January 7, 2006 to February 22, 2006

Hardcore Menu: Samples and Dishes

Hardcore Art Contemporary is a new space in the Wynwood area of 6.250 square feet that will open its space on November 29, 2005 for the Art Basel Miami Beach venue. Hardcore Art Contemporary space focuses on the most cutting edge artists whose works are precisely aligned in this new aesthetic category. Hardcore art questions our current times of violence. It focuses on critical issues about religious, economic, political and social changes, as well as in the omnipresent and divergent terrorism. Hardcore as an art concept lays out the work of many contemporary artists who are developing an attitude towards a new activism.

The category 'Hardcore' applies to the way the artists feature their contemporary works by infiltrating reality and self-experience, occupying in a certain way, the field of current events. The hardcore scene in general is both anti-establishment and specifically political. Hardocore Art Contemporary will present on November 29, 2005 the show

"HARDCORE MENU: SAMPLES AND DISHES" which is structured around this art category. It will present works on installation, digital photography, performance, video art, drawings and contemporary paintings. This multiple layered show features more than 30 post conceptual artists of varying ages and nationalities. Either alone or in groups, these artists are working out a new type of ideological activism. For them, art is no longer a matter of simply producing an art form or just creating an aesthetic effect. The works are linked to facts of reality. They have a political or a social issue underlining a critical aspect of our society. The hardcore artworks in this show are objects of provocation. They conform a platform for questioning and reflection. The creative men and women in this show offer a form of artistic interventions as ways of expressing ideologies and truths that tend toward a new activism. They attempt to transmit an alternative, critical view of a social, economic and political context. These artists often adopt extreme positions, play on limits, and greatly increase art's polemical charge and its impact on society, and on the symbolic public sphere.

We believe that Hardcore Contemporary Art builds a bridge between art and life, transcending art as an institution of power, bringing it down to earth, and making it direct and real. The results are trans-objective positions in which the inherent deadlock acquires positive existence!

"HARDCORE MENU: SAMPLES AND DISHES" show is presented as a self-reflecting phenomenon, which uses its own means to examine its functions and possibilities in the context of today's virtual and multimedia society. The night of the opening (November 29 starting at 7pm), and during Wynwood gallery walk (December 03 starting at 7pm) there will be three performances:

Nela Ochoa - "I Could Be You Could Be Me" - dressed as a homeless woman will walk around the neighborhood to interact with locals and with the public.

Sylvia Riquezes - "The Blop Is Back"- will distribute "pieces" of the Blop, the cinematic and imaginary monster.

Participating artists are:

Kuki Benski, Luis Salazar, Carlos Enriquez, Josefina Posch, Cesar Rojas, Lucia Pizzani, Nelson Garrido, Aisen Chacin, Eugenia Vargas, Ramses Larzabal, Rochi LLanezas, Eugenioa Vargas, Ani Villanueva, Sydia Reyes, Andres Michelena, Suwon Lee, Ivoly Noguera, Ana Martinez, Odalys Valdivieso, Nina Dotti, Nela Ochoa, Liliana, Evelyn Valdirio, Sylvia Riquezes, Adriana Barrios, Asdrubal Colmenarez, Maricarmen Carrillo, Hanna Migliavacca, Giovanni Basile, Laila Saab, Deborah Castillo, among others.