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The
Curs of Ray Smith Babilonia 1808 presents Catahoula Cur by Ray Smith. Named after a recent painting, the exhibition is dominated by images of dogs. In Smith's paintings, animals are sometimes surrogates, sometimes shamans, sometimes symbols of a more primal nature lurking beneath the surface. The animals and hybrid creatures in Smith's paintings are an "entity of the human figure." "They are beasts, but they are directly attached to a blueprint of our own existence. They become like cousins-the reflection of us with them is completely direct." Within Smith's philosophical zoo, the stage is set for voyeuristic observation by humans and animals alike. Catahoula Cur opens Saturday, January 26, 2001 with an opening reception from 7-9 PM at 1808 Fifth Street in Berkeley. An artist's talk is scheduled just before the reception at 6 PM. Ray Smith epitomizes the complex cultural trade-offs of North America, so often forgotten or suppressed by today's homogenizations. His mother's family settled the frontier outpost of northern "New Spain" in the early nineteenth century and pursued the economic potential of these barren territories. When their lands were later annexed as part of Texas, near Brownsvile, the family remained firmly Mexican and Spanish speaking. Smith was born in Brownsville and raised in central Mexico. He studied fresco painting with traditional craftsmen in Mexico, attended art academies in Mexico and the United States, and settled in Mexico City. Since 1985, he has divided his time between New York and Cuervavaca, Mexico. Cultural borders, for him, are shifting and transitory points of reference; they are to be absorbed, to be engulfed with the mestizo attitude of integration that he considers the very heart of mexicanidad. Smith's work can be seen at Galeria Ramis Barquet in New York and Monterrey, Mexico as well as Sperone Westwater Gallery in New York among many other international galleries. His paintings can be found in such prestigious public collections as The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of American Art in New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, Texas; the Miami Art Museum in Florida; Wurth Museum, Kunzelman, Germany; Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. Babilonia 1808 is an international contemporary art program whose mission includes promoting dialogue among communities through intercultural exchange, challenging audiences with provocative contemporary art, and highlighting the East Bay as a nucleus of vibrant creativity. Pusod is a center that reconnects community to culture and the environment. Both are programs of the Babilonia Wilner Foundation and are housed in an ecologically restored landmark - itself a demonstration of the foundation's organic, integrated and diverse vision for humane living. Address:
1808 5th Street, Berkeley, California 94710 |