HOST: Celeste
March 3 – August 20, 2023
Curated by Robin K. Williams
Programs Organized by Emmy Laursen, Danny Orendorff & Mario Villanueva
For their HOST exhibition with The Contemporary Austin, Mexico City-based artist duo Celeste presented a new textile painting, created specifically for The Jones Center, and temporarily installed their outdoor artwork Manta de cielo at Laguna Gloria.
The painting at The Jones Center, intended to be viewed from left to right, portrays an abstracted landscape. The artists take inspiration from the vital history of murals in their hometown of Mexico City, including how these murals have functioned to shape public space and communicate through images. While traditionally these murals presented specific scenes and conveyed moral messages, Celeste’s imagery instead accommodates innumerable interpretations. Inspired by narrative therapy, which holds that the stories we tell shape the worlds we inhabit, the artists invite visitors to tell their own stories through the work’s evocative yet open-ended images. This impulse to share space was extended through a series of in-gallery performances by local Austin musicians, titled as contener, organized by Mario Villanueva.
At Laguna Gloria, the portable textile sculpture Manta de cielo was made up of eight pieces of dyed fabric tied together with knots, creating a flexible space adaptable to a variety of installation sites. Within the shade of the sculpture, a talk and picnic with the artists and the exhibition’s curator was held, as well as additional musical performances. Preceding the event, the artists hosted a blanket-making workshop with students enrolled in The Art School.
About the Artists
Celeste is an artist duo based in Mexico City formed by María Fernanda Camarena (b. Guadalajara, 1988) and Gabriel Rosas Alemán (b. Mexico City, 1983). The artists’ collaborative practice centers on explorations of archetypal images and the creation of spaces that are both physical and social. Their large-scale, dyed and painted fabric installations employ a distinctive warm color palette and respond to architectural environments while incorporating abstracted images, such as extended hands and empty vessels, that speak to the personal and collective unconscious.
