CAROLINA CAYCEDO EXHIBITION IN NEW YORK

CAROLINA CAYCEDO
Words Don’t Come Easy
March 23 – April 21, 2007
Opening reception:
Friday, March 23, 6-8pm
Black and White Gallery
The Chelsea Terminal Warehouse
636 West 28th Street, Ground Floor
New York, NY 10001
www.blackandwhiteartgallery.com

Carolina Caycedo’s solo exhibition “Words Don’t Come Easy”.
This exhibition comprises several projects that weave a fabric of independent but complementary experiences – all questioning the notion of “territories” in terms of their geographic reality and the imaginary and utopian dimension they generate, the relationship the individual constructs with her environment, a nation, an identity, a private or shared space, the connections created between ideas, individuals, artworks and structures.

Works in the show:
PERIFONEO (initially installed at the Venice Biennale in 2003) was inspired by the Perifoneo - a communal sound system used in shanty towns of Bogota where the speakers are installed strategically around the neighbourhood. It is used to send all kind of social messages. The amplifier and mic are usually installed in a house with a telephone line, in order to notify any neighbour who receives a call. The microphone will be installed inside the gallery and will be open to anyone for singing, shouting or sending a message which will be heard outside the gallery through a loudspeaker.
AUDIO MEX can be characterized as a singular form of auditory contemplation. The site of action is the Historic Center of Mexico City, recorded in May 2004. Caycedo creates a temporary, freed, epic zone where the big story and many little stories come together.
GRAN PERRETON video shows scenes of human crowds that at first seem easily identifiable but little by little uncertainty sets in. The contact that takes place between individuals – exchanges, frictions, encounters, avoidance – may influence our perception of their environment, unless it is the environment that gives new meaning to their behavior. Perretón is a combination of words: Reggaeton, perreo and marathon. Reggaeton is a popular genre that comes from Puerto Rico, and combines Rap, reggae and dance hall. Perreo is how you dance reggaeton, doggy style, very sexy. A Perreo marathon was open on a Saturday night at Don Raul´s Bar, a reggaeton joint in Rincón, Puerto Rico.
BANNER & FLAG SERIES highlights political awareness, autobiography, permanent displacement, design interventions and potential counter-imagery. These large scale hand sewn objects present aesthetic models for disarming configurations of power. Mixing flags of the places where Caycedo originates and where she lives - Puerto Rico/Colombia and flags of cultures in tension – USA/Iraq, Palestine/Israel and Lebanon/Israel creates a dialogue between those cultures by pointing to many shared formal elements (motifs, patterns and colors). Included in the show are several banners that wave Caycedo’s multiple cultural identities – the anchor theme for this exhibition.
JUKEBOX, Local Motion (La Machetera) contains 50 CD’s and is a compilation of songs collected through the different cities where Caycedo lived or worked since 1995. The songs from the jukebox, are not only the soundtrack of her life, but also the soundtrack of the exhibition, an exhibition that presents Caycedo’s past and recent work dealing with issues of identity, conflict, movement, location, nationality and immigration. As such, music becomes a universal language, one that trespasses barriers and frontiers.