BLACK CUBICLE AT CELESTE HOUSE, MEXICO PRESENTS 'NOTHINGNESS AND BEING SKNNY' A GROUP SHOW BY GERARDO CONTRERAS

Black Cubicle, installation view


Assume Vivid Astro Focus’ Wallpaper

Adriana Lara ‘Installation (Prescription Glasses)’

Terence Koh’s Deer Diary Letter ‘Everybody Iz Such Beautiful’


Gerardo Contreras ‘La Toya Jackson Playboy Piece’

Installation Shot (Ben Jones’ ‘Facemaker’ Video)


Ben Jones’ ‘Facemaker’ Video


Installation Shot (Brian Kokoska’s ‘Pink Guy’)


Brian Kokoska’s ‘Pink Guy’


Mir cutting the opening ribbon

Mr. Contreras, curator of the Black Cubicle, and Vanesa Fernandez of Celeste House


Mario Garcia Torres and Jan Mot


female curator heaven, friend, Bambi, Mir, Magali


young Mr. Contreras playing the piano with his new Morrisey haircut

NOTHINGNESS AND BEING SKINNY

at Black Cubicle Toilet Gallery
Curated by Gerardo Contreras

Assume Vivid Astro Focus
Ben Jones
Terence Koh
Brian Kokoska
Adriana Lara

1. The human search for reality has been a journey towards understanding, not just the manifested but also the internal.

2. The Cartesian expression ‘I think therefore I am’ has been posited as ‘I am skinny’ replacing the dualism of the existent and the essence with necessarily the non-dualistic primacy of the existent over the essence, where existence becomes the essence. Undiluted existence, existence in its totality and existence with a freedom ‘to be skinny’.

3. Consciousness is a being whose existence posits its essence, and inversely it is consciousness of a being skinny, whose essence implies its existence; that is, in which appearance lays claim to being skinny.

4. Being is everywhere. We must understand that this being skinny is no other than the transphenomenal being of phenomena and not a noumenal being which is hidden behind them. It requires simply that the being skinny of that which appears does not exist only in so far as it appears.

5. Sartre’s concept of consciousness is the revealed revelation of existents. Existents thus appear ‘before’ consciousness on the foundation of their independent entity of ‘being skinny’.

6. There is a clear deviation from the Kantian because the a priori and the noumenal have been undermined to emphasize the ‘transphenomenal being skinny of phenomena’ where all prior beliefs make way for the phenomena.

7. How are these two transphenomenal forms of being related? As opposed to a conceptualizing consciousness in a relation of knowledge to an object, I introduce a relation of ‘being skinny’: consciousness (in a pre-reflective form) is directly related to the being of the phenomenon.

Black Cubicle Toilet Gallery at Celeste House, Mexico City
http://celeste.com.mx/

*****
in spanish

"BLACK CUBICLE TOILET GALLERY ABRE EN MÉXICO, D.F.

En enero del 2005 , en el mítico George and Dragon Pub de Londres, el baño de mujeres dio a luz al White Cubicle Gallery http://www.whitecubicle.org. Hasta el dia de hoy bajo la dirección de Pablo León  de la Barra y la bendición de sus land lords Liliana Sanguino y Richard Battye, el White Cubicle se ha convertido en un referente de la escena artística londinense. En este espacio de 1.40 x 1.40 se ha presentado un cuidadoso programa de exhibiciones de artistas contemporáneos interesados en explorar mas alla de lo sexual y lo escatológico en el arte. White Cubicle presenta un programa discerniente de manifestaciones locales e internacionales como un antídoto para la a veces extremadamente comercial escena artística en Londres.

En 2011, también bajo la dirección de Pablo León de la Barra y Beatriz López, y con la bendición de Vanesa Fernandez y Aldo Chaparro abre en Celeste House la galería espejo de White Cubicle, Black Cubicle Toilet Gallery, localizado en el baño de hombres y mujeres de Celeste House y donde se presentará un programa que busca refrescar la escena del arte local y cuestionar los patrones establecidos por los cánones internacionales del mercado.. Para la inauguración del espacio Gerardo Contreros fue elegido como curador y organizo la exhibición "Nothingness and Being Skinny", que incluye el trabajo de Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Ben Jones, Terence Koh, Brian Kokoska y Adriana Lara."

Black Cubicle Toilet Gallery at Celeste House, Mexico City

http://celeste.com.mx/

CELESTE HOUSE, CHAMPAGNE TEA ROOM AND CONCEPT STORE, MEXICO CITY

Celeste champagne, tea and dining room


the bar


and the smokers' room




Celeste Concept Store in the ground floor


found ocean paintings at the male toilet


and the female toilet, soon to be transformed into the Black Cubicle Toilet Gallery!


Celeste House, the only place in the world where I have a napkin with my name embroided on it waiting for me (thanks for the photo Hans!)


Celeste House
Located in a three story old town house in the Anzures neighbourhood of Mexico City, Celeste House has a different function on each of its floors: a concept store on the ground floor, a beauty clinic on the first floor, and a tea room/champagne bar on the second floor. Celeste House is the brainchild of the editors of Celeste Magazine, the couple formed by art curator/business entrepreneur Vanesa Fernandez and her husband, artist Aldo Chaparro, who have now made a live version of their magazine.

ground floor:
Celeste Concept Store. The store has selected objects and products from around the world collected from a Victorian perspective of travel, antique, old and new, from selected books, music, fossils, jewellery, fur duvets, stationary, cigars, orchids, rare crafts, antiques, contemporary design for the house, stuffed animals, silver, mammoth ivory, as well as fashion items, from very young Mexican designers created especially for Celeste to Christian Louboutin shoes, as well as lingerie and traditional Tardan hats with the option to have them tailor made to the exact size and shape of your head.

first floor: Botica Cebeth. Located inside Celeste House, Botica Cebeth is like a XXI century apothecary with a revolutionary homeopathic treatment called ‘phytotherapy’ for the skin (phytotherapy is the use of plant extracts for healing purposes). Unique to the world, this service designs comprehensive treatments and fully personalized formulas to obtain accumulative and long-lasting results. A visit to Cebeth includes a tailor made treatment delivered in old-school apothecary bottles, and extraordinary skin results.

second floor: The Celeste Champagne Tea Room is located in a terrace and has skylights on the roof. An English tea room during the day and a bar at night, it also has a smoking room with a chimney. It is also the only place in the country that sells Pimms. Celeste House serves proper English afternoon tea (scones, clotted cream, elaborate pastries and cucumber sandwiches). There is also a menu for lunch or dinner consisting of game dishes, and delicatessens. The smoking room furniture has been designed by Aldo Chaparro, while the silver (tea set, strainers, flower vase, champagne bucket, etc) were designed by Vanesa Fernández and hand made by one of the oldest silversmith families in Mexico.

Celeste House
Open till late.
Darwin with Kepler, Anzures, Mexico City
T 26146031
www.celeste.com.mx

THAT PARTY AT VANESA AND ALDO'S, MEXICO CITY!

ESCAPING INFLUENZA IN ACAPULCO

Pablo, Vanesa and Pip in the office


Zelika and David in the office


Cheverista Office


David and Vanesa preparing Pisco Sours in the bar


dinner commune!

VANESA DOES LONDON!

Vanesa Fernandez, editor and publisher of Celeste Magazine, in London.

MEANWHILE TERENCE VISITS TEOTIHUACAN AND CELEBRATES WITH AN EXHIBITION IN LA 5 YEARS OF LOVE STORY WITH JAVIER

Vanesa Fernandez, editor of Celeste Magazine, being photographed while photographing Terence Koh as captain ahab a golden buddhist in the pyramids of Teotihuacan.


hello deer

this is terence koh

my first show was with this gallery almost 5 years ago WOW

may 10, 2008 that's gonna bee five years of love between javier peres and me

i remember coming to chung king road for the first time and seeing the little street with red lanterns

i remember falling in love with the street immediately

i remember walking into the gallery and thinking it was perfect and magical

i remember sleeping on the couch of the gallery on the second floor while installing because javier couldn't really afford to pay for my motel (yep motel, not hotel)

i remember eating the mostest yummy steamed shrimp with my boyfriend garrick and javier at the restaurant across the street

i remember driving with javier for the first time in his huge silver jeep on the highways of la way pass midnight at about 180 miles per hour and he was swigging whiskey from a silver flask and i was screaming at him that we were both completely going to die that night

i remember walking around with javier in the seedy pet district of downtown los angeles trying to find two perfect white budgeries for my show and finding them and then going to eat vietnamese desserts right after to congratulate ourselves

i rememeber realizing after spending 8 days in la that waking up every day felt like the most strange deja vu because it was always sunny every day every day

i remember javier contacting me via email for the first time saying immediately he wanted to do a show with me in his new gallery in la and i was very confused because i didn't have a single clue what being an artist was

i remember my first studio visit with javier in my tiny tiny apartment in chinatown in new york and it was night and we sat on my big white table which took up the whole room and i showed him a little white jewerly case with a gold capital M letter stuck on the top and when you opened it there was the thinnest sliver of glass (the kind you use for looking at specimens under microscopes) and it had a gold capital E stuck on it, my ME box and javier said he would buy it for 20 buck and that was the first thing he bought from me

i remember the very first time i met javier was in new york where he standing next to a bed in this little tiny hotel room for the scope art fair and i was there with garrick and i immediately thought javier was someone i could trust and love forever and was going to be a friend for life, and i never felt that way before

i remember every single shopping trip i made with javier buying clothes together, one of our many naughty vices

i remember waiting for javier in the prada shop in london for more than an hour after the store was closed and the whole staff waiting around in the store and looking at me and i was feeling terribly uncomfortable and hating javier every single second because i was waiting for javier to come use his credit card to buy me a mink jacket cause my credit card could not take the 13,500 pounds the jacket cost and then forgiving him afterwards cause it was the most expensive thing i bought to date and it felt great wearing it even though i am vegetarian for ethical reasons

i remember every single morning with javier as the sun came up because we were up all night and hating the sunlight and wished i had sunglasses and borrowing his sunglasses twice

i remember in mykonos, greece baptising javier for his birthday in the dark night of the greek sea, while i was wearing a custom coat made out of about 200 chinese hairs and he was completely naked and i thought that he was my baby son

i remember the absolutely terrifying sound of of 21 shots from a gun that javier fired in the basement space of his gallery for the main piece of our first show, which was 21 identical prints of a lovely young boy on purple paper

i remember very well cycling on my bike round and round at the same spot for about an hour under the yellow glow of street lights near my apartment on henry street and talking to javier on my cell phone when we found out i was in the whitney biennial 3 months after my first show with him

i remember too the 3 months after the opening of our first show when we only sold 2 sculptures and javier and i felt completely miserable cause we thought we would strike it big with money

i rememeber telling javier he was crazy when he said that my sculptures for the whole family show should sell at 1000 dollars a piece and i told him to get a grip and that he should really sell them for 300 dollars or something like that

i remember how excited we were when phil and shelley aarons (they are forever my other daddy and mommy) bought the first thing from the show, which was the owl shelf with the big fake diamonds for eyes

i remember being cramped in many many many small bathrooms with javier all around the world and especially the time javier, dash and me made out at passerby in the bathroom the night of my whitney biennial

i remember a few times when i was drunk horny and high and i wanted javier to fuck me doggy style even though we have never had sex but we like to say we doo

i remember or know that javier has always had a crush on my boyfriend

i remember that javier had a good sense of style when i first met him with his cheap t-shirts and american apparel jeans but that after 5 years of shopping with him i have given him an acquired taste for the very best and now his sense of style is absolutely low key while being strikingly fabulous

i remember driving in a cab in london with javier my DADDY (one of my nicknames for him) a few years ago when we were doing the frieze art fair and telling him that we would know we would have made it when we finally could afford to stay at claridges and now that is our favorite hotel in the world

i remember the time when i caught chicken pox for the first time at the age of 27! and i was crushing in his la apartment and he brought me honey to make a drawing cause i was going mental being stuck in his apartment 24/7

i remember the time when javier stole a blond haired boy from me at around 8am in the morning when i was totally crazy for him and they both secretly went off to have sex with each other instead and i don't think i will ever forgive him for that

i remember javier helping me to glue and paint the sculptures for our first show together in the basement of the gallery at night every night till opening night

i remember 5 years ago when garrick and i were so broke that a good day for us was when we could afford to buy an egg to eat with our pack of 50cent rice which was flavored with free soy sauce packets

i remember that night when javier was having sex with a fucking hot stud in the basement of the la gallery and i came down and i asked if i could join in and the guy wasn't really into it, but javier said please let terence blow your cock and i blew the stud muffin's cock

i remember emailing javier to never forget that my art will always have the the power to give him more passion for life than sex and coke and he immediately replied back NEVER WILL!

i remember shopping for poppers in berlin with javier ass i was too shy to get them myself and when we finally found this sex store in schoenberg we went crazy cause it had 1000s of dvd porn and javier and i dropped about 3000 euro in ten minutes buying the greatest porn ever and i still jerk off to them whenever i think i am running out of art ideas

i rememeber always being really jealous when javier would find a new boyfriend because i knew that meant that for a few weeks he wouldn't pay attention to me as much and i also remember feeling completely evil and selfish when he would break up with a boyfriend and i would feel extremely subconsiously happy cause he would pay all his attention to me again

i remember almost all the countless times i told javier i was going to be the artist that would make the next evolutionary jump in not just art history but history for our millenium and then feeling about half an hour later that i really should work on my modesty skills

i remember the time in leon, spain when we were having our usual late all night discussions and we were talking about what would go on my epitaph on my tombstone and then going to take a piss and it suddenly came to me when the yellow stream was coming out of my dick what it was going to be, and running to javier and telling him it would say LOVE FOR ETERNITY

i will forever and forever and forever remember the magic javier and me created for our first show in that tiny mighty gallery on chung king road in chinatown, los angeles almost five years ago


hugs love hugs
terence koh

new york city, march 13, 2008 sometime after midnight


Javier Peres is pleased to announce Terence KOH's third solo exhibition in Los Angeles, "The Whole Family." Terence Koh (b. 1980, China. Lives in NY, Beijing and Berlin) will be present for the opening.

"The Whole Family" will be on view at Peres Projects (969 Chung King Road, Los Angeles) through June 21, 2008. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, from 11:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M and by appointment.