Upstairs Gallery: Curtis Talwst Santiago : an erratum

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Curtis Talwst Santiago
an erratum

March 1 — April 26, 2020
Opening Reception: Sunday, March 1, 6-8pm

Rachel Uffner Gallery is pleased to present an erratum, Curtis Talwst Santiago's third exhibition with the gallery. The show coincides with Can't I Alter on view at The Drawing Center, the artist's first institutional solo exhibition in New York. 

An erratum is a term used in writing to indicate a correction within an already published and circulated text. Continuing themes explored at The Drawing Center, here, Santiago considers genetic and ancestral imagination while questioning the means and production of our contemporary understanding of history. The show, installed in the upstairs gallery, will focus on new sculptures and wall works which utilize an array of material, from cast paper made from brick walls in Brooklyn to glass beads sourced from South Africa.

Santiago's nomadic and decentralized lifestyle has immensely informed his explorations of issues such as transculturalism, memory, and ancestry within contemporary experience. Using the concept of "genetic imagination" or the ability to access generational knowledge through imaginative recollection, he wades through lost and hidden histories in an attempt to understand and discover his diasporic heritage. The artist’s tableaus on paper molds form to present an archeological finding—as if they were torn or found from a mural depicting imagined histories of his alter ego, the J'ouvert Knight. Santiago blurs recorded history with an imagined ancestral past. He creates a visual narrative of unknown family members and predecessors while allowing space for contemplating the implications of misrepresented and lost stories within contemporary society. 

Curtis Talwst Santiago (b. 1979, Edmonton, Alberta) studied as an apprentice of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Santiago has exhibited internationally at venues such as The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; The New Museum, New York, NY; The Eli and Edythe Broad Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA; the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada; The Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; and the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; among others. The artist was included in the inaugural 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art in Toronto, Canada, the SITE Santa Fe SITELines.2018 Biennial, Casa Tomada, in Santa Fe, NM, and was featured in the 2018 Biennale de Dakar in Dakar, Senegal. The artist’s solo exhibition Can’t I Alter, is on view at The Drawing Center, NY until May 10, 2020. His work is in the permanent collection of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY. Santiago considers himself decentralized and lives and works between New York, NY, Lisbon, Portugal, and Toronto, CA.