A solo exhibition of work by Mónica Palma
Tianguis
Curated by Eleanna Anagnos
December 5 - December 20, 2020
Mónica Palma will be present and working at OyG every Sat & Sun 1-4pm during the run of the show

Ortega y Gasset Projects is pleased to present a solo presentation of Mónica Palma’s work curated by Eleanna Anagnos. This is Palma’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Palma’s labor-intensive, large works explore Pre-Columbian culture, psychoanalysis, alchemy, ritual, divination, and healing. Spanning different genres and media, Mónica Palma employs drawing, textile design, painting, sculpture and performance to negotiate the breach between her Mexican heritage and her experience living in the US.

Tianguis is a large floor drawing, an evolving project, that will take form over a period of weeks as the artist gathers ingredients from different vendors in the neighborhood, macerating them into pigments, rubbing and pouring them into the surface. Palma will also utilize materials sent by her mother and sister who live in Mexico City. The project is a tribute to those whose wisdom and labor put food on our tables.

Palma discusses the project: For once, I want to conclusively stay on the ground, begin there and end there. I might walk or take the R train from Ortega y Gasset Projects to 45th street and 5th Avenue. I’ve been in Sunset Park many times looking for ingredients, I know some of the grocery stores, not by name yet, but I know what they carry. I’ve seen nopales, I’ve seen fresh aromatic herbs, I go there, order in Spanish, my message is received without a trace of equivocality. Some vendors in Mexico keep their vegetables on the floor, close to the soil where they grew. I don’t know if they do it out of convenience or out of attachment. I’ve seen seeds and flower rugs in Humantla, Tlaxcala – what a celebration, what order! But what am I celebrating? Is this even a celebration? I’ll be a quadruped or a baby crawling, a body twisting, and kneeling.

The word Tianguis is derived from the Nahuatl word for an open-air market.

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Mónica Palma was born and raised in Mexico City, she studied visual art at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Veracruz. In 2008 she received her MFA in Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has been living and working in Brook- lyn since 2008. Her work has been shown at TSA (NYC), 245 Varet Street (NYC), Ortega y Gasset Projects (NYC), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), Soloway Gallery (NYC), Underdonk Gallery (NYC) and Essex Flowers (NYC).

Eleanna Anagnos (She/her) (born Evanston, IL) is a Chicago-raised, NYC and Mexico City-based artist and curator. In her work she explores the relationship between our bodies in space, notions of being, and the concept of time. Eleanna has received awards from Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts; The Rauschenberg Foundation Residency; The 2018-2019 Grant Wood Fellow in Painting; Yaddo; BAU Institute at the Camargo Foundation; The Anderson Ranch; The Atlantic Center for the Arts; and The Joan Mitchell Foundation. Recent exhibitions include: Monaco, St. Louis; Good Naked, Brooklyn, NY; Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, NY ; The BRIC Biennial in Brooklyn, NY , High Noon Gallery, New York, NY. Her curatorial projects have been featured in The New York Times; Art in America; and the New York Observer. Eleanna has been a Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects since 2014.