Walk with the Devil: MPR Live from Canal Projects

Thursday, July 11, 2024, 7–10pm

Join us for the inaugural event for Montez Press Radio’s library residency at Canal Projects: Walk with the Devil: MPR Live from Canal Projects. MPR’s first sub-resident Fabiola Talavera has curated a full program for the evening, including a playlist designed by Hueso Records and a conversation between Patrick Charpenel and Ignacio Gatica. Following the conversation, MPeach will bless us with a DJ set. Full schedule below, come join us for a cold drink and a good time! RSVP here.

7–8pm
Compilation 1 by Hueso Records

Six forgotten recordings found by artist Iván Navarro, issued by Hueso Records as Compilation 1 (2023). These recordings were never published, or only circulated among a very small group of people mainly in homemade cassettes. These recordings were made during the most obscure period of the Pinochet regime (1973-1990). The musicians, including Pinochet Boys, Cleopatras, Índice de Desempleo, Electrodomésticos, Banda Pequeño Vicio and Álvaro Peña, represented the spirit of the moment.

8–9pm
Walk with the Devil: Latin American Art in the West, Patrick Charpenel and Ignacio Gatica in conversation moderated by Fabiola Talavera

A discussion that will explore what is recognized as contemporary art from Latin America in Western cultural institutions, the labels and stereotypes attached to this diaspora, the way these artistic productions confront hegemonic structures and adopt inclusive practices, and the role of geographical surveys and exhibition models such as biennials and triennials have in shaping localized identity narratives while now living in a highly-interconnected globalized world. The title of this talk, Walk with the Devil, refers to what Cuban curator and critic Gerardo Mosquera describes as the often-fruitful pact made when historically colonized cultures digest the culture of colonizers.

9–10pm

La Joyería DJ Set by MPeach

High-energy dance beats meet deep basslines, intertwining with rhythms rooted in traditional music. “La Joyería” explores the vibrant sounds of Venezuela, The Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa, pushing their boundaries into innovative electronic and bass-heavy territories. Celebrating our power, joy, and resistance, it creates a dynamic fusion of tradition and modernity.

Hueso Records (HR) is a music label that began releasing projects in Brooklyn, US and Santiago, Chile in 2005. The label has three main interests: To find, restore and release music that has never been released before, either because there weren’t enough funds or public interest to produce it when the music was originally recorded. To work with people who don’t consider themselves musicians, rather they understand their audio practice as an extension of their main body of work as visual artists, architects, graphic designers or just as thinkers. Professional musicians are the other point that completes this triangle, because they have the knowledge and the experience to show us how the music industry works these days.

Patrick Charpenel (Guadalajara, México, 1967) lives and works in New York City. Lives and works in New York, United States. A philosopher by training, Charpenel has carried out intense work as a curator and collector highlighting the paradoxes and ambiguities of the contemporary world. He has showcased a significant number of exhibitions in different forums inside and outside Mexico such as: Gabriel Orozco, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Walks by the artist Francis Alÿs Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Franz West, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Inter play, Moore Space, Miami; Sustancia-Sustancias, Collegium, Arévalo, Spain, among others. He has also published critical texts in specialized magazines. For three years and until 2015 he was director of the JUMEX Collection/Foundation. He was in charge of the Casa Barragán Estancia FEMSA curatorial program together with Eugenia Braniff from 2015 to 2018. He was Co-Founder and Director of MP Editions. He is currently director of El Museo del Barrio in New York, United States.

Ignacio Gatica (Chile, 1988) currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Gatica works in installation, sculpture, video, and text to question sys tems of knowledge that configure personal and collective experiences. Concerned from an analytical standpoint with the experience of urban living, Gatica’s work modifies the elements that construct these sociopolitical spaces, merging data, materials, and theoretical frameworks to reconfigure particular views. Gatica has exhibited at SculptureCenter (Queens, NY); the Hessel Museum of Art at CCS Bard (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY); El Museo del Barrio (Manhattan, NY); Galeria Jaqueline Martins (São Paulo, Brazil); Galeria Gabriela Mistral (Santiago, Chile); Fondation Hippocrène (Paris, France); and Funda ción Marso (Mexico City, Mexico), among others.

Fabiola Talavera (Monterrey, México, 1995) is a Mexico City-based independent curator, writer, archivist, cultural producer with a formation in Art Histories & Studies. She’s a program curator, alongside Leah Whitman-Salkin, of Montez Press Radio’s Mexico City bi-monthly broadcasts. She has curated exhibitions in Mexico such as The struggle of being a God, Día Muñoz, NASAL; Homesick, JO-HS; Western Retreat, Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh, Karen Huber, among others. In her previous years, she coordinated the Juan José Gurrola Archive, and at Casa del Lago UNAM, she conformed the Poesía en Voz Alta Digital Archive and inaugurated the exhibition space Resquicio with Siempreviva by Alan Hernández. She is a regular writer for Elephant, Purple, Onda MX and OBRA magazine.

MPeach aka Mariana Martín Capriles, is a Venezuelan multi-disciplinary artist living in Brooklyn, NY. As a vocalist/producer/DJ and audiovisual artist, she intertwines bass-heavy electronic sounds with rhythms rooted in traditional music. Having built a body of work that explores sounds of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa — and the possibilities of these sounds in new electronic territories — MPeach lives in the liminal borderlands of honoring traditional folk sounds rooted in rich cultural histories and the future of Latin American sound. By engaging Venezuelan folkloric music as a tradition that remains alive and evolving, she challenges stagnant notions of authenticity by creating work responsive to the forces that shape its creators, listeners, and dancers, using electronic music as a vehicle for preserving tradition in the collective memory. She has toured across the United States, Latin America, and Europe. MPeach has released music with Dutty Artz, Abstractor, NWLA, Interscope, Majia, On the Corner, and her imprint PEACHTOWN. Her music is in several official motion picture soundtracks, including “Skate Kitchen” by award-winning director Crystal Moselle. She recently performed alongside Arca, Cardopusher / Safety Trance, Dj Baba, Dj Yirvin, and Phran at the first-ever Boiler Room in Caracas, Venezuela.