Jorge Méndez Blake
Dismantling Gorostiza
9 September - 18 November 2017
As part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, 1301PE is pleased to present its third exhibition, Dismantling Gorostiza, with Jorge Méndez Blake. Méndez Blake who is known for his play between art, literature and architecture will exhibit a new body of work based on multiple texts by Mexican, modern writer José Gorostiza (10 November 1901 - 16 March 1973).
Méndez Blake works with the four publications Gorostiza wrote in his lifetime: three poetry: Muerte sin Fin [Death without End], del Poema Frustrado [Frustrated Poem] and Canciones para Cantar en las Barcas [Songs to Sing on Boats] and the other an essay, Notas sobre Poesía [Notes on Poetry].
Gorostiza was a diplomat and professor, but he was best known for his poetry for which he was awarded membership to the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua. Méndez Blake recalls learning Muerte sin Fin, "it was a poem that every elementary school child learned."
Méndez Blake applies precise methods in which the new texts are "written" using existing characters, letters and words.
"For me to dissect a text and produce something different with it is a reading-writing process."
Throughout Méndez Blake's new painting, drawing and sculpture he continues to look at the interrelation between art, literature, architecture and the notion of "dismantling of language."
Jorge Méndez Blake lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico. Méndez Blake's recent solo museum presentations include: 2014, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; 2010, Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles; 2010, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; and 2008, Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City. He was the recipient of the Young Creators Grant in 2007-2008 by the National Fund for Culture and Arts, Mexico. Selected group exhibitions include; 2014, Requiem for the Bibliophile, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara; 2013, Escotoma: Historias de Butades, Galeria Metropolitana de la UAM, Mexico City; 2012, Resisting the Present, Musée d'Arte Moderne, Paris; Crisisss América Latina, Arte y Confrontación: 1910-2010, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City.
![Jorge Mendez Blake, Canciones para cantar en las barcas [Songs to Sing on Boats], 2017, Bronze, 72 x 228 inches approx., Edition of 3, 1 AP](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59cc690fcf81e0b2a21215aa/1508359768900-9V0NVJV2LUFYUPW0T003/JMB092017_24.jpg)
![Detail, Jorge Mendez Blake, Canciones para cantar en las barcas [Songs to Sing on Boats], 2017, Bronze, 72 x 228 inches approx., Edition of 3, 1 AP](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59cc690fcf81e0b2a21215aa/1508359768925-TM7D22LOGPDBJ30KGBZP/JMB092017_25.jpg)