PUBLIC ADDRESS
Vicente Razo
curated by Gabrielle Giattino & Howie Chen
Oct. 3rd – 26th 2008
A series of selected magazines, catalogues, and brochures requested by Razo over the internet either as free trial subscriptions or promotional material was shown on the walls of Atelier Atelier. Substituting brash phrases and fragments for actual names in the recipient address box, Razo employs a gesture that is both tactical and concise within a defined space. People magazine arrives addressed to 'Guy Debord Crying', Forbes magazine to 'Capitalism is Dead'; and the Saks Fifth Avenue mailer to ‘Karl Marx in Hell’. Both locating and reassessing Situationist strategies, Razo claims these freely circulating printed materials for his own means of production. By inserting his mechanized graffiti in the first line of the address block, each mass-produced glossy is rendered into reflexive objects, drawing on the relationship of the addressee to its immediate visual, material, and cultural context. Fitting within the means of production, each series of work concludes when the limited trial subscription ends or when his stand-in “recipients” are dropped from the mailing list. Dispatch
Vicente Razo lives and works in New York City and Mexico.
PUBLIC ADDRESS has previously been shown at the Dispatch Office in New York city – an independant art space run by curators, Gabrielle Giattino & Howie Chen: www.dispatchbureau.com
