“Theater of the Absurd at the Border Gallery curated by Nina Mdivani

Roberto Clemente De Leon and Shiri Mordechay

October 22- November 13, 2021

Setting

In the dual show at the Border Gallery, Brooklyn-based drawer and painter Shiri Mordechay and South Carolina-based multidisciplinary artist Roberto Clemente De Leon will present six distinct works that challenge our understanding of shared reality and its norms. Viscerally connected to the Theater of the Absurd, one of the most distinguished cultural movements of XX century, Shiri Mordechay and Roberto Clemente De Leon dazzle with their alternative ways of seeing human society. The elusive narrative they work with might come across as dark, but nonetheless, it is raw and real. As European playwrights Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter the two artists address the absurdity of the contemporary society. They construct works where humanlike figures, animals and hybrid creatures find their way from a subconsciousness into the daylight and also confront us with the way we treat them. Presenting the works at the Border Project Space known for its experimental approach is timely because both artists speak to the present. They offer a vision that could be our reality, but does not have to be if we make different choices. For Mordechay the setting is her psyche, a dimension that exists within the inner eye consisting of realism of this plane, but also of other imaginary planes. De Leon’s setting is any animal farm across the U.S. and the world where millions of animals are slaughtered based on popular demand.

Actors

Mordechay’s dense, large drawings with ink and watercolor consist of self-conscious figurative characters – people, animals, furniture, plants- all arriving in an organic form. Her characters are phantasmagoric and at the same time comic to an absurd degree. They are obscure, yet, they seduce us – as they act out traumas. Domesticated animals are protagonists for De Leon who uses clay, wood, and porcelain. He has consistently interrogated imagery of domestication due to his deep concern for the inhuman reality dominating the U.S. food industry, asking questions of how animals live and how their lives affect ours.

Plot

At a time when language is no longer needed in modern society, largely becoming a barrier rather than a way to connect, pantomime and theatrical gestures gain insignificance. The therapeutic quality of laughing at our absurd state, at our inability to understand the depth of another person’s suffering can be achieved through looking. Art can stand in as it did throughout the disrupting realities of XX century Europe ravaged by human destructiveness and inhumanity. Existential loneliness of human beings is the main plot of this exhibition and presented art is the means to grasp it.

Artist bios

Roberto Clemente De Leon

Roberto Clemente De Leon was born in Santa Clara, Cuba, but raised in Miami, Florida by the age of nine in 1993. His introduction to clay began in 2013 while attending Miami International University of Art and Design where he received his BFA in Visual Arts. During his time in Miami International University of Art and Design, he developed a body of work that would bring awareness to endangered species and animal cruelty. In 2017, he was accepted to the University of South Carolina and awarded the Presidential Fellowship where he received his MFA in Studio Art.

Shiri Mordechay

Shiri Mordechay was born in Israel and raised in Nigeria. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from School of Visual Arts in New York, where she now lives. In 2013, she was named as one of “25 Artists to Watch & Collect” by Artvoices Magazine. She has been interviewed by Juxtapoz, Artillery and Art in America magazines. She was featured in the 2020 New American Paintings publication (juried by Jerry Saltz). Mordechay describes her paintings as if the ideas arrive from outside- yet anyone with an eye for the grotesque and sardonic can spot the humor that could only be her own. Imagery seems to arrive by chance and move about within a pre-moral realm and conjure what Julia Kristeva calls an “oceanic feeling.” Selected solo exhibitions: “From Afternoon Until Midnight,” Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; “Tempest in a Teacup,” Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; “Serpents of the Rainbow,” Alter Space Gallery, San Francisco, CA; “Impossible World,” at The Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona, Italy;“ Primeval Systems” Plane Space Gallery, New York, NY.

Curator: Nina Mdivani

Nina Mdivani is Georgian-born and New York-based independent curator, writer and researcher. Her academic background includes International Relations and Gender Studies from Tbilisi State University, Mount Holyoke College and, most recently, Museum Studies from City University of New York. Nina’s book,

King is Female, published in October 2018 in Berlin by Wienand Verlag explores the lives of three Georgian women artists and is the first publication to investigate questions of the feminine identity in the context of the Eastern European historical, social, and cultural transformation of the last twenty years. Nina regularly writes for outlets such as Arte Fuse, White Hot Magazine, Arte & Lusso, Indigo Magazine, Art Spiel.  As curator and writer Nina is interested in discovering hidden narratives within dominant cultures with focus on minorities and migrations. Her recent exhibitions include Defied Logic at Ivy Brown Gallery,

This is Not My Tree at NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, Rooms & Beings at 68 Projects, Berlin and New York Meets Tbilisi: Defining Otherness at Kunstraum LLC and Assembly Room, New York City. Public Digital Art Platform is another new global initiative that is curated by Nina.