Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary is pleased to announce Vargas-Suarez Universal: Time and Space Fabric, a solo exhibition of Vargas-Suarez Universal’s recent textiles and works on paper. Opening Thursday, August 1st, a reception with the artist will be held at the gallery from 5:00-8:00pm. To offer a more in-depth exploration of Vargas-Suarez Universal’s rich artistic practice, an online Study Room at Hutchinsonmodern.com accompanies the exhibition.
Time and Space Fabric includes the first textile works produced by Vargas-Suarez Universal in Kyrgyzstan and Nepal since 2018 and works on paper from 2012 that became textile works. His interest in textiles, weaving and fabrics stem from a lifetime fascination with the origins and development of computer technologies. His longtime interest in the visualization of organized and quantified information began with seeing the seminal exhibition titled Information Art: Diagramming Microchips (1990), curated by Cara McCarthy for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Since then, his fascination with the complexity of nano-architecture and practical applications in microchips remains an integral aspect for the conceptual development process of most of his work.
The artist has further researched and traced the lineages of today's LCD screens, microchips and computational power from knots in Peruvian khipus, to weaving in the Middle Ages in European and Persian carpets, to the Jacquard loom, punch cards, adding machines, the first Eniac computer, integrated transistors, and Navajo women who built the electronic devices, integrated circuits and transistors for the Apollo Space program in the 1960s for the Fairchild Semiconductor near Shiprock, New Mexico.
Vargas-Suarez Universal’s experience with artisans in Kyrgyzstan and Nepal has become a key factor in his process. The communities he works alongside have fostered personal relationships that inform much of these works. He regularly refers to himself as a student of the master artisans and believes they teach each other about their respective fields of knowledge. The artist is also challenged by maintaining his own signature style’s use of his “vectors” while allowing the materials to develop and inform the work in new ways, directions and surprising results. Not knowing what the exact results will be is a reality within these mediums. Vargas-Suarez Universal thinks of this journey into the unknown as a form of exploration within the reality of the time and space fabric we are all woven from.
As textile art and other “craft” mediums have become more and more accepted and less marginalized the artist is interested in terms like “digital native,” “indigenous futurism,” and “crafting space.” These terms, now commonly used for certain artworks, exhibitions, and movements reinforce the artist’s belief in the empowerment of how ancient knowledge leads us forward in every culture.
Vargas-Suarez Universal has recently completed Terra Matrix, a 9 x 30 ft, site-specific hand painted, ceramic mosaic mural for the U.S. Department of State, Art in Embassies at the U.S. Consulate, Guadalajara, Mexico. The artist worked with the famed Ceramica Suro in Guadalajara to produce the work. Vargas-Suarez Universal is currently working on Horizons Spectrum, a 9.5 x 227 ft, site-specific mural for the City of Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs (MOCA), at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, Texas. Its completion date is set for October 2024. Vargas-Suarez Universal’s work is included in the group exhibition Apollo’s Decathlon: A Conceptual Cultural Olympiad at the Chateau de Montsoreau - Museum Contemporary Art, Maine-et-Loire, France, on view through August 14, 2024. He has also recently been named a member of the Arts & Letters Council at the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, California. This is his second 10-year term as a Council member.
Vargas-Suarez Universal’s work has been featured in national and international exhibitions, such as at BRIC Arts Media, New York; MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, California; and Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico. His work is held in numerous private and public collections, such as the Ainsworth Collection, Australia; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; El Museo del Barrio, New York; JPMorgan Chase Art Collection; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
