No better, no worse, no change

No better, no worse, no change
Harold Mendez

Also this month:
Mini-exhibit: Brandon Alvendia and Derek Chan

Opening Friday October 12 from 6pm-10pm
October 12 - November 10, 2007

Taking the notion that silence is an expression of something, Harold Mendez presents No better, no worse, no change, his second solo show at Polvo. Mendez´ large drawings and sculptures depicting barren landscapes, conflicted sites and borders circumscribe space into place by searching politically charged sites with significant histories as they address conventions of place and humanity where something has seemed to occur.

Sifting through the everyday, politics, literature and criticism, Mendez forges iconic forms and spaces into a socially familiar here and now. With references to past events, using memory and photography’s ability to index history, he employs stark and haunting compositions; open to interpretation, delicately juxtaposing disparate media including black silicon carbide, marking chalk, popcorn, natural dyes, reflective beads and other transient materials.

A serenely muted river, central to the exhibition, offers little or no recognizable evidence of either historical incidents or recent conflict. Hinting towards the sublime, Mendez´ fossilized sculpture Winter in America leads us to bring our collective knowledge and experiences between place and loaded landscape with human experience to find emptiness of an exposed history. A drawing of an eroded interior with a window reflects the sentiment that something has occurred, and nothing has occurred, nothing at all.

Gloom and beauty make recognition difficult.

Harold Mendez received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007. He recently exhibited with Western Exhibitions in a two-person show and will be participating in Consuming War, an upcoming group exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center in November. He's been included in group shows at the Commerce Street Warehouse in Houston, vuspace in Australia, the University of North Umbria in the United Kingdom and the University of Science & Technology in Ghana, West Africa.

Brandon Alvendia and Derek Chan’s first collaborative project will consist of a sculptural installation investigating the sites of contestation inherent in spaces of heterogeneous populations. Questioning the promises offered by the developing built environment, Chan and Alvendia locate a moment in the cycle of renewal, stasis, and decay.

Brandon Alvendia completed his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007. Since 2004, under the guise of artLedge, Alvendia along with co-curator Caleb Lyons has facilitated the work of upwards of 150 emerging and established Chicago artists, in venues both nationally and abroad. He is currently planning an independent curatorial venture entitled Peso Neto that will be exhibited overseas at Quartair Contemporary Art Initiative, The Hague. He was recently appointed to sit on the advisory board of the Chicago public art initiative Hammer and Chisel. Alvendia’s own practice is concerned with the relationship of the individual to material and societal architectures.

Derek Chan recently received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007. Challenging the conventions of representation and abstraction Chan's paintings investigate the constructs of place as tied to the self. He has been included in group exhibitions in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Polvo, www.polvo.org
1458 W. 18th St., 1R (entrance on Laflin St.)
Chicago, IL 60608
773.344.1940