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January 9 to February 14, 2009
Pedro Velez
The Day of the Corrupt: Our Father’s left US shit
images | reviews: New City, Time Out Chicago
“If you fucking think oppression in marginalized countries is fashionably exotic for your seedy Biennial just wait till you see the picture I have of Francesco Bonami, Keely Coles and Blagojevich mounting Roger Clemen’s splitter on top of a coral reef”
These famous last words I overheard coming out of the mouth of Jones District at the crowded dingy bar gringos call Marrero in dirty humid San Juan. I heard it right underneath the glossy poster of the semi nude voracious curvy blonde holding the sweaty cold canned beer like a gold medal. Later on that evening Paul Kemp made apologies for Jones slippage, he told me the soon- to- be snitch was drunk as hell and high on coca. I didn’t believe it. To me the coke argument was besides the point because Jones looks like every other pundit, he seems to always be staring at the horizon with no consolation prize on sight. To me Jones looks like the Nile Perch from Lake Victoria, a sort of helpless creep with the human face of Alfred Adler.
Excerpt from “The Day of the Corrupt: Our Fathers left US shit” by Pedro Vélez
Since 1999 Pedro Vélez has channeled moral coercion and political corruption by producing fake exhibition announcements, developing on-going fictional narratives on the web, publishing art journals and creating itinerant presentations with the group, FGA (a.k.a Fucking Good Art) that may occur in the virtual realm. The announcements for fake exhibitions include faux characters that “pay to play” along real but unwilling personalities, mostly superstar art curators, porn starlets and third world dictators.
For his exhibition The Day of the Corrupt: Our Fathers left US shit at Western Exhibitions, Pedro Vélez will develop a narrative, in three chapters, that incorporates angry observations and a list of corrupted personalities. The narrative will take shape in a humongous wall collage, paintings, photographic banners and the brand new web piece, Remote Control Curators, which denounces the unethical practice of lazy curators curating by email. More here
Psychosomatic Epilepsy is a series of new paintings and photographs of women, made up to look like they have been beaten, in which the artist tries to depict the bodily effects caused by the emotional trauma of living in a U.S. colony-Puerto Rico.
Misremember is based on the odd use of the verb by baseball player, Roger Clemens when asked, during his deposition before Congress, about his longtime friend and teammate, Andy Pettitte, who claimed the pitcher told him about using Human Growth Hormone in 1999 or 2000: "I think he misremembers our conversation," said Clemens.
Included with the exhibition will be Glacier, a limited edition Xerox book, in collaboration with Gean Moreno, that had been lost by a corrupt art dealer since 2004.
This exhibition in Gallery 2 at Western Exhibitions marks Pedro Vélez’ return to Chicago after a 5-year “vacation” in his homeland of Puerto Rico. This is Vélez’ fourth solo show with the gallery. Recent solo shows include Plush Gallery in Dallas (2007), Galeria Comercial in San Juan (2006) and Ingalls & Associates in Miami (2005) as well as a special project for the 2005 NADA Art Fair. He’s been included in group shows at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in NYC, Locust Projects in Miami, The Soap Factory in Minneapolis, Arte Foundation in San Juan, the Newark Center for the Arts in New Jersey and Museo del Barrio in NYC. His work has been discussed in Frieze, Artlies, Art Papers and several other publications. Vélez maintains a regular column about the art scene in San Juan for Artnet and his writing has been published in Arte al Dia, APT Global Insight, Art Papers and Modern Painters.See more of Velez' multi-faceted practice here
In Gallery 1, “of or relating to the sky or visible heavens”. More here.
ALL IMAGES © WESTERN EXHIBITIONS & EACH INDIVIDUAL ARTIST