DREAM TEAM BY CRACK RODRIGUEZ*

Co-presentation with LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions).

From February 27, 2022

DREAM TEAM BY CRACK RODRIGUEZ

Co-curated by LACE Chief Curator Daniela Lieja Quintanar and MOLAA Chief Curator Gabriela Urtiaga

The Museum of Latin American Art, together with LACE, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, have the honor of presenting the first solo museum exhibition in the United States of the Salvadorean artist Crack Rodriguez.

DREAM TEAM is not only an emotive title for this exhibition, but also a philosophical and political proclamation by this young artist that centers the complex experience of migration through artistic praxis. As a multi-disciplinary creator and as a Central American, Crack Rodriguez is interested in investigating and interpreting the cultural, religious, spiritual, social, economic, and political codes that delineate and characterize particular aspects of the System. Above all, Rodriguez is most interested in the different modes of seeing this reality, exploring new pathways of interconnectivity, new ways of creating, and dreaming of possible worlds.

Through spontaneous and participatory performances, with help from unaware publics, the artist seeks intersecting points of affinity, which are certainly foreign to the world of art, but profoundly and intuitively in the social collective. Be it through games or gatherings, and proclamations in public spaces, Rodriguez’s artistic elements work as inspiration to create an array of activities and an atmosphere that are aligned with an anti, adversarial energy and narrative.

One of the central elements in the artist’s practice is the use of his own body, displayed and existing in public spaces, and in a constant dynamic with collective life. His performances position him politically, and through parody, game, and hysteria, express his frustration with the difficult Salvadorean social context that includes migration due to violence, and the displacement and aftermath of war – contexts which are all connected to the historical and unequal power relationship with the United States. DREAM TEAM is a body of work that honors the migrant struggle and opens a space to dream and create futures in these lands.

*Commissioned by LACE as part of Intergalactix: against isolation/contra el aislamiento.

About the artist

Crack Rodriguez

El Salvador, b. 1980
Lives and works in El Salvador

Crack Rodriguez is an artist and activist, and lives and works in La Libertad, El Salvador. He’s a member of The Fire Theory, an art collective based out of El Salvador. Rodriguez is also a member of the artistic movement “Los Siempre Sospechosos de Todo” (Those Always Suspicious of Everything).

His practice and actions are intrinsically related to social, political, and popular culture, from which ties to the public – who react and or participate in his practice – are built. Rodriguez resignifies his public, not as passive spectators but as accomplices of the action’s memory, to catalyze the rituals of the social context in order to question and demystify symbols and narratives belonging to abuses of power  that seek to impose their acute vision of truth as the official one.

Rodriguez was a beneficiary and participant of the Landings project by curator Joan Duran Mérida, in Yucatán / Belize, which was an important influence on Rodriguez’s practice.

His work was presented at CreativeTime Summit 2017 “Patria y Revolución”, coordinated by Creative Time and The PowerPlant Art Gallery in Toronto to speak on his approach & practice: “Ignorance as Revolution and Fear as Homeland”. He completed his OPEN SOURCE RESIDENCE ART with The Fire Theory in September 2017 in Brooklyn, New York on situations related to migrations. Rodriguez has been nominated as a 2014 MISOL Emerging Artist Grant from the MISOL Foundation in Bogotá, Colombia. He was a member of the Zummer Paul Klee Academy in 2015, curated by Hassan Khan Berne, Switzerland. Rodriguez was selected for the artistic residence DESPINA 2016 "Art and activism in Latin America" in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from September-October 2016. 

Co-presentation with LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions).