André Filipek

77 Mulberry is pleased to present new works by André Filipek for the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York.

Filipek’s sculptural wall panels are comprised of goods common to the Mexican mercado, the self-organized marketplace. These ethnically coded commodities are reproduced here with both plastic and organic materials. Filipek carves, casts, CNC’s, 3D prints, dyes and bakes to create visually rich and formally refined wall mounted assemblages. Bowls of corn flour, the indigenous grain of the region, now take the form of cartoon character Dora the Explorer. Emperador cookies, made from foreign wheat and engraved with an image of Spanish conquistadors, are arranged in battle formation and embedded into collapsible folding tables. Filipek explores how the materials themselves are inscribed with the violent history of Hispano-colonial influence, continuing the artist’s inquiry into the representation of Mexican-American identity.

Filipek writes:

"Mass produced 'exotic' goods are weak and superficial in their ability to catalog the dispersion of colonial influence. Goods intended for Hispanic consumers have become de-territorialized and redistributed, their production managed by multinational conglomerates that hide themselves within the fine print of packaging, in bills of lading, purchase orders, and invoices. Today, raw ingredients and organics are perhaps the strongest historical markers through which we may read the history of indigenous peoples."

André Filipek (b.1992) is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Recent solo presentations at JACE (Los Angeles), 100% Gallery (San Francisco), Produce Model (Chicago), Amor Tlalpan (Mexico City), and Yeah Maybe (Minneapolis).