mendoza as Gronk and Beatriz Eugenia Vasquez as his muse/surrogate Tormenta.

09/28/2023

Opening this Saturday night at Tonalli Studio!

Tonalli Studio’s 10th annual Day of the Dead exhibition titled “Earth & Spirit: encounters with the beloved”, is anchored in the iconic symbol of the monarch butterfly and its yearly migratory return to Central Mexico. The ancient peoples of Mexico believed the Ancestors returned home during the early part of November every year, in the form of the monarch butterfly.

Like the monarch, “Earth & Spirit” speaks to our own transitory journey in this Earth life to the spirit world. “Encounters with the beloved” are promised to those who evoke the ancestors and never forget to remember the significance of their journeys. This exhibition is intended to inspire the viewer into the spaces between here and there, lifting from the Earth and connecting with the Spirit.

"Earth & Spirit" will feature 4 altars accompanied by many small works intended to be snapshot memories of an encounter with the beloved.

Earth & Spirit: encounters with the beloved
Opening Reception Saturday, Sept. 30 6pm-9pm
Tonalli Studio
4539 E Cesar E. Chavez
East Los Angeles, CA 90022

Curated by Rosanna Esparza Ahrens and Andrea Ramirez "Mextica"

Earth & Spirit Artistas
Amparo Cortez Chi
Andrea Ramirez
Arturo Urista
Celina Jacques .jacques
Consuelo G. Flores .flores
Dalila Paola Mendez
Denise Esparza
Denise Silva
Edward Escamilla
Emilia Cruz
Endy Trece
Erica Friend
Jax Esparza Sanders
Jesse Fregozo
Jimmy Saldivar
John Jairo Valencia
Kalli Arte Collective
Karla Camacho
Maritza Torres
Mi’randa Villanueva
Neri Rivas
Ofelia Esparza
Palomares Francisco
Paul Botello
Stacy Soriano
Tina Arroyos
Vanessa Saiz Lopez .ai
Yreina D. Cervantez

09/28/2023

THIS SATURDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 30th, STARTING AT 6PM

Two Live Performance Events in the Cerritos College Blackbox Theater

As part of the special closing reception for the current exhibition at the Cerritos College Art Gallery, Stock Footage and Outtakes: A Selection of Works by Gronk, and in conjunction with the 7th SUR:biennial, the Cerritos College Blackbox Theater will host a night of live performances on Saturday, September 30th, featuring, and/or inspired by, the work of the noted Chicano painter, printmaker, set designer, and performance artist, Glugio Nicandro (a.k.a. Gronk).

First up, at 6PM, THE STRANGER YOU ARE, a call-and-response poetry reading and live drawing performance. Gronk's frequent collaborator, Gail Wronsky, will read from her book of poems, The Stranger You Are, while Gronk creates responsive drawings, inspired by her poetic texts, in front of the live audience.

Then, at 7PM, TORMENTA 1985, fuses a sci-fi narrative with biographical elements from Gronk's life, as told through live music, dance, acting, and the debut of a newly-created neo-surrealist short film. The project, written and directed by Cerritos College Spanish professor Froylan Cabuto, and starring Beatriz Eugenia Vasquez and Peter Mendoza, is based on Tormenta, a recurring figure in Gronk's work. The performance and film take the viewer through the dream world of the artist, presenting the genesis of Tormenta as a supernatural love story between the muse and the artist.

Lead Actors:
Tormenta is played by Beatriz Eugenia Vásquez (Bewitched Writing)
Gronk is played by Peter Mendoza (Perry Mason)

Musicians:
Juan Carlos Valladares (piano)
Jaime Covarrubias (bass)
Jose Huizar (guitar)
Otto Cifuentes (trumpet)
Tigran Khatchatrian (violin)
Alex Rodriguez (percussion)

Production Team:
Written & Directed by Froylán Cabuto
Cinematography by Óscar Ávalos
Original Music by Otto Cifuentes
Musical Arrangements by Juan Carlos Valladares
Choreography by Beatriz Eugenia Vásquez
Costume Design by José Emanuel García
Editing by Óscar Ávalos

The live performances will be followed by a closing reception for the current exhibition, as well as the debut presentation of the newest addition to the Cerritos College Public Art Collection, a thirty-two foot long, eight-panel mural recently painted by Gronk during his residency at the Cerritos College Art Gallery in early September.

All events are free and open to the public. The Blackbox Theater has limited seating, however, so show up early to ensure you get a seat. Doors open at 5:30PM. Parking available for $3 (use QR codes on posted signs) in Lot 10 on the south-side of campus (access via 166th street).

09/23/2023

TODAY @ 4pm. Cielo Dalia Palacios in conversation with Claudia Huiza @ D2Art in Inglewood. Part of the 7th SUR: biennial