premiere Thursday April 8, 20:00 hrs
Cine Bella Epoca, Librería Rosario Castellanos
Condesa, Mexico City

Through his interest in autoconstrucción (“self-construction”), Abraham Cruzvillegas explores economies of the makeshift, the handmade and the recycled. His recent work gravitates toward an examination of his childhood home and the neighborhood of Ajusco, a district in the south of Mexico City founded by migrants who, like his parents, settled in what was deemed uninhabitable land in the 1960s. Ajusco’s landscape of volcanic rock is a work in process. Structures are in a constant state of transformation as materials become available and necessity dictates. The sense of ingenuity and improvisation that created this vibrant, self-reliant and politically active community is the impetus for the artist’s own exploration of the roots of his practice.

At REDCAT, Abraham Cruzvillegas continues to expand upon his interest in social organization, collaboration and exchange. For this solo exhibition, the artist presents a newly commissioned film that offers a rich portrait of Ajusco. Shot on location with non-professional actors and developed by a self-organized, guerilla-style film cooperative, the film employs an unconventional narrative without dialogue, intertwining footage of the landscape with unscripted moments of intimacy and encounter. Cruzvillegas' film uses the predictable, mechanistic structure of early pornographic films to build a non-linear story made up of fragments that collapses the past and present--the neighborhood's history, landscape and everyday life--as an abstract portrait.