Ricardo Alcaide “Down the Line” at Johannes Vogt Gallery

Johannes Vogt Gallery is pleased to present “Down The Line,” the first solo exhibition at the gallery by Ricardo Alcaide, a Venezuelan artist based in São Paulo. Alcaide’s site- specific floor installation investigates notions of instability in urban environments as a result of the mistranslation of modernism and its inherent concept of progress to Latin America.

Alcaide has used the gallery’s white cube space as a studio to create a series of sculptural painting-panels in varying sizes that are presented horizontally on the floor. In order to make these works the artist mounts wooden slats onto the surface of the panels whilst applying glossy polyurethane paint regularly used in car shops. The screwed in slats leave marks on the paint underneath once removed, like remnants of the history of its making. Within Alcaide’s installation each work follows its own linear composition while engaging a dialogue with the works in its immediate proximity. In a flow of push- and-pull, the repetitive character of the compositional methods used by the artist alludes to the sometimes monotonous formalistic appeal of modernist architecture.