Martin Soto Climent

Michael Benevento is pleased to present Phantograms, a solo exhibition by Mexican artist Martin Soto Climent. For his fifth exhibition with the gallery Soto Climent presents new works developed through a reflective process of inverted recordings, alluding to the early camera-less technique of the photogram. The process utilizes blocking light to produce a shadow on photosensitive paper outlining the object. Soto Climent takes this recording process and reconsiders it through painting, filtering charcoal powder through tights as stencils.

Made during the height of the pandemic, processing times when absence took the place of presence, Soto Climent records that absence as a memory on the surface of the canvas, occupied only by the materialized shadow. The exhibition, conceived as a cyclical transition describes the changes in the artist's conception- from the first Phantograms where tangible shadow registered the subtle contours of tights to the last works Silent Canvases transforming the composition into a solid monochrome polished as mirrors.

“Through the charcoal night new reflections are born and with them the hope for the light to emerge again."

Martin Soto Climent (1977, Mexico City) lives and works in Tepoztlan Mexico. A selection of recent solo exhibitions and presentations includes: (2021) Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Paris, France; (2020) Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Sweden; (2019) Karma International, Zurich, Switzerland; Hessel Museum

of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA; (2018) Galleria T293, Rome, Italy; (2016) Frieze Projects, Frieze Art Fair, London, UK; Retrospectiva, Lulu, Mexico City, Mexico; Chambres avec vue Sur le Champ, Until Then, Paris; France Paradise, DREI, Cologne, Germany; Fortezzuola, Pietro Canonica Museum, Rome, Italy; Frenetic Gossamer, Le Bas-Bar, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2015) Caramel Huysmans, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City, Mexico; La bella durmiente, Museo; Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, Mexico; The Contemporary Comedy: Glossy Mist, Clifton Benevento, New York, USA.