Gabriel Acevedo Velarde

Peruvian-born artist Gabriel Acevedo Velarde recently embarked on a gradual move from Lima, Peru, to Mexico City to São Paolo, Brazil, and then to New York and Berlin. He uses experiences from his travels to inform his multimedia installations as featured in the Modern’s second FOCUS exhibition of 2010. Acevedo Velarde organizes his diverse artistic practice into projects that differ dramatically in terms of materials, technique, and presentation, but share an astute portrayal of the human condition, looking at the psychology of self-preservation within the precarious fragility of community and civilization. The artist touches on the driving force in his work with a description of one particular project, “The subject is a system that tries to keep standing despite its inner chaos, decadence, and most of all, its wild will for change.” For Tuesday Evenings, Acevedo Velarde discusses his methodology and the resulting performances, installations, films, and drawings that have been acknowledged for their elaborate preparation of seemingly simple forms that offer both humor and horror.