Antifaratu at Mascota

Artist: Zoe Barcza, David Douard Matthew Kenny, Bradford Kessler, Tony Morgan

Exhibition title: Antifaratu

Curated by: Wills Baker

Venue: Mascota, Mexico City

Date: October 12 – November 2, 2017

Photography: Juan Pablo de la Vega, all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Mascota, Mexico City

One page
one man
/Her/Man
a white page a white space
at the end of it ALL
the scream echoes back
Back through the lost people
coming to-gether in another world
where we might see/or be seen
eye to eye
where I can touch you/ ALL

-From the catalogue “Transformer: Aspects of Travesty curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann” back page, Tony Morgan (HERMAN) 1974.

Galeria Mascota is pleased to present Antifaratu an exhibition conceived by Wills Baker. Featuring works by David Douard (b.1983), Matthew Kenny (b.1979), Bradford Kessler (b.1983), The estate of Tony Morgan (b. 1938 -2004) and Zoe Barcza (b.1984).

The horror genre operates off of one principle alone: fear for pleasure. Meet Antifa2, an amalgamation of divine parts, (absentis corporis) an absent body invoked for devotion, Antifa2 prowls the night, she is a transgender, leftist whore of spectacle, an apparition come to uproot tradition and posses the most hard-hearted conservatives with desire. She flies, he screams, a murderous wretch begging to be seen. Five leading international artists invoke and respond to the symptoms of contemporary social rupture, technological violence, and political disintegration. This event will mark the first presentation in Latin America on behalf of all participants.

“oh trust in me my pretty/Come walk with me my helpless one.” (Tinderbox,1969)
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Zoe Barcza (b.1984) makes paintings versed in contemporary phobias of social intimacy, digital fixation, and toxic health paranoia. Her practice infuses humor and violence to measure the degree with which the two dominate modern spectacle and fetishism

David Douard (b.1983) creates sculptures that unravel the figurative underbelly of a city, taking unseen systems that support daily life, like surveillance, mass transport and sewage grids and fuses them to an awareness of inevitable decay, contamination and anarchy.

Matt Kenny (b.1979) re-records political assassinations, dedicating a particular focus to the shooting of JFK, even creating paintings modeled after the bullets that took the life of the late U.S. president. His works persistently questions how events of public trauma are shaped and recorded in the collective conscience.

Bradford Kessler (b.1983) plays with the tropes of religious evangelism and in particular histories of paranormal fear mongering. His instillations explore everything from the history of weapons to the commercial deployment of horror mascots and normalized violence.

Tony Morgan (b. 1938, Leicestershire, UK – 2004, Geneva, Switzerland). Utilized the medium of video and performance to explicitly capture often violent and bizarre activities, partially in step with the Fluxus movement the works are humorous and bleak reactions to rapid social and political change. In the 1970’s Morgan shifted his attention to themes of gender and identity politics inventing his part-female alias and alter ego Herman Fame.