Sensory Gymnastics: Radames “Juni” Figueroa, Pablo Guardiola, Eric W. Mast, and Harry Everett Smith

April 9 – April 30, 2017
Photos by Mario Gallucci

(Movies for Blind People, Harry Smith connections, layering of information, pattern language, portals, wrestling, frozen juice, resting, watching, and listening).

Public Program

Saturday April 8, 6–10pm
Opening Reception. Don’t miss: Intelligent Monsters, a lecture by Pablo Guardiola. 7:30pm the night of the opening.
Puerto Rican Limbers while supplies last!

Atrium of the Sun, new online work by Portland artists Lisa Radon and Oskar Radon Kimball. A poetic online portal in conjunction with Fiedler’s season.

Radames “Juni” Figueroa lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He obtained his BFA from Escuela de Artes Plásticas in 2007 and in 2013 completed a one year research and interdisciplinary program called La Practica, in Beta Local in San Juan. He has given talks at various institutions and art fairs, such as Chicago Art Institute, IL; and NADA art fair in New York City. He has co-curated various events, among them the First and Second Tropical Biennial, which have taken place in San Juan, PR in 2012 and 2016. His international presence has intensified in recent years, visible by his participation in the Whitney Biennial 2014 and is currently working on a project commissioned by High Line New York City that will be installed for one year. Other projects include a residency at the Malba Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Naguabo Rainbow, Daguao Enchumbao, Fango Fireflies at the Sculpture Center in New York. The Tree House-Casa Club in Naguabo, Puerto Rico that Figueroa constructed in 2013 is emblematic of his larger body of work: it is created out of the surrounding environment as is made from materials found in the tropical rainforest in which it is located and the San Juan streets on which the artist grew up, but it also transforms its locale in that its construction acts as a performance yielding a finished product that is not closed, but active, accessible and celebratory for the community.

Pablo Guardiola is a visual artist with works in sculpture, photography, publications and texts. His work points to different modes of narration and how these are perceived and understood. He has presented his work at the San Francisco Arts Commission, New Langton Arts, and Galería de la Raza in San Francisco; Johannes Vogt and Present Co. in New York City; Embajada in San Juan, PR, among others. He is co-director of Beta-Local, an arts non-profit dedicated to support and promote contemporary art practices and aesthetic thought in Puerto Rico.

Eric W. Mast is a multi-disciplinary artist and electronic musician based in Portland, Oregon. He works with video, sound, painting, drawing and silk screen. He is the founder of the music label Audio Dregs, co-editor of Free Spirit News and co-creator of Dreem Street, a series of handmade silk screens and t-shirts made with Matt Chambers. Mast has exhibited work nationally and internationally, including at Hanna Gallery, Tokyo; Little Cakes Gallery, NYC; CCA, Glasgow; and Ditch Projects in Eugene. He conducted a residency with Impakt in Utrecht and his videos have screened at the New York Underground Film Festival, Best of Peripheral Produce PDX Film Festival, The Modern Art in Paris, and MTV2. His drawings and designs have appeared in books such as Radical Album Cover Art, This is a Magazine compendium, and featured in several publications including Artforum, Res, Plazm, The Fader, After Hours, and on the covers of XLR8R and Yeti.

Harry Everett Smith was a visual artist, experimental filmmaker, record collector, bohemian, mystic, and largely self-taught student of anthropology. Smith was an important figure in the Beat Generation scene in New York City, and his activities, such as his use of mind-altering substances and interest in esoteric spirituality, anticipated aspects of the Hippie movement. Besides his films, Smith is widely known for his influential Anthology of American Folk Music, drawn from his extensive collection of out-of-print commercial 78 rpm recordings. (Biography courtesy of Wikipedia.)