As artists, we have to find the antidote to this darkness right now, to how everything feels so compressed rather than expanded.
—
Meredith Monk
Portfolio by Alejandro Almanza Pereda
- Walks to the Paradise Garden by J.W. McCormack
- Bauhaus Journal 1926–1931 by John Gendall
- T.J. Demos’s Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology by Nich Hance McElroy
- Arcana: A Stephen Jonas Reader by Ammiel Alcalay
- Chavisa Woods’s 100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
- Angela Schanelec’s I Was at Home, But… by Anthony Hawley
- Nyege Nyege Tapes by Simon Gabriel
Editor's Choice
- Mary Weatherford by Hamza Walker
- Nanfu Wang by Hao Wu
- Issue #148: Lee Quiñones by Luc Sante
- Venkatachalam Saravanan by Amit Dutta
- Tyshawn Sorey by Claire Chase
- Ben Whishaw and Édouard Louis
- Geovani Martins Issue #148 by Julia Sanches
- Prageeta Sharma and James Thomas Stevens
Interviews
- Portfolio by Alejandro Almanza Pereda
- Counterpoint and Apocrypha by Raphael Rubinstein
- Harlem Is Hijaz Is Havana Is Harar, Or: The Whole Point of the Black Arts Movement Is That They Were Moving by Momtaza Mehri
- From Harbart by Nabarun Bhattacharya
- Bosun by Paul Yoon
- Two Stories by Diane Williams
- From Scorpionic Sun by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine
- As Donna by Divya Victor
- dunjaluče by Ian Dreiblatt
- An Hourglass Experiences Ego Death by Kyung Me & Harry Gould Harvey IV
- Living Matter by Claire Atherton
- Nearly Any Two Things Can Cohere by Asiya Wadud
First Proof
waterfall apparition after a flaming carajillo
cantineando al “estilo Jalisco”
at the corner of Penitentiary and Liberty
stepping between creepers
extra safety
you clean a house abandoned for thirty years and find some surprises
holy cozy molcajete
where kissing is forbidden and one hundred animals were sacrificed
when indecision is strong and you make the best choice
a way for art
Mexican accuracy
in flagranti
painting tree trunks white is believed to keep ants away, here it seems that ants fear giraffes
pointy boots mirage
plunging into the void
to keep your ideas running
daybreak window-sill still life
post-industrial, post-retail, a Sears that only sells displays
chicken play…
thirdhand smoke
the eye of a rock
Alejandro Almanza Pereda lives and works between the United States and Mexico. Known for precariously balanced large-scale sculptures that put common objects into unlikely configurations, he exhibits internationally and has had solo shows at the San Francisco Art Institute; Rubin Center, El Paso; El Eco Experimental Museum, Mexico City; College of Wooster Art Museum, Ohio; and Art in General, New York. While Almanza maintains that his principal focus is formal, not narrative, his snapshots tell the story of how incidental moments of juxtaposition, craft, and wit inform his studio practice. The photographs featured in this selection date from 2015 to the present and range from Madrid to Guadalajara. Each includes a remark by the artist.
Related
Reminding us the artwork does not exist in a void.
Originally published in
BOMB 148,
Summer 2019
Featuring interviews with Mary Weatherford, Nanfu Wang, Lee Quiñones, Venkatachalam Saravanan, Tyshawn Sorey, Ben Whishaw, Édouard Louis, Geovani Martins, Prageeta Sharma, and James Thomas Stevens.
