I-20 Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), WHEN THE LION SLEEPS, THE JACKAL BENEFITS (Sleeping with the Predators).
Belonging to a generation that had as teachers artists around the circle of Gabriel Orozco, and an art scene that included Francis Alÿs, who focused on urban culture as a source of themes and forms, Moris has developed significant bodies of work that articulate contemporary anthropological and social themes in baroque-like or austere registers.
An artist who dwells in ethnographic forays involving the peripheries of Northern Mexico City that are home to marginal as well as working-class populations, Moris is a keen, unbiased observer of forms; an editor and translator of spoken, written, and visual languages; and a provocateur who points out key issues regarding social violence, power imbalances, and forms of resistance and survival at both a personal as well as community level.
Like his global contemporaries who rely on an array of art historical references as a lingua franca, he also draws from the political side of Pop, minimalism, and conceptual art. While these inform his work, he fuses this now classical vocabulary with a freshness, energy, and current zest that articulate key issues we face in our exuberant, erratic and complex world.
WHEN THE LION SLEEPS, THE JACKAL BENEFITS (Sleeping with the Predators) presents a body of new work including a major collage polyptych; found and altered sculptures made from used windshields; small-format wall and floor sculptures; paintings; and works on paper. Several unifying threads weave the works together as a show – most importantly, the use of found texts, and interplay between formal reduction and socially poignant themes.
An emerging artist born in 1978 and working in Mexico City, Moris had a one-person exhibition at El Eco and a commission at La Colección Jumex in his native megalopolis; and a solo project curated by Shamim M. Momin for Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) at the Geffen Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010).
Recent group exhibitions include Mexico. politica y poitica, SFSU Gallery, San Francisco (2011); Living in Evolution, The Busan Biennale (2010); Viva la Revolucion: a Dialogue with the Urban Landscape, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2010); Dracula Effect: Art, Fetishism & Youth Cultures, El Chopo, Mexico City (2010); Where do We Go From Here?: Art from the Jumex Collection, Bass Museum, Miami Beach (2009) and the Cincinnati Art Center (2010); Educando el saber, Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Castilla y Leon, Spain (2010); Zwischen Zonen/Interstices: Works from the Jumex Collection, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna (2009); and The Lines of the Hand, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City (2009). He is present in collections that include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; The Jumex Collection, Mexico City; FEMSA Collection, Monterrey; Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection, Miami; The Americas Collection, New York; and the Arizona State Univeristy Art Museum, Tempe.
