“I like art that I do not fully grasp. Alejandro's work puzzles me. It appears deceptively simple. Beckett or Pinter come to mind. It seems stringent, but it is laden with emotion. He is an artist I feel certain will brilliantly flower and amaze me.” — John Baldessari (August 2009)

Tanya Leighton Gallery is very pleased to announce 3 Works by Alejandro Cesarco (b. 1975 Montevideo, Uruguay). For his first solo exhibition in Germany, Cesarco addresses his recurrent interests in repetition, narrative and the practices of reading and translating. Through various strategies the show explores layers of references to personal and artistic influences, notions of the romantic, the construction of narrative, and the experience of time.

Tanya Leighton Gallery will present the European premier of Alejandro Cesarco’s film Everness. Comprised of 5 chapters, the film includes a remake of the very last scene of James Joyce’s The Dead a monologue on the meaning of Tragedy, a breakfast scene, and two songs: one from the Spanish Civil War and another from Brasil’s Tropicalista movement. Everness addresses the revision of public and private history, while tangentially describing ideas typically associated with moments of youth: a first love, the loss of innocence, and a somewhat naive, yet sincere, political conviction towards the real. In this context Everness
also deals with our difficulty or inability to perceive and understand our affective experience and that of others.

The show also includes Cesarco’s most recent Index, part of an ongoing project of unwritten books that map the development of his interests, readings and preoccupations. This series has become a form of self-portraiture, that unfolds over time. In Index (a reading) Cesarco again plays out his fascination with memory, history, and forgetting. This large photographic project self consciously addresses the idea of what constitutes an index and how the archival and documentary impulse seem ultimately a way to write one’s own
subjectivity into the historical process.

Stage Direction/Establishing Shot with much restrained means both introduces and
closes the show, setting a sentimental tone that tints our general viewing experience and lingers with us back into the street. A small text made in vinyl installed on a wall near the window reads: “The sheets on the unmade bed, the carpets, the furniture, the wrought iron balcony outside the window, the ocean which is the color of steel and lavender, the mountains – everything within their sight – is unaffected by the rapid beating of each heart.”

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Two new publications concerning Everness with commissioned essays by Julie Ault and Maria Gainza, have been organized to coincide with this exhibition.

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Cesarco has curated exhibitions in the U.S., Uruguay, Argentina and most
recently a project for the 6th Mercosur Biennial (2007), Porto Alegre, Brazil.
He is director of Art Resources Transfer a non-profit arts organization where
he initiated and edits Between Artists, an ongoing series of conversation based
books. He lives and works in New York.

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This exhibition and the accompanying publication are supported by The Rolex
Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative (www.rolexmentorprotege.com), an
international philanthropic programme that seeks out talented young artists and
pairs them with great masters for a year of creative collaboration. Under the
Rolex programme, Alejandro Cesarco worked with the renowned artist John
Baldessari in 2006 and 2007. The Rolex Initiative gives young artists time to
learn, grow and create by providing financial support during the mentoring
year. It also provides additional funding to produce works that will help them
realise their potential and join the next generation of great artists.
With special thanks to Rolex, Rita Fischer, Fernando Foglino, Adam Gibbons