Mental States

Opening reception for the artist, Thursday, October 14^th, 6 – 8 pm

Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to announce Mental States, the first solo exhibition at the gallery of new work by Cuban artist Yoan Capote.  The exhibition opens October 14^th, and runs through November 13^th.  A reception for the artist will take place on Thursday, October 14^th, 6 – 8 pm.

Capote's work is the result of psychological analysis of our daily experiences and issues related to the broader social and human experience. The artist’s process creates analogies between the visual poetry of objects and the intangible world of the mind. Capote utilizes various media and both traditional and unconventional materials, while also exploring multisensory possibilities in installation, photography and video.

Mental States is inspired by the artist’s first experience with American culture. Reflecting on fast living and the pursuit of success, where the prevailing fantasies of seduction have transformed into permanent obsessions or delusions. Capote is interested in the multiplicity of meanings that stimulate our thinking and internal discussions on behavior relating to social, political and economic interest.

The paintings made using fish hooks, oil paint, canvas and burlap use the materials as subjects in a primal symbolic dichotomy of attraction and repulsion. Using images that range from the iconic, postcard-like tropes to a seascape representing the artist’s first visage of America as a child, Capote plays with issues of obsessive desire and the risk and drama of migration characterized by the Cuban imagination.

Never solely situated in one geographical space, Capote’s work uses the local as a means of addressing the intimate and the personal while investigating constructions that are based in power and difference. Yoan Capote translates the poetic longing of those who are dislocated from their place of identification, representing the contemporary individual as aberration experiencing forced mobility and alienation.

Yoan Capote lives and works in Havana, Cuba. He has exhibited extensively abroad, including in Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, France, England, Panama, Cuba and the United States. He participated in the 7^th Havana Biennial and has been the recipient of numerous awards including International Fellowship Grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, a UNESCO Prize, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Vermont Studio Center Fellowship and a residency at the Brownstone Foundation in Paris.

Upcoming exhibitions at the gallery include Odili Donald Odita: Body & Space, opening November 18^th, on view through December 23^rd, 2010. Deborah Luster and Carlos Vega will run concurrently, opening January 6^th, 2011, on view through February 5^th, 2011.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm. For additional information and photographic material please contact the gallery at info@jackshainman.com.