Carlos Sandoval de Leon: From from

March 23 – April 28, 2019

Cindy Rucker Gallery is pleased to present From from featuring works by Brooklyn-based artist Carlos Sandoval de León. This is Sandoval de León’s third solo show at the gallery.

Carlos Sandoval de Leon tackles the notions of origin, the symbolic, the folkloric, and erasure by bringing together materials charged with specificity in an instinctive juxtaposition. The materials he selects celebrate the care in every effort: ubiquitous Man with a Van flyers, pink soap, the carefully placed credit card sticker on the bullet-resistant bodega glass, chewed gum, tiny pom-poms hanging faithfully in succession on a length of fringe.

Working closely with a team of artisans and friends and drawn by the theoretical space that shapes the physical world, he uses ideas of portraiture along with ritualistic operations and notions, as he intends to map the shape of unseen activity, and provide a better—possible—understanding of where the flatline lies. His objects are in transition, always on their way to becoming complete. In this space, Sandoval de Leon has bisected the gallery with a wall of shelves constructed of lumber, playing with the ideas of presentation and intellectual distance.

Here he leaves space for his viewer to instinctively traverse the distance between the work and it’s meaning, high art and the everyday, minutia and artifact. It’s not about what’s there as much as its about what isn’t there; however the absences aren’t eerie as much as they are ripe with a personal history to which we can all relate. Sandoval de Leon asks us to slow down and ruminate on the objects that surround us, both meaningful and banal.

Carlos Sandoval de León (b. 1975, Mexico) received his B.F.A. in 1999 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his M.F.A. in 2008 from Columbia University. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, in venues including his upcoming exhibition at the ICA Miami, the Museum of Contemporary Art (North Miami, FL), El Museo del Barrio (New York, NY), and the Fischer Landau Center for Art (Long Island City, NY). He is currently teaching fine arts and performing at York College.

“Invisible Labour”, ArtZone, Sophie McKinnon, August 15, 2019. Download PDF.