Oscar Rene Cornejo
Assembly Gallery Activation:
Fall 2018
In January 2017, Recess launched Assembly in a satellite space in downtown Brooklyn. To expand upon our mission to connect artists and publics, Assembly is at once an artist-led diversion program for court-involved youth and a public storefront gallery. Assembly is located at 370 Schermerhorn St. in Downtown Brooklyn.
Public Programs
Thursday, October 25, 2018, 5-7 pm
Oscar Rene Cornejo
From September 6th to December 22, Assembly’s public storefront gallery will host States of Exception a project by Oscar Rene Cornejo exploring printmaking as a vehicle for engaging the ways trauma and memory are shaped by institutionalized violence, displacement, and exile.
Throughout his project, Cornejo will stage conversations and print workshops adapting the deconstructive methods of Argentinian artist Monica Giron, which investigate seven aspects of life: the physical, the emotional, the sentimental, the confirmation of itself/the self, the structure of thinking, the soul, and the spirit.
Using a site-specific inquiry responding to the architecture, floor layout, and spatial volume of Assembly’s gallery space, Cornejo will construct modular structures for study and workshop, as well as display a curated selection of books, poems, articles, music, and essays addressing the cultural and socio-political histories of Latin America, US foreign policy, and the Cold War. Inspired by the personal histories of Assembly collaborators and guided by conceptual rules derived from public and international law, Cornejo’s project, will probe how personal and political resilience can emerge from radical self expression.
In addition to his work on States of Exception in the Assembly gallery space, Cornejo will participate as a guest teaching artist during the Recess’s educational diversion program. He will collaborate with the program’s Lead Educator to incorporate material from his project into the program’s curriculum. Cornejo will also guide program participants in creating final projects that will appear alongside his work in the storefront gallery.
Banner Image: Aparecido, Courtesy of the Artist
Open to the public Thursday – Saturday, 12-6pm
370 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217
About the Artist
Oscar Rene Cornejo (b. 1982, Houston, TX) earned an MFA from Yale School of Art (2011), a BFA from the Cooper Union (2005), and was a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Scholarship for research in El Salvador. In 2004, he co-founded the Latin American Community Art Project (LA CAPacidad), where for seven years he directed summer artist residencies to promote intercultural awareness through community art education. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions, including White Flag, at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (2017), Collective Solid, Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, TX (2015); and Parliament of Owls, Diverseworks, Houston, TX (2015). Cornejo has completed residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2016. He teaches at the Cooper Union and teaches fresco at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. This fall he will present works at Queens Museum’s eighth Queens International, Volumes; as well as exhibit works in a two person show at Radiator Gallery in Long Island City.
Major funding for Assembly is provided by The Horace Goldsmith Foundation, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, The Salomon Foundation, and The Stavros Niarchos Foundation. This program is also made possible with donated space and program support from Alloy Development.
Banner image courtesy of Charles Roussel
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