ghosts & venus
maximiliano + rise x fall (Jaleesa Johnston, Rubén García Marrufo, maximiliano)
October 4–26, 2018
Opening reception: Thursday, October 4, 2018, 6–8 PM
Performances:
Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 7 PM
Wednesday, October 17, 2018 at 6 PM
Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 6 PM
maximiliano
stays in NE portland, OR. venusian diaspora
rise x fall is a ongoing performance - video collaboration between Jaleesa Johnston, Rubén García Marrufo, and maximiliano. rise x fall is veiled bodies as ghosts, as harbingers, to bring the end of empire. haunting.
Jaleesa Johnston is a mixed media artist currently working in Portland, OR. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work explores the ruptured and queer existence of the black female body as both subject and object through performance, video, photography, sculpture and collage. Working with her body as material, Jaleesa uses its malleability and symbolism to conjure new narratives that suggest blackness as a liminal site for personal and communal transformation. She is particularly concerned with articulating gestures of the body as a fragmented language that can be used to voice narratives of fugitively, resistance and freedom.
Rubén García Marrufo is a Mexican filmmaker and an american installation artist currently living in the United States. His work focuses on borders, their aftermaths and bilinguality. Blurring the line between reality and fiction by narratives that are rooted in hearsay and multiple languages. The landscapes and subjects in his work portray struggle and trauma but also courage. Marrufo has produced both feature length and short experimental videos, which have exhibited in Mexico and the US including film work presented at Artist Space in NYC, Kunstverein in Munich and Disjecta in Portland.