will you meet me by the river’s edge
Yeni Mao
Artist in residence exhibition

The sculptural practice of Yeni Mao engages in issues of fragmentation, exploring equations of the body and architecture through restraint, domination and absence. Working with the agency of materials, objects and building systems, his works emphasize the tension between both their embedded and perceived significance. Mao layers his own personal histories over the expansiveness of these concerns. In his new installation at Co-Lab, Mao will engage concepts of animism and ancestral knowledge through ceramic, steel and leather sculptural elements. The installation will pursue ties between the personal, contemporary, and prescient natures of the multivalent symbol of the serpent. 

Yeni Mao was born in Canada, and spent his developmental years in the United States. He received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and subsequently trained in foundry work in California, and the architectural industries of New York. In 2016 Mao relocated to Mexico City. Yeni Mao’s work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions. Most recently, Mao opened a public sculpture with Brooke Benington in London, presented the solo exhibitions "I desire the strength of nine tigers" at Fierman Gallery in New York, and “vol. 2: cabal” at PAOS in Guadalajara, Mexico. Among the many group exhibitions he has participated in are “Otrxs Mundxs“ at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, “Transnational” at Proxyco and “The Waste Land” at Nicelle Beauchene in New York; and The IX Bienal De Artes Visuales Nicaraguenses in Nicaragua. Mao is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant 2021, and has been awarded multiple residencies including Casa Wabi in Mexico, The Lijiang Studio and Red Gate Gallery in China, The Fountainhead Residency in Miami, OAZO-AIR in Amsterdam, and Flash Atöyle in Turkey. Mao’s work has been written about in The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Advocate, The Village Voice, and the Bangkok Post. In February 2022 he will open his next solo exhibition at Campeche in Mexico City.


Special thank you to Armadillo Clay, East Side Pot Shop, Genna Williams, and Habitable Spaces for their assistance and generosity.

9/11 Memorial: The 20 Year Anniversary
Claude van Lingen

September 11th - 18th, 2021
Viewable during hours and by appointment
Open hours and closing: Saturday, September 18th, 12-6pm

Co-Lab Projects @ Glissman Road
5419 Glissman Road, Austin, TX 78702

Claude van Lingen’s 9/11 Memorial honors those who died on September 11, 2001 in the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania tragedies and pays homage to those who died in the ensuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The exhibition centers around two large drawings in which the names of the 2,753 victims of the World Trade Center were written one over the other, in Claude’s signature style, causing the paper to shed and tear. Extending from this focal point are several other drawings memorializing those who died in the Pentagon attack (125), the Pennsylvania crash (39), as well as works commemorating those who died in the wars since October 7, 2001 in Afghanistan (about 2,500) and Iraq (over 4,000). The names of the latest deaths are regularly updated and written in performance at the openings of 9/11 commemorative exhibitions.

During this memorial exhibition, visitors will be asked to collaboratively create an artwork by writing the names of the victims killed in the 9/11 attacks on a large piece of paper then sign and date their action on another. The signatures will be attached to the back of the artwork and framed.

“I want to thank Sean Gaulager, Austin Nelsen, Leslie Moody Castro, Vladimir Mejia, Chris Burch and the whole team at Co-Lab Projects for presenting this memorial exhibition as well as Dr. Cynthia Playfair and Sherry Keller for lending these works for exhibition commemorating the horrific event that we witnessed personally.” - Claude van Lingen

Claude van Lingen was born in 1931 in Vereeniging, South Africa. He studied at the Johannesburg College of Art and, in 1952, was awarded the National Teacher’s Diploma in Art. After teaching high school for 12 years Claude was appointed Chairman of the Teacher Training Department at the Johannesburg College of Art, and in 1975, Chairman of the Fine Art Department. His application of the principles of the highly successful Perceptual Studies course he designed to his own work led to his winning the prestigious Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Award and representing South Africa at the 1975 São Paulo Biennial.

In 1978 Claude left South Africa and settled in New York. He regularly exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, most notably, in 1991, being invited to show at the prestigious John Weber Gallery. During the 1990s he was represented by the Vera Engelhorn Gallery. In 2005 Claude moved to Austin, TX where he has exhibited regularly, most notably with Co-Lab Projects, has received awards from The Chronicle and had a work acquired by the Blanton Museum of Art.

Since 1980 various incarnations of his 1000 Years From Now theme have been shown in galleries in the USA,Canada, and in the Johannesburg Art Museum. His work is in the permanent collections of the Musée des Art Decoratiefs de la Ville de Lausanne, Switzerland, The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, and in the Johannesburg, Durban, and Hester Rupert Art Museums, South Africa.

NI DE AQUI, NI DE ALLA
Analuz Guerra
Curated by Rebecca Marino

July 3rd - 24th, 2021
On view Saturdays from 12-6 pm and by appointment
Opening Reception and Co-Lab’s 13th Birthday Party: July 3rd, 4-10 pm
(See event guidelines below)

Co-Lab Projects @ Glissman Road
5419 Glissman Road, Austin, TX 78702

In the Aztec language Nahuatl, Nepantla means “in the middle” or “in-between-ness” often referring to individuals or groups in cultural conflict. As a Mexican American woman, Guerra embraces herself as Nepantlera and digs deeply to deconstruct her identity and upbringing on both sides of the border. In her first solo exhibition, Guerra unearths materials and techniques in thoughtful conversation with her maternal ancestry, both before and after the colonization of Mexico. Harvesting the seemingly small pieces (a puncture, clay, thread, a kernel of corn, etc.) that ultimately connect to a much larger existence, Guerra reignites and reexamines the value of tradition, the inherent mysticism of our roots, and her own physical body as a bridge between cultural realms.

Analuz Guerra is a Mexican American mixed media artist working out of San Marcos. Her work is autobiographical, focusing on the activities of her Mexican family and how they evolved through generations and as they crossed the border. Guerra uses mediums like clay, film, and fibers to explore the storytelling of her family and its connection to the sustainable lifetime our mother’s mothers led. By exploring these activities Guerra comments on the sensory activities that have been lost in her family and her want to relearn her own survival magic.

Click here for exhibition list

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Please observe the following COVID precautions:

• Wear a mask while at the check-in desk/bar and inside the gallery

• No more than 4 individuals inside the gallery at a time

• Social distance while outside and be conscious of others level of comfort regarding proximity and masks

• Come early if you wish to be around less people and come later if you’re comfortable around more people

• We encourage COVID testing before and after the event, testing is available for free through the City of Austin, CVS, and other locations around Austin. www.austintexas.gov/covid-testinfo

A Wished for and Welcome Guest
Featuring Kayla Jones, TJ Lemanski, Ariel Wood, Ted Carey, Rebecca Marino, Jules Buck Jones, Nom Ceramics (Rebeca Milton & Scott Proctor), Alexis Mabry, Emily Lee, Anika Carterfield, Michael Anthony Garcia, Mai Snow, David Culpepper, Valerie Chaussonnet, Ron Geibel, Jeremy Burks, Alex Diamond, Emily Cayton, Amy Scofield, and Robert Jackson Harrington

April 10th - May 22nd, 2021
On view Saturdays from 12-6 pm and by appointment
Closing Reception featuring a screening of our Video Open Call program from 2020: Saturday, May 22nd, 6-10 pm

Co-Lab Projects @ Glissman Road
5419 Glissman Road, Austin, TX 78702

Get the exhibition list here

Read reviews from The Austin Chronicle and Sightlines


1.
They say the number 21 is symbolic of success in the completion of desires, the fulfillment of what is willed. It is the numeric symbol for new beginnings and new changes. They also say it is the weight in grams of the human soul. 

2.
Five concrete cubes fit together to form a tunnel-like structure. Five massive concrete cubes fit together to form a tunnel-like structure, and allow things to move past physical impediments. Five massive, concrete cubes fitted together, above ground form a bridge-like structure that allows for an active process of joining together. These five massive, above ground, bridges of concrete structures are now our conduits, our play between indoors and outdoors, our space coming to life and coming together once more. 

3.
A wish and a guest. A body and an experience, an architectural embellishment, the opacity of public and private desire. Lightness in mass and the play of touch. A wish and a guest. A space to receive and a space to breathe, and a space to share as we learn to share once more. A welcome intimacy of 21 old friends, of 13 years, of five cubes, and grass, and space. Of 13 years of more than 21, all who converge here in this open space of cubes and grass. 

4.
They say the weight of a soul is so much more than just the grams the body expends in the final breath of life. The weight of the soul is everything that came before that packs perfectly into a measurement that we can conceivably understand. That the weight of a soul is determined by the years of new beginnings, changes, will, and success. Weight as measurement is like a space without inhabitants, it cannot be appraised simply by density, but by the lives that bring life to every space. Weight is not a simple number, but the accumulation of them, of everything that operates and has operated in contributing to challenges, successes, of everything beautiful and grotesque. 

5.
Over the past year we have learned to operate in the presence of our absences. We have learned to build solidarity as a community without communing. We have grown resilient in our history. That history brings us to the present, and that present is a space both indoor and out, a space of a yard, of a tunnel, of a cube, of a new site and a new home. Our presence after so much absence is our resilience throughout our past forging with our present as we prepare to welcome once more. 

Text by Director Leslie Moody Castro

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Co-Lab Projects is pleased to announce the opening of “A Wished for and Welcome Guest”, our first exhibition in and around our newly realized culvert gallery at the Glissman property. As a nod to our history, and in the sentiment of gathering our community once more, this reopening exhibition includes 21 artists who have shown with us in the past.

Please observe the following COVID precautions:

• Wear a mask while at the check-in desk/bar and inside the gallery

• No more than 4 individuals inside the gallery at a time

• Social distance while outside and be conscious of others level of comfort regarding proximity and masks

• Come early if you wish to be around less people and come later if you’re comfortable around more people

• We encourage COVID testing before and after the event, testing is available for free through the City of Austin, CVS, and other locations around Austin. www.austintexas.gov/covid-testinfo