guadalajara90210 x Co-Lab Projects present:
Collective Tales in a Concrete Garden
Featuring Justo Cisneros, Gabrielle Constantine, Erin Cunningham, Emily Lee, Emma Rossoff, Marco Rountree, Anthony Rundblade, Alma Saladin, Amy Scofield, Sara Vanderbeek, Suzanne Wyss, and Ariel Wood

November 9th - December 14th, 2024
Co-Lab Projects, 5419 Glissman Rd, Austin, TX 78702
Open Hours: Saturdays 12-6pm

In a scenario where nature and the urban landscape intertwine, Collective Tales in a Concrete Garden explores the dialogue between organic elements and industrial forms. Set within a sculptural garden, the exhibition presents stories told through a variety of materials—stone, metal, wood, ceramics, mixed media, and living flora. Each sculpture embodies a fragment of a larger narrative, blending personal and collective histories that reflect on the relationship between nature, space, and memory.

Surreal figures, abstract forms, and unexpected textures emerge from gravel pedestals, which serve as grounding elements in this evolving narrative. The gravel, with its industrial origins and earthy presence, not only supports the sculptures but also frames them as key elements in the broader exploration of the balance between the organic and the constructed. Through the interplay of material and form, the exhibition unfolds as a meditation on transformation, coexistence, and the merging of natural and built environments.

Parallel to the outdoor section, the narrative moves indoors into the confines of a culvert. Here, fabric panels hang from the ceiling, each printed with a collage or image by the participating artists. These suspended pieces form a collective narrative that unfolds as one walks through the space, creating a continuous flow of visual storytelling. This enclosed environment contrasts with the open garden, offering a new dimension to the collective tales woven into the exhibition.

Guadalajara90210 is a project dedicated to contemporary art with venues in Mexico City and Guadalajara (MX). Founded in 2017, guadalajara90210 emerged from the desire to experiment and establish a strong dialogue with architecture.  As an exhibition space, guadalajara90210 has four fundamental principles: valuing experimentation, generating collaborative dynamics, adapting to the social context and physical environment of each project, and considering exhibitions in symbiosis with the architecture of the specific place through specific museographies.

Co-Lab Projects Presents:

Lines Composed During A Tour
Featuring Sara Vanderbeek, Andy Coolquitt, Kristi Kongi, and Erin Curtis
Curated by Leslie Moody Castro and Sean Gaulager
March 9th - 30th, 2019

Open Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 12-6pm

Culled from a few of our favorite recent exhibitions, this selection of work focuses on materials, movement, pattern, color, and light. Each of these artists employ very different techniques, often utilizing textiles, iconography, flora, found objects, “sloppy” geometry and fabrication; but all elicit reverential humor for the commonplace and the banal objects of everyday life. Their use of color and pattern unify their collective voices while offering entry points into their individual practices. While each of the four artists pull references from a variety of sources, histories, and contexts the formal qualities of the works offer moments of connectivity and reciprocity, engaging in playful dialog with one another and the exhibition space itself.

Sara Vanderbeek is a Texas-based multi-disciplinary visual artist who creates concept-driven series focused on reframing the window and vernacular of portraiture. Her brightly colored work contextualizes autobiographical experiences, appropriates visual imagery and responds to culture and politics. Her artwork has been included in several solo and group shows nationally, including the McNay Art Museum, Art Palace, The Contemporary Austin, grayDUCK Gallery, Freight Gallery, Deitch Projects, Co-Lab Projects and was included in the 2013 Texas Biennial at Blue Star Contemporary. In addition to her studio practice, she works as an independent art consultant and Director of DORF, an alternative gallery space in Austin.  She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2003.

Andy Coolquitt was born in Texas in 1964 and currently lives in Austin. He recently opened a solo exhibition titled “Andy Coolquitt: i need a hole in my head” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, in California. Coolquitt is perhaps most widely known for a house, a performance/studio/domestic space that began as his master's thesis project at the University of Texas at Austin in 1994, and continues to the present day. He has been an artist-in-residence at Artpace, San Antonio, TX; Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX; and 21er Haus, Vienna, Austria. Recent exhibitions include the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs, NY; The Contemporary Austin, Texas; The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Colorado; Rodeo Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey; and The Goethe Institute - Ludlow 38, New York. His work is included in the collections of the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria; the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; and the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York.

Kristi Kongi (Tallinn, Estonia; 1985) is a visual artist whose paintings and site specific installations focus on the nuances of light and its effect on color. Her works use color to build and preserve narratives, memories and histories while offering a different perspective and point of view. Kristi studied painting at Tartu Art College (BA, 2004-2008) and graduated from Estonian Academy of Arts painting department (MA, 2008-2011). She’s been awarded with Young Artist Prize (2011), Sadolin Art Prize (2013) and was nominated for Köler Prize in 2016. Kongi was awarded with Konrad Mägi Prize in 2017. She is Associate Professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts painting department.

Erin Curtis is an artist living and working in Austin, Texas. Her recent work reflects an interest in geometric abstraction and its historical roots in weaving, architecture, nature and ritual. Curtis’s work combines utopic ideals of beauty and structure, with process and chance. Primarily working as a painter, she also creates, large-scale, site-specific installations and public art projects. She has received grants from the Dallas Museum of Art, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the City of Austin and the District of Columbia. Recently, Curtis had solo shows at Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX (2017), CalPoly San Luis Obispo University, California (2016), Big Medium Gallery in Austin, Texas (2015) and at Flashpoint Gallery (2015) in Washington, DC. She has created commissioned works for the Chicago Transit Authority, City of Washington DC, Facebook, Art in Embassies and The City of Austin. Curtis attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2010 and was awarded fully funded residencies at Anderson Ranch (2012) and Vermont Studio Center (2014). In 2008-2009, Curtis was a Fulbright Scholar in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Curtis graduated from Williams College with a BA in Liberal Arts in 1999 and received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007.

Artists: Ryan Davis, Sara Vanderbeek, Noel Kalmus, Steef Crombach, Drew Liverman, Erin Curtis, Manik Raj Nakra, Paul de Jong, and Floor van het Nederend. 

For EXPEDITION BATIKBACK curator and artist Steef Crombach offered six artists from Austin and two artists from The Netherlands the opportunity to learn the process and create works in the traditional Indonesian technique known as Batik. This fully saturated fabric dyeing process allows the artist's compositions to become three-dimensional objects, viewable from front and back. When suspended from the ceiling in the gallery they create a structure for visitors to navigate. After their exhibition at DEMO Gallery the works will travel with Steef back to Holland to be shown there.

The artists selected to participate in the workshop and exhibition all incorporate strong color palettes, use of bold linework, and patterning into their paintings. These painterly qualities transfer well to Batik and each of the artists brings their individual style to the medium. Untraditional themes, pop-elements, patterns, and colors contrast with the traditional use of Batik and the unique way the works are shown shed new light on the technique. 

“Ours was not going to be a clone of the usual expeditions, oozing with sleekness. It was clear from the start that oddity was our advantage.”
― Tahir Shah, House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City