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Field of Play

Open Source Gallery

April 12–May 11, 2019

Field of Play, Installation View

Field of Play

Installation View

Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2019)

Photo: Stefan Hagen

 

Field of Play, Installation View

Field of Play

Installation View

Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2019)

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Field of Play, Installation View

Field of Play

Installation View

Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2019)

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Field of Play, Installation View

Field of Play

Installation View

Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2019)

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Press Release

Ronny Quevedo's one-person exhibition, Field of Play, at Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.

The institution's press release follows:

Ronny Quevedo presents Field of play, a site-specific installation at Open Source Gallery.

Field of play explores the effects of relocation and displacement through the abstraction of games and architecture. By incorporating the visual language of games the exhibition invokes a narrative space – where boundaries are malleable, iconography is re-imagined and the viewers are in ‘play’.

The parallels between play and migration generate from indoor soccer leagues in New York City. Played on weekends at local public schools, these leagues are coordinated and operated by migrant Latin American and Caribbean communities. The questioning of inheritance and memory are conceptual markers in Ronny Quevedo’s practice. The act of passing – passing down, passing on, passing the ball – offers generative contemplations on a ‘point of origin’. This act of transference and transformation inform the elements in the exhibition. Gold and silver floor tiles act as a labyrinth as viewers navigate through the space to view works on paper and sculptures. The sculptures consist of re-iterations of various game balls. Cast within their own mold, each sculpture is a reconsideration of the globe of various sports. The works on paper are extensions of these geometric abstractions informed by the balls’ formal designs.

Field of play is an evolution of Quevedo’s work on sites of play as a metaphor for the movement of people caused by displacement and migration. The transplant of athletes, boundary lines, team colors, monumental stadiums for spectacle and the competitive role of sport mimics the duality of diasporic experiences.

Ronny Quevedo (b.1981, Guayaquil, Ecuador) works in a variety of mediums including sculpture and drawing. Quevedo’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at The Whitney Museum of American Art; Perez Art Museum Miami; Elizabeth Dee Gallery; The Drawing Center; the Queens Museum; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, amongst others. He is a recipient of the 2017 Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art and the 2016 Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists. He has participated in residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Kala Art Institute, the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Project Row Houses, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and Lower East Side Printshop. He has been published in Hyperallergic and Art Forum. Quevedo received his MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2013 and BFA from The Cooper Union in 2003.

This program is supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Joseph Robert Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Open Source Gallery programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.