Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa: Requiem for Mirrors and Tigers

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Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa, "Requiem for Mirrors and Tigers," 2018

Grunt Gallery

Working in drawing, performance, sculpture and video, Ramírez-Figueroa explores the entanglement of history and form through the lens of his own displacement during and following Guatemala’s Civil War of 1960–96. Borrowing from the languages of folklore, science fiction, and theatre, he reframes historical events and protagonists.

In late February grunt gallery will reveal an exhibition and accompanying book featuring Ramírez-Figueroa’s recent performance works captured on moving images through the If I Can’t Dance Amsterdam project. A total of six media pieces will be displayed in a retrospective of the artist’s works. These videos will be featured at grunt gallery for the Capture Photography Festival.

The series, produced over the past two years, features a series of interrelated performances produced for the camera in different spaces. The artist Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa along with If I Can’t Dance Amsterdam’s curator, Susan Gibbs, will be visiting for the launch of the organization’s new book and to do a talk about collaboration for project’s series and about producing films featuring artists working solo or with an ensemble in an ethereal series of performances. 

In Requiem, Ramírez-Figueroa uses his body and direct action to create a series of images related to the history of the Guatemalan Civil War. Approaching the Civil War from a personal perspective, he has softened these images through abstraction and humour, while attempting to use the intensity of the performance schedule to push beyond the immense force of the collective and inscribed memory of the war’s history. Beyond the live performances, the cycle of works form a collection of videos.

A panel will also be held at SFU’s Audain Gallery, located in SFU Woodwards at 149 West Hastings Street, on February 22 from 7–9 PM with Alma Ruiz, Sabeth Buchmann, and Peter Dickinson called Performing Intertextuality. The panel will discuss Naufus’ forthcoming project next year, Corazón del espantapájaros (Heart of the Scarecrow) (2019), and Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens' When the Guests Are Not Looking (Jan 20-Feb 17).

ARTIST BIO Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa lives and works in Berlin and Guatemala City. He was born in Guatemala City in 1978 and immigrated to Vancouver in the early 1980’s. In 2006 he received a BFA in Media Arts from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and, in 2008, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was also a postgraduate researcher at Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, the Netherlands, in 2013. He has had recent solo exhibitions at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux; DAAD Galerie, Berlin (2017); and Gasworks, London (2015). Group exhibitions include São Paulo Biennial, Venice Biennale; LACMA, Los Angeles (2017); Lyon Biennial; and EFA Project Space, New York (2015). He has participated in performance series at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2017); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2016); and Tate Modern, London (2015). In recognition of his achievement, Ramírez-Figueroa was awarded the Mies van der Rohe Award (2017); and a DAAD fellowship (2015-16).