SANTIAGO CUCULLU INSTALLS SITE-SPECIFIC COMMISSION AT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SAN DIEGO’S LA JOLLA LOCATION

Thursday, 23 November 2006 17:32

San Diego, CA — Milwaukee-based Argentinean artist Santiago Cucullu (coo-cu-shu) has been commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego to create a site-specific installation at the Museum’s La Jolla location.  His work, which will be on view through May 13, 2007, is in conjunction with the exhibition TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art.

Cucullu creates large wall drawings, watercolors, and sculptures that depict imagery culled from historical events and personal recollections.  The mural-size drawings, made from hand-cut contact paper pressed directly against the gallery wall, draw from a wide range of references, including revolutionary figures, film noir, rock bands, and historical novels.  These times, places, and figures are then combined with people and events recollected from Cucullu’s own life to create hybrid stories.

Cucullu’s immersive environments engage the architecture of the gallery, and he creates sculptures made of everyday materials—aluminum, wood, airline blankets, and pillows—to interrupt the viewer’s usual movement through the galleries.  With his brightly colored, abstract visual language, the artist matches the buoyant utopian aspirations of past revolutionaries, questioning the possibility of painting history objectively and examining how specific historical figures have been represented and digested by Western culture.

VISIT The MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SAN DIEGO at : www.mcasd.org/