DEKNEW – Deborah Kruger

Deborah Kruger’s Artwork in Museum Exhibition

Friday night, I attended the opening of the Collection of Carlos Diaz Corona, Una Linea en el Agua at the Museo Raul Angiano (MURA) in the Chapultapec neighborhood of Guadalajara (MURA is the contemporary art museum of the city of Guadalajara). Carlos has one of the largest collections of contemporary art work in Jalisco. His work as a professional photographer @photocardiaco has established him as the pre-eminent photographer of contemporary art in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City.

I have worked with Carlos since I arrived in Mexico in 2010. I feel fortunate to have him as my photographer, my friend, and now my collector. He has not only shot all my new artwork made since 2010, but he has also shot my artwork in situ, notably during my solo exhibition Avianto, at the Train Station Museum in 2022.

As my career has been heating up internationally, Carlos expressed an interest in adding my abstract art to his collection. Over the last four years, we started to build up a purchase fund. Every time we had a shoot, I would pay Carlos a portion of the cost and keep half in an acquisition fund. I created a spreadsheet to keep track of each photo shoot. It included the date, title of pieces, the location (Chapala or Guadalajara), the cost of shoot, the amount paid and the amount on deposit for his art collection.

By the time my solo exhibition opened at the @centroculturalgonzalezgallo, known locally as the Train Station Museum, Carlos was ready to bring his wife, Lulu, to preview the show and choose pieces for their collection. They chose two pieces. One of my older works, Remnants 17 created in 2011, which received a special mention for the Member Exhibition of the Surface Design Association conference in Minneapolis, MN that same year.

Carlos and Lulu also chose Plumas 2, created in 2022 as part of my new small works collection.

Cutline for Plumas 2:

Plumas 2, 2022, 50 x 28”, screen-printing on recycled plastic bags, sewing, wrapping, waxed linen thread, stained bamboo

Cutline for Remnants 17:

Remnants 17, 2022, 28 x 12”, fiber, encaustic, oilstick, paint, waxed linen, wire

The curator, Mayra Vineya, visited the 90+ piece collection at Carlos’s home in Guadalajara and chose 31 pieces for the exhibition titled Una Linea en el Agua. I am so honored that both of my pieces were chosen for this wonderful exhibition. My work is joined by some of the big names in Mexican contemporary art including Davis Birks, Alicia Ceballos, Adrian Guerrero, Florencia Guillen, Monica Leyva, Francisco Morales, Ivan Puig, Vicente Rojo, among others.

The icing on the cake, is that Carlos and Lulu are already saving up for their next piece!

Una Linea en el Agua will be on view at the Museo Raul Angiano through Sunday July 2, 2023. Hours are Tuesday – Saturday 10 – 5pm and Sundays 10 – 3pm. Free admission.

Address: Av. Mariano Otero 375, Col. Moderna
Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Jalisco
Tels.: 33 1657 9819, 33 1657 9942, .33 3801 2032

museodearte.mura@gmail.com

After the opening, a group of us went out for a delicious dinner at a restaurant a block away from the museum, Rio Vieja. The food, ambiance and live music were great!

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#contemporarytextiles #contemporarytextilestudio #textileartexhibition #artcontemporain #contemporaryfiberartist #environmentalartist #environmentalart #artforahealthyplanet

#deborahkruger #alternativematerials #contemporarycraft #finecraft

Resources:

https://www.instagram.com/muragdl/

https://www.instagram.com/photocardiarch/

https://www.instagram.com/mayravineyah_/

https://www.instagram.com/museosdejalisco/

https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/115017624/centro-cultural-gonzalez-gallo/

https://www.instagram.com/rioviejorestaurante/

KEYWORDS:

Collection,museum,art,Guadalajara,curator,contemporary art,Jalisco,Mexico City,Puerto Vallarta,exhibition,photographer,abstract art,acquisition,Minneapolis,museo,

Considering Art Podcast-Deborah Kruger, textile Artist

As a result of all the outreach surrounding my exhibition in Mexico City, Bob Chaundy found me and my artwork and asked to interview me on his Considering Art podcast.

Bob is a former BBC news journalist who has also written art reviews for the Huffington Post UK. He is passionate about contemporary art. Beginning in 2020, he spent the first year of lockdown in England interviewing artists, especially those who he felt deserved more recognition. His podcast Considering Art combines his interests in broadcasting and contemporary art.

I could tell from the outset that Bob had done his homework and was thorough in reviewing my website, abstract art and documentary. He even cared about pronouncing my name correctly, which completely endeared him to me (it’s pronounced D’bora).

Between Bob’s British accent and excellent editing abilities, I honestly have never heard myself sound so articulate! I hope you enjoy this audio interview as much as I do. I think he did an excellent job of presenting my art and ideas.

Listen to the inverview: https://consideringart.com/2022/02/28/considering-art-podcast-deborah-kruger-textile-artist/

Support Bob by following him on Instagram: @bobconsideringart

Support me by subscribing to my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzm3cdSdew8AIkyfOwuxVPQ

Resources:

Bob’s Blog Considering Art: https://consideringart.com/

Link to his blog: https://consideringart.com/2022/02/28/considering-art-podcast-deborah-kruger-textile-artist/

Bob’s Instagram: @bobconsideringart

Deborah’s Instagram: @deborahkrugerstudios

Deborah Kruger Documentary: https://youtu.be/fzUzWZI5w1A

Archivo Grafica Printmaking Studio in Mexico City welcomes me with open arms

One of my new artist friends is Ana Lopez-Montes who I met through the Art Lab virtual residency at PRPG.mx. She is also the studio manager for Archivo Gráfica, a printmaking studio that has been located in Roma, in downtown Mexico City, for the last 30 years.

To be honest, when Ana started to urge me to come, I felt rather intimidated and bewildered. I hadn’t done monotype printmaking since my 20s. However, the Universe has a way of placing opportunities in front of us and I decided to accept the invitation from that perspective.

When I arrived, Ana had already set up two plates and a work station for me. I looked at some of the other prints in the studio for inspiration and ideas. Ana taught me how to ink the plates and soon I was off and running. The Maestro of the studio, Felipe Cortés Reyes, cleaned the edges of the plate, and then Ana positioned the plate and the moistened paper and fed them through the press and back. For each print run, there was a magic moment when the paper was peeled back to reveal the new print.

Ana also helped me by cutting out birds from my screen-printed sheets and we inked them on the plates. In addition to playing with colors and swirling forms, the birds started to emerge. Some of them were shadow images and others had stronger colors. Some of these abstract prints would make beautiful NFT artwork.

By this time, my reluctance and intimidation had disappeared and I was busy creating two prints at a time, each more complex than the previous one. After three hours, I had printed 12 prints and felt like a new avenue for my artwork and images had opened up to me.

Felipe and Ana invited me back to print again in a larger format when I return to Mexico City.

I will start selling some limited editions of my prints later this spring. Stay tuned for more information and updates from my second visit to Archivo Gráfica.

Click on image to view full size

Resources:

Website for Ana Lopez-Montes: https://www.analopezmontes.com/

Article about Felipe Cortés: https://www.uv.mx/difusioncultural/general/pluritipia/

Article about Taller Archivo Gráfico: https://www.enlacejudio.com/2013/10/08/aniversario-de-archivo-grafico/

To reserve time at the Printmaking Studio contact Ana Lopez-Montes (trilingual): ana.lopezmontes@gmail.com

Artdaily.com

Deborah Kruger's inaugural solo exhibition in Mexico City on view at Proyectos Galería

Making a Difference with Environmentally Conscious Art

At this critical moment when we should all be in earnest dialogue about climate change – extinction, consumption and migration are at the forefront of Deborah Kruger’s environmentally conscious art. The international artist, who has collaborative studios in Mexico and North Carolina, has committed her entire career to giving a voice to the voiceless. Kruger’s art mainly focuses on critically endangered birds and languages through collabrative, labor intensive processes utilizing recycled plastic bags to make works of astonishing size and beauty.

Read the article here

The Woven Tale Press

Making Your Own Feathers in Mexico

Woven Tale Press, a literary and fine art magazine, featured my artwork. You can read the article or see the entire magazine on their website. Follow them on-line @woventalepress and consider submitting your work!

“Living in Mexico has definitely enabled me to make large-scale work and run the studio required for that work. Having these resources allows me to think big and imagine and produce the work of my dreams.” In the lakeside village, she employs five to eight people, including her website designer/social media guru, fabricator and full-time assistant, and enjoys the community they have created together.”

See the complete article here:

Making Your Own Feathers in Mexico – The Woven Tale Press

Arte Morbida

Yet another article has come out about my solo exhibition Plumas at PRPG.MX gallery in Mexico City. This time @barbarapavan469 the editor of the esteemed Italian textile magazine ArteMorbida The article featured Accidentals, a mural,-sized piece on the cover of the article as well as a work in progress shot of me in the studio. I am gratified by all the attention the show is getting, much of it thanks to my talented PR guru Rodrigo Arciniega.

Plumas is PRPG.mx’s premiere show in the newly expanded exhibition and residency space in Mexico City.
Deborah Kruger’s recent work focuses on the extinction of Mexican bird species, the death of Mexican indigenous languages, and the impacts of climate change on migration. Kruger uses the saturated Mexican colors which characterize her work to mimic bird plumage. She hopes to seduce her viewers, raise awareness, and inspire action about all that we are on the verge of losing.

You can read the entire article on the Arte Morbida site Deborah Kruger: Plumas – ArteMorbida

Art Spiel

Deborah Kruger's inaugural solo exhibition in Mexico City on view at Proyectos Galería

An article was published by Etty Yaniv who covers contemporary art for Art Spiel based in New York. I am so gratified by all the press coverage I am getting for my Plumas exhibition PRPG.mx gallery in Mexico City. Although the show is now closed, you can see it on Artsy My Cultural Manager, Rodrigo Arciniega, has done a spectacular job reaching out to the press..

You can read the entire article here:

Deborah Kruger – Plumas at PRPG in Mexico City – Art Spiel.

Relationship between drawings and artwork

Drawing and research are the basic building blocks of my art practice. Let me take you through the process so that you can see how the drawings and my art are completely intertwined.

My work entails a lot of research. I read about birds that are endangered by habitat fragmentation, climate change, extreme weather events and other environmental threats.

The first step is drawing the endangered birds. Each drawing takes many hours and involves lots of detail. I seem to do my best drawings when I am at a residency. This past summer I attended Hypatia-in-the-Woods, a residency of one located in picturesque South Puget Sound.

Pictured above is a drawing of a Scarlet Macaw, a rainforest dweller whose numbers are dwindling rapidly. Below is the silk screen that has a silhouette of the following birds: A Collared Arakari, the Crested Owl, the Great Green Macaw and the Scarlet Macaw.

I also do a lot of research and image development of endangered indigenous languages. This entails working with ethno-linguists from the Universities of Guadalajara and Chiapas as well as a calligrapher.

Here are some samples of the text that we use to overprint the bird images. These languages include Tsotzil, Purepecha, Zoque and Cho’lol.

My most recent pieces were exhibited at PRPG.mx Gallery in Mexico City and all have long tail feathers printed from a set of four silk-screens and overprinted with seven different texts. Each of the silk screens has silhouettes of 4 – 5 endangered birds that I have drawn.

As you take a close look at a detail of my piece Devotional, you can see snippets of the birds and text. In case you were wondering, all the text silkscreens are translations from the the paragraph I wrote about the sad statistics about disappearing birds and languages.

As you can see in the art, the printed images are all cut up into feathers. Since I am an abstract artist, I am trying to convey a lot of information and using complex processes adds to the layering of this work. It is not my intent for viewers to actually read the text but more to evoke feelings about the content of my work.

All these layers of process, images and text and materiality reflect the complexity of the problems that contribute to extinction.

“By using recycled materials and materiality-based pieces, I hope to induce viewers to consider some of the solemn issues addressed in this new body of work. Plumas is both a celebration of the beauty that birds bring to our lives as well as a warning about what we may lose in our lifetimes if we do not take action. “ -quoted from interview with Deborah Kruger in Art Spiel

A team-based approach is required for creating work of this scale, just as a complex global response is required to shift the consumption and policies that may still save some species.

Whether you are reading this as an artist or art lover, I hope I have illustrated how simple drawings can become the building blocks for large-scale and complex artwork.

Resources:

Interview in Art Spiel: https://artspiel.org/deborah-kruger-plumas-at-prpg-in-mexico-city/

PRPG.mx Gallery https://prpg.mx/

Residency at Hypatia-in-the-woods: https://deborahkruger.com/residency-at-hypatia-in-the-woods/

PLUMAS: Solo exhibition at PRPG.mx in Mexico City

Curator Micheal Swank had his eye on an additional gallery space in his Colonia Juarez building for two years and when the space became available in October 2021, he jumped on it. After signing the lease, he announced his good news to our Virtual Residency Art Lab, one of several amazing artist programs of PRPG.mx. And later that night, he called and asked me to be the inaugural show.

Ordinarily, Micheal gives his artists a three-month lead time. In my case, we had a scant four weeks. During this time, he was upgrading the space, installing lighting and making other improvements.

Somehow, we managed to organize the exhibition and on November 2nd, a truck arrived in Chapala to pick up all the artwork and drive it to Mexico City (8 hours away). Meanwhile, my assistant Sandra and student intern Liliana and I took an overnight bus from Guadalajara to CDMX so that we could hang the show.

Despite the usual snafus, short fuses and lack of supplies, we managed to get the show up on the walls by 1am on the day of the opening reception, November 6th.

Behind the scenes.....

For the first time in my life, I hired a public relations expert based in Mexico City, Rodrigo Arciniega. Thanks to Rodrigo’s extensive contacts, he arranged for TV personality Johnny Carmona to be the MC and ribbon cutter at the opening reception. Carmona is a judge on the Mexico version of RuPaul’s Drag Race (La Mas Draga). His bubbling personality, fame and turquoise beard brought in a big crowd including lots of press.

As a result of Rodrigo’s efforts, information about the show appeared in over twenty print and on-line venues including La Razón de México, Art Spiel (US), Zero Magazine, Art Morbida (IT) and Textile Artist (UK).

At the opening, I met many local artists, gave several halting interviews in Spanish and enjoyed the positive response from all quarters. I would say that my debut in Mexico City was a smash hit!

THE SHOW.....

The exhibition will be open until December 11th and will continue on-line on Artsy until February 15th.

Resources

Gallery: https://prpg.mx/

Curator: Micheal Swank michealswank@prpg.mx

Press & Media: Rodrigo Arciniega soyrodrigoarciniega@hotmail.com

Artsy: https://www.artsy.net/artist/deborah-kruger

PLUMAS: Mi primera exhibición individual en Ciudad de México

El 6 de noviembre se inaugurará mi exposición individual ‘Plumas’ tanto físicamente en Proyectos Galería Ciudad de México como virtualmente en Artsy. PRPG.mx y la galería asociada Dab Art Co. (Los Ángeles, Ventura y Austin) presentarán conjuntamente mi trabajo.

Ambos programas son los primeros para mí. Las 10 piezas expuestas en Proyectos Galería marcan mi primera exposición individual en la Ciudad de México. Esta es también la primera vez que mi trabajo se mostrará en Artsy, un foro internacional en línea al que solo pueden acceder los artistas que están representados por una galería miembro.

Conocí al curador y galerista Micheal Swank el verano pasado a través de su Laboratorio de Arte. Esta residencia virtual fue otra novedad para mí. No había participado en un grupo de artistas desde que me mudé a México, desde el oeste de Massachusetts hace once años. Durante los últimos 25 años, había sido miembro de un maravilloso grupo de apoyo para mujeres artistas.

El Art Lab de verano me dio la oportunidad de desarrollar ideas para una nueva escultura y también profundizar en mi pensamiento sobre la apropiación, un tema que ha estado en mi mente desde que comencé a usar los huipiles mexicanos como fuente de inspiración. Continué Art Lab en el otoño y durante ese tiempo desarrollé relaciones con un grupo internacional de artistas y también con Micheal, quien hábilmente facilitó el grupo.

Tener relacion con curadores que entienden y están entusiasmados con mi trabajo ha sido clave para abrir puertas y trabajar con Micheal Swank no es una excepción.

El enfoque curatorial de Micheal es único. Está realmente interesado en tener relaciones auténticas con los artistas de su círculo. Micheal también es un ferviente partidario del arte y los artistas de LBGTIA. En mi experiencia, ese tipo de aceptación ha sido escasa para los bisexuales como yo, así que me sentí muy cómoda en el espacio inclusivo que creó Micheal.

Cuando de repente se abrió un nuevo espacio de exposición en el edificio de la galería de Micheal, me invitó a ser la exposición inaugural. Aunque fue inesperado y sin previo aviso, nuestra capacidad para comunicarnos bien nos permitió organizar el programa en poco más de un mes.

Afortunadamente, me he estado preparando para una próxima exhibición en un museo en 2022, así que tengo mucho inventario. Esto me permitió llenar fácilmente el nuevo espacio de PRPG.mx.

Me siento extremadamente afortunada de contar con el apoyo de Micheal, que no solo ha afirmado mi obra de arte, sino también mi trayectoria profesional.

Fechas de exposición de PLUMAS:

En Proyectos Galería Ciudad de México, 6 de noviembre al 11 de diciembre de 2021

En Artsy del 6 de noviembre al 15 de febrero de 2022

Recepción de apertura: sábado 6 de noviembre, de 6 a 10 p.m.

Dirección: Calle Lucerna 1, Colonia Juárez, 06600 Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal, México

Fuentes:

Galería PRPG.mx y Programa de Residencia: https://www.facebook.com/PRPGMX

Laboratorio de arte: este es un programa de residencia en línea y en persona de 8 semanas: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prpgmxartlab

Programa curatorial: esta nueva residencia curatorial presencial y en línea se enfoca en construir una comunidad con énfasis en las relaciones éticas entre artistas y curadores de todo el mundo. https://prpg.mx/

Curador Micheal Swank: https://www.dabart.me/curators

Artístico: https://www.artsy.net/?fbclid=IwAR1ZtcqP73I8tAcpDtTfvRhMLPlznzVVufg2Wl7yUvRZ3imQeCZkUC1uw9w