AGUSTINA WOODGATE
FACING EARTH PARTICIPATORY PROJECTS
FACING EARTH
Students, faculty, and gallery visitors are invited to contribute to Facing Earth’s online exhibition catalogue to be published following the exhibition by Provisions Research Center for Art & Social Change.
With the advent of digital mapping technologies, the use of globes and paper maps will likely continue to diminish, at least as reference tools. As geological and political territories erode, Earth becomes a more volatile entity.
To p a r t i c i p a t e, c o m p o s e a b r i e f r e s p o n s e t o Facing Earth in any form: words, quotations, d r a w i n g s , photographs, micro-videos, research evidence, diagrams, data graphics, etc. Contributions might include clips from studies and news of climate change, species extinction, nation-state a n d territorial disputes, mapping technologies and ecologies, with near or long-term horizons and consequences.
This exhibition features a collection of Agustina Woodgate’s recent artworks in which the artist uses techniques of erasure using sandpaper to alter the surfaces of analog cartographic instruments and didactics such as maps, globes, and atlases. This elemental process of sanding reveals a complex poetics in the resulting objects, destroying their functional properties, while evoking their essential poetic and sculptural significance.
Participation is open to all, and may include students and practitioners from fields such as Climate Science, Geographic Information Systems, Philosophy, Educational Psychology, C r e a t i v e Writing, and History, and other research-based disciplines. Submit your content in digital form to drusse10@ gmu.edu and you may also upload your submission to your Instagram or Twitter accounts add-ing the following hashtags: #ProvLib and #MasonFacingEarth
Untitled (1927 World Globe), 2019 Hand-sanded vintage globe with metal and wood stand
AGUSTINA WOODGATE
To schedule gallery tours and discussions with Ma s o n E x h i b i t i o n s s t a f f , c o n t a c t : d r u s s e 1 0 @ gmu.edu.
FACING
ABOUT MASON EXHIBITIONS Mason Exhibitions is a multi-venue forum dedicated to displaying works of art that advance research, dialogue, and learning about global social issues. Located on the campuses of George Mason University, Mason Exhibitions i s a p a r t n e r s h i p b e t w e e n Ma s o n ’ s S c h o o l o f Art (SOA) and Provisions Research Center for Arts and Social Change located on the Fairfax campus. The Gillespie Gallery offers exhibitions of emerging and established contemporary artists, MFA thesis exhibitions, and a semi-annual senior exhibition. agustinawoodgate.com masonexhibitions.org art.gmu.edu
EARTH FEBRUARY 3 - MARCH 28, 2020 The Country in Flames (map component), 2017 Pull-down maps, granite, colored dust inside poster: The Country in Flames (granite headstone component), 2017 Pull-down maps, granite, colored dust
GILLESPIE GALLERY OF ART GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
Sanding erases demarcations of power, eroding intended and arbitrary features. As the artist meticulously destroys the surface of these maps--the historic and economic data, names of territories, and other references to land and water--she also painstakingly collects the resulting paper and ink dust particles. To create the series entitled Cosmética, these extractions have been sorted by color, caked into tins, and embedded in granite and marble slabs resembling both scaled-up cosmetic trays and tombstones. The cosmological palates act as epitaphs for the conventional, politicized and territorialized understanding of our planet and also literally provide the make up for a new earth.
ABOUT THE ARTIST A g u s t i n a Wo o d g a t e (b . 1 9 8 1 , B u e n o s A i r e s , Argentina, lives in Miami, FL and Amsterdam, t h e N e t h e r l a n d s ) . Wo o d g a t e h a s e x h i b i t e d internationally and has received numerous honors and awards. Her projects have been included the 2019 Whitney Biennial; the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; 9th Berlin Biennial; Peabody Es s e x Mu s e u m , M A ; B i e n a l d e l a s Am é r i c a s , CO; ArtPort, Tel Aviv; PlayP ublik, Poland; 5x5, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Wa s h i n g t o n ; T h e B a s s Mu s e u m o f Ar t , F L ; Storefront for Art and Architecture, MN and KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin amongst others. She received her BFA in Visual Arts from the Universidad Nacional de Artes in Buenos A i r e s a n d c o m p l e t e d a Ma s t e r s i n D e s i g n a t Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam. The artist is represented by Spinello Projects, Miami, FL.
AGUSTINA WOODGATE FACING EARTH
G I L L E S P I E G A L L E RY O F A RT , G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y S C H O O L O F A RT ,
F E B R U A RY 3 - M A R C H 2 8