Pedro Vélez The Day of the Corrupt : Our Fathers left US shit at Western Exhibitions, Chicago

Some reviews of Pedro Vélez Day of the Corrupt. The exhibition also got reviews from Alan Artner in the Chicago Tribune and Lauren Weinberg in Time Out.

This review by Jason Foumberg is one of the most comprehensive views of my practice, once you read it there will be no more excuses you don't get it:

New City. "Eye Exam: Critic’s Delight" (Pedro Velez). by Jason Foumberg. January 26

Paul Klein's Art Letter in The Huffington Post

"Over in the West Loop is a well-conceived group show at Western Exhibitions about sky references. Scott Speh, the gallery's director curated this show. It has been gratifying to watch Scott grow over the years, from the off-the-beaten path spaces he used to occupy to the more prime-time space he has now. Furthermore the loyalty he and his artists have had for one another pays off as our response is enhanced by greater familiarity with their vocabulary. I suspect we're going to be paying attention to Scott Speh for many years to come. I was surprised by the strength of the show. Too often group exhibits fall somewhere near the lowest common dominator, but here all the work is strong and some of it unexpected, particularly Michelle Grabner's flocked corner piece; simple and beautiful. Stan Shellabarger also contributes work that was new to me that continues his exploration of marks made by humans. It is not a big show but it's a good one. And in the 2nd gallery is an installation by Pedro Velez. A powerful contrast. I'm glad to see Pedro back in Chicago after a 5 year hiatus in Puerto Rica. We benefit by having artists of his caliber, strength and insight here."

The Beating of Keely Coles (Sweet Kacey)

(photographic banner, 1/1-the woman in the photograph, taken by Pedro Vélez, is Zhureida Del Valle, the bruise is acrylic paint, she's posing in front of Ben's For Hire)

view of The Day of the Corrupt / Our Father's left US shit at Western Exhibitions

press here to see the full scope of : The Day of the Corrupt at Western Exhibitions

web component:

          http://www.galleryannleebonami.blogspot.com/

“If you fucking think oppression in marginalized countries is fashionably exotic for your seedy Biennial just wait till you see the picture I have of Francesco Bonami, Keely Coles and Blagojevich mounting Roger Clemen’s splitter on top of a coral reef”

These famous last words I overheard coming out of the mouth of Jones District at the crowded dingy bar gringos call Marrero in dirty humid San Juan. I heard it right underneath the glossy poster of the semi nude voracious curvy blonde holding the sweaty cold canned beer like a gold medal. Later on that evening Paul Kemp made apologies for Jones slippage, he told me the soon- to- be snitch was drunk as hell and high on coca. I didn’t believe it. To me the coke argument was besides the point because Jones looks like every other pundit, he seems to always be staring at the horizon with no consolation prize on sight. To me Jones looks like the Nile Perch from Lake Victoria, a sort of helpless creep with the human face of Alfred Adler.

Excerpt from “The Day of the Corrupt: Our Fathers left US shit” by Pedro Vélez

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Since 1999 Pedro Vélez has channeled moral coercion and political corruption by producing fake exhibition announcements, developing on-going fictional narratives on the web, publishing art journals and creating itinerant presentations with the group, FGA (a.k.a Fucking Good Art) that may occur in the virtual realm. The announcements for fake exhibitions include faux characters that “pay to play” along real but unwilling personalities, mostly superstar art curators, porn starlets and third world dictators.

For his exhibition The Day of the Corrupt: Our Fathers left US shit at Western Exhibitions, Pedro Vélez will develop a narrative, in three chapters, that incorporates angry observations and a list of corrupted personalities. The narrative will take shape in a humongous wall collage, paintings, photographic banners and the brand new web piece, Remote Control Curators, which denounces the unethical practice of lazy curators curating by email. More here

Psychosomatic Epilepsy is a series of new paintings and photographs of women, made up to look like they have been beaten, in which the artist tries to depict the bodily effects caused by the emotional trauma of living in a U.S. colony-Puerto Rico.

Misremember is based on the odd use of the verb by baseball player, Roger Clemens when asked, during his deposition before Congress, about his longtime friend and teammate, Andy Pettitte, who claimed the pitcher told him about using Human Growth Hormone in 1999 or 2000: "I think he misremembers our conversation," said Clemens.

Included with the exhibition will be Glacier, a limited edition Xerox book, in collaboration with Gean Moreno, that had been lost by a corrupt art dealer since 2004.

This exhibition in Gallery 2 at Western Exhibitions marks Pedro Vélez’ return to Chicago after a 5-year “vacation” in his homeland of Puerto Rico. This is Vélez’ fourth solo show with the gallery. Recent solo shows include Plush Gallery in Dallas (2007), Galeria Comercial in San Juan (2006) and Ingalls & Associates in Miami (2005) as well as a special project for the 2005 NADA Art Fair. He’s been included in group shows at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in NYC, Locust Projects in Miami, The Soap Factory in Minneapolis, Arte Foundation in San Juan, the Newark Center for the Arts in New Jersey and Museo del Barrio in NYC. His work has been discussed in Frieze, Artlies, Art Papers and several other publications. Vélez maintains a regular column about the art scene in San Juan for Artnet and his writing has been published in Arte al Dia, APT Global Insight, Art Papers and Modern Painters.

Arturo Madero

(corrupt developer painting)

Nixon/Regan/JFK

(colored pencil, acrylic, book pages, paper)

Glacier

(xerox book with Gean Moreno, 2003. (Limited editions of the book had been lost by a corrupt art dealer, Vélez found the original book in late 2007)

Godfuck Seantor Larry Craig

(photographic banner, 1/1-the models were students from my Art History class at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico)

Roger Clemen's Wife (Missremembers) 2000-09

(wood, ink, paper, acrylic, screws, pins, styrofoam)

detail

(Clemens, Rasputin, Okwik Enwezor, Otto Kerner, Shoeless Joe Jackson)

Cassious MacDonald and the Sun Times

Juliet of the Spirits or Julieta Got Paid

(collage on back of poster)

detail (Los Conquistadores)

The original poster from 2005. A special porject by Pedro Velez for NADA Art Fair. edition of 1,000.

Blagoje-Bitch

(graphite, paper, acrylic, old magazine page, sharpie)

Pay to Play

(acrylic, book pages, poster and photograph)

detail of Pay to Play-photo by Pedro Velez

Clamor : Rosa Your Son has Been Indicted by the FBI)

(ink and acrylic on poster for Allora & Calzadilla exhibition at The Moore Space in Miami, in concjuction with the Renaissanse Society, Chicago)

Traitor's Libby Hush

acrylic and paper con canvas

view of entrance to The Day of the Corrupt

Beata Beast

(photograhic banner and acrylic, 1/1)

Pedro Velez  The Day of the Corrupt at Western Exhibitions

Bonami Got Paid

(acrylic and sharpie on primed and raw canvas)

Newsvendor

(boombox, paper, acrylic)

Adolfo Krans vs Kenneth Lay

(pencil on paper)

Ben's For Hire

(sharpie, stitched cotton, book page on back,  and Barney's bag on Benetton banner)

Condoleeza Rice-and all secretaries of the State

Epilepsy, Pegatina and Adult Porn at Plush Gallery, Dallas and on the Web (reviews in Art Lies and Rotund)

limited edition invitation to the exhibition

Review by Kevin Bouchard for Art Lies

Seizure is the central theme of Pedro Vélez’ exhibition at Plush Gallery: epileptic seizures, seizures of property—both literal and conceptual—and the seizure of sex and empowerment from others. On the gallery’s website, Vélez offers a detailed account of his personal experience with seizure (the ailment), musings and communications, additional works and an interview with a porn star. This wide range of expression fits together very well, making the virtual exhibition feel more comprehensive than the work display in the physical gallery.

Vélez’ works on display are clearly based on reproductions. They are collisions, like the synaptic chaos that characterizes the neuropathology of a seizure. Central images—often pages torn from a book or magazine and then photographed—serve as the ground upon which the artist applies grandiose drawings of words—distorted graffiti cut out and stuck onto appropriated images. This pegatina may be thought of as the vandal’s form of collage.

Indeed, piracy and actual pirates recur in an ongoing storyline filled with old engravings and familiar tales. In one piece, we see an engraving of two ships blasting cannons at each other in close concert—broadside mayhem. Stuck onto each image are words that double as titles: Spew, Happiest People, SFRAPuit. Vélez’ word play is often inscrutable, but his repeated depiction of coercion is not.

Calamity at sea is also evident in Exon, misspelling deliberate, which portrays not an oil spill but a photograph of a cruise ship engulfed in flames. In Gut, a ship miraculously stumbles upon survivors of a sunken vessel with text reading “Davy Jones Locker” stuck onto it. All this intrigue and swashbuckling is entertaining; what it means for the artist, however, is unclear, and given his primary role as provocateur, one is cautious about assigning specific symbolic meaning to these works.

The most provocative images are Vélez’ staged photographs of young women made up to look like they have been beaten. In Lamb, a professional model looks directly into the camera with a black eye. The color photograph is composed with the care a fashion photographer would employ, portraying brutal sexuality as fashion. Thirty-two years ago, the Rolling Stones’ promotional materials for the album Black & Blue managed the same high-tone ugliness. Theirs, however, was an attempt to unsettle an audience that had been stoned a little too long, while Vélez’ images of abused igénues play to the virgin/whore dichotomy even though their titles imply Old Testament sacrifice.

The most intellectually engaging piece is debts, a collage that includes a photo of naval cadets, a nun teaching a class of adolescent girls and a Madonna. In this case, the title steers the content of the piece to contemplation of the burden of received wisdom. The primacy of institutions weighs heavy, but the open, willing faces of the boys and girls do not reveal any sense of burden. The gender segregation is in keeping with the alienation between men and women in Vélez’ other work. One is left to wonder what form debt will take and what price will be demanded.

The web component of the exhibition contains an interview with a porn starlet that is noteworthy in its banality. This could be an interview with any young entrepreneur struggling to meet market demands and cope with the daily trials of work, which are, in this case, overcome by a lot of vodka. If this interview and related images are hip, that is a shame because they come across as puerile, projecting standard-issue adolescent male bravado and sexual insecurity. But to his credit, Vélez has produced a body of work that cannot be readily categorized as purely polemical. It has both comic- book appeal and skin-trade creepiness. It shoves the chaos of competing impulses in our face with no hint of the possibility of reconciliation.

Review by Joel Weinstein in Rotund

From where we’re sitting, Myspace appears to be a cheesy cyber parlor of idle chatter where the point is to accumulate “friends,” announce a variety of vainglorious aspects of your person such as astrological sign, whether or not you’re dating, your fave bands, grooming habits, drugs of choice, how you stand vis-à-vis tattoos, and so forth, and express something of your innermost being by way of stuttering animated graphics that run the gamut from hard-core to kissy-face. There are a slew of photographic mementos recording extreme, well-dressed arriving, departing, and standing around. Myspace also facilitates instant messaging and commenting, so that the air around any given page thrums with whatever twenty-first century variations of “Dude!” prevail among the pretty vacant, and one sees a lot of put-on luridness that tries very, very hard. There are, we admit, some very cool concert and exhibition posters, and we’re convinced that if you’re in a band Myspace probably beats total obscurity.

Judging by what we’ve seen, Myspace belongs perfectly to our increasingly dark ages, in which preening, aggressively knotheaded weblog punditry is ascendant and expressions like “Bite me” stand in for reasoned discourse.

But herein lies the rub. This is a view of Myspace that you get as you move a little outward from San Juan artist Pedro Vélez’s Myspace pages. If there is one thing we’ve learned in our brief, fraught acquaintanceship with the magmatic Vélez, it’s that he makes a lot of things up. As we’ve pointed out before, his exhibitions include flyers for fake art shows, performances, concerts, and miscellaneous other supposed events and entities, and the tableaux on his posters and banners depict a kind of pained adolescent demimonde to which Vélez, at the age of thirty-four, is not likely to belong no matter how arrested his development. Ditto, his involvement with mainstream artists like Jorge Zeno, a painter who has allowed Vélez to “intervene” on some of his canvases by attaching pieces of paper in the form of almost illegible language, leaves all of us scratching our heads and wondering who is getting what from whom. And why.

So what is it with the artist’s Myspace pages, called “Hell in LAMB UC”? Is he squirrelier than he looks, happily indulging a skanky fashion du jour? Is he in it for the virtual nookie? Is he putting us on once again? Vélez describes his online exertions as a proposal for an exhibition, but after a more or less painstaking examination of the site—a whole lot less than more, to tell the truth—we’re convinced “Hell in LAMB UC” is the exhibition he’s always wanted.

Vélez’s description is, as usual, rife with baloney, especially the earnest yammering about Hunter S. Thompson and William Kennedy, although who knows, he could be serious about this. But more to the point is the artist’s ready willingness to lie:

Hell in LAMB UC is a faux over faux multimedia piece housed in the popular web host of My Space.com that investigates the fate of characters, joints and publications found in Hunter S. Thompson lost novel THE RUM DIARY . . .

Just like Thompson managed to capture the idiosyncrasies and atmosphere of the hot hub in the Caribbean, Pedro Velez has developed . . . an intricate and non-linear narrative lead by four main characters: Hell in LAMB UC, Ann Lee, Huntergodfs and Staged Metal Party. The four characters introduce the viewer to a web of connections, images, false characters, text and profiles that rips thru the My Space sphere like a manic Gonzo reporter burned with the hot rums of Puerto Rico.

“The hot rums of Puerto Rico!” Well. The prose may be purple and the idea overwrought, but “Hell in LAMB UC” is stranger than it looks. For starters, not everything is fiction. Vélez did indeed meet and start dating the woman in the photograph below, during a party at the house pictured. Perhaps the dewy nectars of mutual attraction got uncorked by that very shutter’s click.

But by and large, the pages of his so-called “friends” have that distinctively opaque, quasi-sordid Vélez look, with the notable difference that the author is beginning to show something less than complete indifference to graphic niceties. Staged Metal Party’s “adult REPUBLICANS in jFK” suggests a mouthful, all of it rude, while saying nothing you can put your finger on. It’s as exasperatingly voyeuristic as ever, but considerably more readable than usual, attaining a kind LetraSet piss elegance.
One of Hell in LAMB UC’s own postings is downright elementary Photoshoppy. Good going, Pedro! You have to hand it to Vélez. Even if by happy accident, his suggestive phraseology, compacted and splintered almost beyond verbalization, touches on any number of actual undercurrents of resentment seething at different levels of Puerto Rican society, from sullen youths, to alienated bohemians and would-be bohemians, even into the pained civic consciousness of this conflicted neverland.

What we like about “Hell in LAMB UC” is the way its blog entries and the comments of its “friends” create a convincing, if unwholesome, world of confessional cheap talk, reflexive argumentativeness, and flirting gone wrong.

Hunter S. Thompson

6/23/2006 8:24 PM

I'm completely confused. For a while it seemed that you wanted literature to be like heavy metal. Heavy metal isn't usually all that smart, but it's passionate, aggressive, sincere, honest, and lacks irony. I could more or less get with that. It seemed right for our post-ironic post 9/11 times. But now you want art to be more like sports? Have you lost your mind?! Sports are all obsessed with competition, corporate sponsorship, advertising, consumerism, and steroid abuse. And you are quoting Nike in your directive to just [fucking] do it? Brother, you have really gone astray.

Ann Lee Lives!

6/21/2006 7:30 PM

It was very lame, easy and childish of you to give me the 1am, Burger King drive-tru, five minute tops, “I'm so busy and gotta move on,” easy break up and dissappear on the fuckin phone.

I would have prefered a letter with you creative use of words, something tangible, and at least, respectful to me, I think I deserved that . . .

As you wend your way through the nerve system of Vélez’s semi-fiction, clicking on the friends of friends and their friends, you find an exponentially bigger pool of actual strangers, whose narratives, though not Vélez’s, are no more or less reliable than his. Could anything as deeply weird as the flag-waving Republican Freelancer be made up?

Vélez seems to have found, at relatively little expense and bother, a way to have the full- blown exhibition that the art world is always denying him—or so he likes to complain—a show in which he can be as cantankerous, opaque, foul, unhappy, and inventive as he wishes, both enjoying the fruits of an anonymous, profoundly untrustworthy medium while giving it the finger for its superficiality and basic dishonesty. It’s vintage Vélez, only more so. See for yourself at

http://myspace.com/hellinlambuc

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary channeled by Pedro Vélez

Where is Chenault!? (from Hell in LAMB UC : Hunter Thompson's The Rum Diary, channeled by Pedro Vélez).

Web-based piece based on Hunter Thompson's The Rum Diary. Published in 2006.

press here to follow the narrative : Hell in LAMB UC

Hell in LAMB UC is a “faux over faux” multimedia piece housed in the 

popular web host of My Space.com that investigates the fate of characters, 

joints and publications found in Hunter S. Thompson lost novel THE RUM 

DIARY.

Set in a thriving yet decadent colony of the U.S. in the late 50’s, the 

book has been source of countless myths and speculation surrounding 

fictional and actual places and personalities.

These confusing tales not only involve Thompson passing as weary reporter 

Paul Kemp or the willing abduction and rape of his desired Chenault, but 

Pulitzer Prize winner William J. Dorvillier channeling a good friend of the 

author and editor of a bowling publication El Sportivo, William Kennedy.

Neither Kennedy nor Thompson lived more than two years in the island of 

Puerto Rico.

Just like Thompson managed to capture the idiosyncrasies and atmosphere of 

the hot hub in the Caribbean, Pedro Velez has developed, in a two month 

self - imposed sabbatical, an intricate and non-linear narrative lead by 

four main characters: Hell in LAMB UC, Ann Lee, Huntergodfs and 

Staged Metal Party.

The four characters introduce the viewer to a web of connections, images, 

false characters, text and profiles that rips thru the My Space sphere like 

a manic Gonzo reporter burned with the hot rums of Puerto Rico.

Pedro Vélez :The Day of the Corrupt (performance/installation at El Cha, Puerto Rico)

>

The Day of the Corrupt

Installation/live performance 

by Pedro Vélez

It took place on September 12 at El CHA Performing Arts Center in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico. El CHA was a punk hub located in the outskirts of San Juan. What I did was cover, damage, collage- over, paint and erase graffiti that had been decorating the walls of the El CHA. Over those erasures I added (with acrylic paint and collages ) the names of corrupted personalities, along with fake personalities.

Some of those names are hidden, never to be found, like Hoffa.
But others you can read clearly:

Jorge de Castro Font, Miyuca, Rovira Crakers, Berezdivin Trienal, Adlín Rios, Hilda Torros, Otto, Larry Cragig, Arturo Madero, Soutto, Ratt, Torrente, Senators, Mailosevic, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Malaso among others...Now, some are really corrupt people and others only have the perception of corruption. A few aren't corrupt but have a great sounding name to make art with.

At the end of the exhibit collages were sold at only 20 bucks each. All the money went directly to EL CHA as a donation. The exhibition also includes a sound mix by José "Popu" Roman.

*CHA stands for : Center for the Horrible Arts

video of The Day of the Corrupt on MSA

Cesar Reyes
Ratt (Homage to Robin Crosby, guitar player and founder of the band who died of AIDS denied by his band.
Hilda Torros of Universidad del Sagrado Corazón


detail (Torrente)
staged wall drawing (Miyuca La Muda and her cohorts)
Berezdivin and vomit (over a Radamés Juni Figueroa graffiti)
detail (Rovira Crakers)
Miyuca
detail of RATT mural
detail of Miyuca La Muda and Her Cohorts
Vélez at work

James Baker

drawing on top of menu/rules board of El CHA

detail Arturo Madero

detail (Otto Reyes, Miyuca, Adlín Ríos Rigau)



Beata Bratriz Mixta(ink and acrylic over a San Juan Trienal poster)

Beer Young and the Catholic University



the Corrupted

Cuba's


Senators

Krane

Maggie's Hell in LAMB UC


Political Shipwreck

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Related news for corrupted Senator Jorge de Castro Font and his ties to collector Alberto de la Cruz:

From Caribbean Bussiness
Who’s who in De Castro Font case
By CB Online Staff

Rumors began circulating late Friday and early Saturday as to the identities of the 12 persons who alleged they were victims of extortion by former Senate Majority leader Jorge De Castro Font, who was charged earlier this week in federal court with 32 counts of alleged fraud and extortion, among other charges.

One of the 12, Atty. Guillermo Zuñiga already declared himself guilty of paying De Castro Font $5,000 a month for a total of $120,000 from July 2006 to July 2008 on behalf of several clients. He maintained when declaring himself guilty that when he attempted to stop the payments he was threatened.

Other well-known businesspeople who allegedly were paying off the senator in return for favors include American Parking owners Miguel and Rolando Cabral who allegedly paid De Castro Font $40,000 over an 18-month period and hosted him in their native Dominican Republic, flying him there on their private plane.

Also allegedly named in the indictment as “Person No. 1” is Alberto de la Cruz who, according to the accusation, allegedly paid some $165,000 to the senator through his advertising agency Sajo & García to allegedly keep a certain bill from not being passed. De la Cruz, distributor of Coca Cola and Medalla beer among other products, appeared to have been successful and the bill was never passed.

Others on the list include developer Joel Katz who allegedly paid the senator $132,000 over a five-year period regarding legislation for his Costa Sirena development in Loiza and Carlos Declet, owner of Santurce Gas, who allegedly indicated he paid some $10,000 to kill a specific House bill. He maintains in the indictment papers that he was asked for $35,000.

Atty. Alfredo Escalera, who represents several associations,allegedly kicked in $4,500 for a meeting with De Castro Font to talk about legislation affecting his clients although he had allegedly been asked to pay $10,000 for the meeting.

El Jibarito owner Jorge Mayendía allegedly paid the senator $5,000 a month from 1996 to May 2008 at which time he needed, according to the indictment, to have the text of a bill modified to sell a water bottling company he owned to non-local investors.

ACODESE’s Betsy Barbosa, owner of an insurance company for the past eight years, allegedly paid De Castro Font $83,300 through Sajo & García and the company of also-accused conspirator Alberto Goachet, head of the press office for former Gov. Pedro Rosselló. Also alleged to be paying monies, said to be around $30,000 to De Castro Font’s agencies, was Ramón Macrón, vice president of a company called Urban Designs.

Dakis Joannou and the Yacth that Conquers

Dakis Joannou and the Yacht that Conquers, curated by Pedro Velez

poster and photographic banner triptych 

Pedro Velez's Cute Girls, Heavy Metal, Sports and Hope, 2002

TBA EXHIBITION SPACE  Pedro Velez:  Cute Girls, Heavy Metal, Sports and Hope September 13 - October 19, 2002  TBA Exhibition Space  Thomas Blackman Associates, Inc.  230 West Huron Street, #3E  Chicago, Illinois 60610  312.587.3300  312.587.3304 FACSIMILE  CONTACT: Heather Hubbs  Pedro Velez: Cute Girls, Heavy Metal, Sports and Hope  Cute Girls: Jennifer Ramsey, Pamela Jo Buchwald, Keri Butler, RebekahLevine, Maria Alos, Jasmin Moorhead, Lisa Williamson, Kristen Van Deventer,Emmy Mathis, Melissa Schubeck, Stefano Pasquini, Jennifer Schmidt, Sara Hicks, Yuki Kokubo, Carlos Ruiz, Monica Rizzo, Julia Hechtman, Rachel Roske, Edra Soto, Mara Ayala. The BRIEZY Video Show: Rebekah Rutkoff, GAP, Ximena Cuevas, Forcefield, Paulina Olowska.  Unfinished Jewish Sculpture: Milton Berle, styrofoam, acrylic.  Synchronized Swimming: Alix Lambert, Benicio del Toro, Mauricio Laffitte-Soler, Death*, and Pet Sounds at Jorge Pardos Beach House.  Refrigerator Show: stuff, JFK, magnets, grocery list, Jasmine Bleeth. Nina Luis vs. Judy Ledgerwood, Okwui Enwezor, Manuel Noriega, coffee.  Be Aggressive: Ralph Nader, Mike Kelley, Dune. David Robbins and The McLaughlin Group on top of a coral reef. Heavy Metal and a bunch of people who couldnt care less about art.  Essay by Shane Aslan Selzer.  Chicago based curator, Pedro Velez, has seized upon the term curating as a process for navigating the slippery terrain of an artists practice. By occupying a curatorial stance strictly as an artistic strategy, Velez aggressively promotes specific agendas regarding taste, selection and importance. The list above describes the exhibition Pedro has organized for his show at the TBA Exhibition Space. However, many of the people, objects and tactics have been used in Velezs past exhibitions. For example, David Robbins and the McLaughlin Group is a fake show embodied by a postcard, which exists as a poetic musing on context and association. By placing art stars in conjunction with advertisements, metal bands, movies and politics, Pedro manifests a New World order, a polycentric site for the meeting of Ralph Nader and Mike Kelley. The Fake Postcards throw you off for a minute and Nina Luis vs. Judy Ledgerwood uses a similar slight of hand for Velez to insert his curatorial preference into an institutional setting. Literally replacing the Judy Ledgerwood painting, regularly hung in the office of TBA, with a Nina Luis painting, Pedro gives us his version of a fresh new painting for the corporate wall. Not only does the move serve to give Luis a context which makes sense for a Chicago audience who is unfamiliar with her work but it also marks one1s arrival in a new place; not only Luis1 but Pedro1s as well.  Velez will also be distributing mixed heavy metal tapes in the gallery. The tapes become tiny shows unto themselves, curated by volunteers from an online metal music chat room where Pedro asks for tapes, and discusses with Metal kids what constitutes good art and how music can function in a gallery setting. The BRIEZY Video Show is a video program Velez asked Rebekah Rutkoff to curate for his show at TBA, giving her specific instructions for inclusions in her program. In these projects, Pedro releases curatorial control in search of fresh results while maintaining the stance of CEO over the vision of his enterprise.  Cute Girls is a series where Velez chooses women he finds cute and asks them to pose for a photographer also of his choice. These women agree to pose becoming poster supporters for Pedros imagination and reveals his own taste as a mechanism for gauging value based on appearance. Like the cute girls, the Unfinished Sculptures are a coming together of disparate elements to achieve a visual significance suitable to Pedro1s eye. Their unfinished status suggests certain question or fear about the life span of his curatorial decisions. Velezs taste is subject to change as he moves forward through the haze of visual culture and continues to reassert his own ability to choose. The point is that things often come back to taste, and the cultivation of individual taste is as dependent upon the social landscape as the people themselves.  Pedro Velez is an artist, curator and writer living in Chicago. His work has been reviewed in Frieze, Boston Phoenix, New Art Examiner and The San Juan Star. As a curator, Velez has organized exhibitions in rental spaces, abandoned buildings and marginal galleries. As artist, recent exhibitions include: Pretending to Pretend at The Soap Factory (Minneapolis) 2002; Pedro Velez and Juana Valdes at the Bronx River Art Center (New York) 2002; Tasty Dog at Atelier 25 (Krems) 2002; Lingo at ONI Gallery (Boston) 2002; SUK at Sesto Senso Gallery (Bologna) 2001; U/Topistas at Michy Marxuach Projects (Puerto Rico) 2000.  Cute Girls, Heavy Metal Sports and Hope will travel to The Museo de las  Americas in Puerto Rico during October.

http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/495

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installation view TBA, Wall of Fake Shows on the left, visitors were encouraged to take home their favorite shows/flyers

detail Wall of Fake Shows

Unfinished Jewish Sculptureshaped found billboard from Spertus Museum, styrofoam, acrylic
invite to the show, includes all the collaborators and the titles of the works




wall drawing 








view 

Unfinished Socially Conscious Sculpture

shaped cardboard and pins on Laundromat sign from Division street

Heavy Metal Mix Tapes, curated by Pedro Velezclose to 300 mix tapes, selected from an open call to submit a mix to the exhibition, were distributed free of charge to visitors. 

flyers for Heavy Metal Mix Tape, edition of 3

Only Death is Real, mix tape by Alex Drake





Cute Girls view in Crowe T. Brooks St. Louis



Pamela Jo Buchwald in NYC by Maria Alos, curated by Pedro Velez

Emmi Mathis in a bathtub full of bubles by Melissa Shubeck, curated by Pedro Velez

Kristen "Teen Beat" Van Deventer by Lisa Williamsom, curated by Pedro Velez

ex-girlfriend Jenn Ramsey in North Carolina, curated by Pedro Velez

Jennifer Schmidt in Boston by Stefano Pasquini, curated by Pedro Velez

Edra Soto in Chicago by Mara Ayala, curated by Pedro Velez

Sara Hicks at the beach by Yuki Kokubo, curated by Pedro Velez

Keri Butler's neck by Rebekah Levine, curated by Pedro Velez
Nina Luis vs Judy Ledgerwood

Nina Luis



Judy Ledgerwood


The Program (GAP) and Briezyfor TBA the original version of The Program (2001) was edited to include a video program curated by Rebekah Ruthkoff  called Briezy


original invite for The Program

essay for The Program by Marc Fisher



 Hope at TBA, curated fridge by Pedro Velez(piece was available for viewing only to employees) Decoration of TBA's Fridge.(includes an e-mail from friend Kasarian Dane detailing the news that he and his wife are expecting a child and a newspaper clipping celebrating that the Chicago Bears got into the playoffs.


detail

detail

review Hot Commodities

Apocalypse Now, fake postcard/ '99 at Hermetic Gallery, Milwaukee

postcard and collaged construction paper, acrylic, screw and styrofoam

invitation (after Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones)

 

Unfinished Yellow Sculpture

styrofoam, acrylic, wood, masonite

"Postcard 1999/Apocalypse Now"

1999 /limited edition of 3,000 distributed freely in 1999

with the support of John T. Belk

Frieze review by Michele Grabner

If material things seem to have taken on an almost religious significance in our consumer economy, art has remained a successfully secular and objective enterprise, continuing to offer itself up as a critical, systematic activity that traffics in cultural inquiry. Superstition, magic, or priestcraft are rarely considered, despite the fact that many artists engage in a kind of conjuring and divining of material.

Jessica Hutchins and Pedro Velez are by no means into consulting oracles or interceding with the gods, but their sculptural objects suggest a curiosity in something unnatural and spirited. Hutchins’ old T-shirt, collaged with stars cut from the newspaper, and Velez’ construction paper sandwiched together with oozing orange acrylic paint could be legitimately redeemed in a contemporary art context as a poor-man’s Jessica Stockholder or a clumsy Tony Feher. But more compelling and unusual is Hutchins and Velez’ naive attempt to attach a quasi-sacred belief system to their ephemera in order to justify and redeem their own overarching seduction by materiality and worldly success. Their simple sculptural forms pry open the secularised conceptual framework of art production in the hope of glimpsing an epistemological precept greater than the intellectual mandates of art schools and the privilege of the market place.

This search for divinity in material things starts with their approach to making art which reveals little formal etiquette or proclivity to balance or harmony. Yet the objects’ awkwardness refuses to be sympathetic to discord or tolerant of ambiguity. Every piece in the show was mysteriously iconic, even slightly folksy, but ultimately a refreshing shift from the closed methodical systems characteristic of much contemporary art.

Hutchins combines papier mâché, thin gauge wire, staples, sheets of ruled paper, and colouring book pages to make a large, sloppy floor mat. Like a surface peeled from Kurt Schwitter’s Merzbau, Untitled (2000) is a buckling flat mass too cumbersome for the gallery space. It imposes its crudeness on the other equally crude sculptures in the space and the loops of wire protruding from its surface literally trip visitors up. Lacking the elegance of a flying carpet or the grounding of a prayer mat, Hutchins’ floor piece locates itself somewhere between a religious accoutrement and a disposable lining for a rodent cage, between the sacred and the blasphemous, between art and junk.

Butterfly (2000) is another of Hutchins’ floor sculptures that is so shoddily made that belief in the uncanny is the only way one can legitimise its coming into being. Again, as a rudimentary form - an open cube - it can’t escape its art precursors, but its unskilled construction animates it with a possessed presence. A dangling paper butterfly neither decorated it nor lent its meaning a rational narrative.

Velez’ Postcard (2000) hits a metaphysical mark without over dependence on animated material. Commercially printed, these blue and yellow postcards, casually stuck to the gallery wall, sport a smartly designed list of contemporary artists such as Daniel Buren, Gaylen Gerber, Julian Schnabel, Ceal Floyer, and Kay Rosen. A stack of the same cards next to the gallery’s sign-in book was inscribed with the words ‘Curated by Pedro Velez’. This fictional exhibition announcement is as much wish fulfilment as it is a piece of critical commentary in which Velez takes a swipe at an inadequate local art apparatus while acknowledging his admiration for certain artists. Perhaps if he holds the card close to his heart and makes a wish the show will come true. Maybe even in the mid-West. All it takes is a little faith.

First published in
Issue 55, November-December 2000

Weiner Book of Blah

Weiner Book of Blah

Altered Book Pages for The Library Project

Temporary Services

Drawings on top of book pages of a Lawrence Weiner catalog donde with an eraser and ink. All books and publications were infiltrated to the Chicago Public Library collection.

Oracle Betances: a novel by Pedro Velez

Oracle Betances, novel by Pedro Velez

photographic banner 6'x5'

Cu Chi Tunnels, curated by Pedro Velezphotographic banner, 07

Hell in Lamb UC / Poster Project for NADA Art Fair '05

Hell in LAMB UC, special project for NADA Art Fair, 2005. Limited edition poster series of 1,000

(left) Uni Las Vas Rasfur Falut (David Robbins and The Maclaughlin Group), photographic banner; (right) UC RASF, acrylic on canvas. At Galeria Comercial booth.

   Posters at Cultural Contamination exhibition curated by Gean Moreno at the Centro Cultural Español in Miami, '07. Work on top of wall of posters by Diego Sighn.

A Glorious Ending 2003 Public Art Project

A Glorious Ending, curated by Pedro Velez

limited edition poster ditych for the public Art Project Post

'03. Also distributed at Artpoint, Miami. 

PEDRO VELEZ
April 2003

Velez's A Glorious Ending will be exhibited in various northwest neighborhoods (Wicker Park, Humboldt Park, and River West) beginning April 15, 2003. Created as a two-part poster edition, A Glorious Ending incorporates both optimism and fatalism into a wish list of chance occurences between an unlikely cast of characters. Velez's POST edition embraces non-sensical thoughts, romantic ideals, art discourse, pseudo-confrontations, comradery, political concerns and the call of the wild.

Web Site de POST

Posters distribuidos gratuitamente en feria Artpoint con el auspicio del Soap Factory en Minneapolis.

Misremember, poster for Event Horizon, Boston

Event Horizon web site

Misremember by Pedro Vélez in collaboration with Gamaliel Rodríguez

Misremember is based on the odd use of the verb by baseball player Roger Clemens when asked, during his deposition before Congress, about his longtime friend and teammate Andy Pettitte, who claimed the pitcher told him about using Human Growth Hormone in 1999 or 2000.

"I think he misremembers our conversation," said Clemens.

Using this quote as source material the piece makes connections between governmental corruption, loyalty, morality, sports and journalism.

The Corrupt

The Corrupt (Milosevich, Cramen Correa, Osv, Ratt, Rosello)

Balloons and Ink

Intervention/Performance/Collage at the Condado Lagoon

as part of an exhibition by La Mobil Projects

2007

The Corrupt

Ratt and Robin Crosby

ballons and rainbow

exhibition view

Camen Correa

Benetton GAP collages

Benetton and the Africa - India Mushroom Cloud Continent

02-04







view at Galeria Comercial 03

Suite Girl A&Efound poster, postcards, ink, acrylic and paper


Ben's For Hire instalation at Galeria Comercial '05

GAP
cotton, nylon, yarn, acrylic and GAP tag'01

Puertorican - Jewish and Lights Remix

'04

Whitney Visit Berezdivin Wall Collage

the opposite wall is that of Espacio 1414-Berezdivin Collection




Sad GAPcotton, nylon, acrylic'02

Fountain of Youth at Locust Projects, Miami '03 (Miami Herald review)

Fountain of Youth: the official invitation and also a poster for the exhibition. 

Ann Lee Lives! 

Poster and ink, in collaboration with Law Office

1/1  'o3

the controversy with Rosa de la Cruz

Marta Traba mural

Postcard and Ann Lee Lives poster published in The Breeder editions

Posted on Fri, Jan. 24, 2003

ART SEEN / Bad boys (and girls)
ENFANT TERRIBLE COLLECTIVE MAKES ART OUT OF OUR SCANDALOUS PAST
BY DAMARYS OCAÑA
Miami Herald


There are alternative art spaces, risk-taking curators and middle-finger artists -- and then there's Law Office, Chicago's role-hopping collaborative, which once commissioned an artist to streak naked through an art fair with the crew's name written across his butt cheeks.

Other subversive hits by Law Office, whose members -- artists Rob Davis, Vincent Dermody, Michael Langlois and Rebekah Levine -- conceptualize and mount shows that they and other artists star in: A retrospective of a barely known emerging artist; a take on corporate sponsorship that combined art, Wu Wear and buckets of beer; and the genre-blurring, crossover Sex Party, for which four invited artists built a porn set and produced their own films. The set was then the icky site for a party in which ''trashy attire'' was required.

At its best, Law Office manages to make its enfant terrible, pop-culture driven art into relevant commentary on the art world, its slick connection with commerce, and the role of artists, curators, museum directors and the audience. One of a growing number of young artist collectives springing up nationwide and in Canada, it seeks to turn expectation and art-world hierarchy upside down, or at least blow it up to level the playing field -- and have a really good time doing it. At the very least, it's entertaining.

By comparison with its earlier projects, Law Office's show at Locust Projects, Fountain of Youth, is much more tame. Odd, yes, but no one is swinging naked from the rafters. The show, a Law Office collaboration with Chicago artist/curator/critic Pedro Velez that also includes pieces by Steve Davis, Travis Lanning and Scott Wolniak, comprising a painting, sculptures, drawings, an installation and a video.

The closest the group came to controversy was including Miami collector Rosa de la Cruz's name in a stream-of-consciousness list of phrases like ''a dead pony'' on a poster in the show, which doubled as the show's invitation flyer. De La Cruz, according to Velez, was upset enough to call him and complain. Alas, one show visitor lamented, the conversation was not taped for posterity.

The theme for Fountain of Youth, named after the mythical spring that supposedly brought Ponce De Leon to Florida, is Miami itself. Don't expect extraordinary insight -- no artist has yet properly mined our historical wealth of weirdness and penchant for playing some role in seemingly every major scandal and national tragedy for its art potential.

Law Office, parachuting in, is no exception. But that's the point. Law Office's vision of Miami and, by a case of reluctant osmosis, South Florida, is -- purposely -- CNN's vision, and thus the world's: The breakaway banana republic and playground for the fabulous at the tip of the nation. Catapulting from the phrase ''fountain of youth,'' Law Office free-associated its way through Miami's image. Not terribly original, but fun nonetheless. Note the made-up flag of Miami above the door at Locust Projects.

The most obvious link to South Florida, aside from De La Cruz's name, is Anthrax Painting, a giant black-and-white painting of West Palm Beach's American Media building, where the first post-Sept. 11 case of anthrax poisoning was reported. In the painting, which looks like a postcard from a bygone era, the building is as luridly pristine and tranquil as a hospital, belying its history.

Pedro Velez's Marta Traba VF, a wall drawing/installation, is perhaps an oblique way of referencing Miami's history as a Latin American art hub. A framed, melancholy newspaper picture of Traba, an Argentine art critic, social activist and novelist of the '60s and '70s whose writings put Latin American art on an international stage, commands attention at the center of a wall. Reaching out from the picture's borders, a wall drawing of cryptic text reminiscent of Van Halen font completes the piece's feel of a devoted teenager's private shrine.

Marta Traba VF is juxtaposed with Ann Lee Picture, a photograph of a young woman tacked to an adjacent wall, that makes reference to Art Basel, the newest chapter in Miami's art history. The photograph is a spoof, covered as it is with a sardonic scrawled message to French artists Pierre Huyghe and Phillippe Parreno, the duo who bought the rights to a Japanese anime character, named her AnnLee and used her as the focal point of a series of works by themselves and other artists, then retired her with a fireworks display during Basel. ''Phillippe, Pierre: You cannot kill Ann Lee!'' reads the statement against the tyranny of French artists. ``She is alive and well in Puerto Rico. Go fuck yourselves. L.O. & P.V.''

A video that combines footage of Friday the 13th horror character Jason jumping through a window and attacking a woman with audio of a drunken redneck version of ''Amazing Grace'' has a distinctly trailer-trash vibe. Most engaging in the show is perhaps Adult Crib, a giant, crudely constructed wooden cube with a ramp, the participatory part of the show. Visitors can climb into the work and indulge in a feast of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (probably a reference to the good-time booty-bass fad song ''Peanut Butter and Jelly Time,'' and to the role of art as entertainment). Outfitted with mustard shag carpet and other low-grade accoutrements, Adult Crib is the glib-ironic heart of the exhibition.

Pedro Vélez Fake Shows (invitations, posters , offset and banners) 1999-on going

Uni Las Vas Rasfur Falut: David Robbins and The Maclaughlin Group, curated by Pedro Velez in '05Photographic banner, 2/2at NADA Art Fair 05





Hell in LAMB UC Elections, curated by Pedro Velez in '04
at Ingalls Associates Gallery, Miami



review in Art US

Tropical Setting for all the Exotic Artists,curated by Pedro Velez

1/1 offset poster

'05

Wall of Fake Shows at TBA Exhibition Space, Chicago

view of Wall of Fake Shows

at Museo las Américas in Puerto Rico, '02

in the photo Omar Lopez- Chahoud and Pedro Velez

Be Aggressive: Ralph Nader, Mike Kelley, Dune. Curated by Pedro Velezflyer and posters distributed at exhibition: The Suburban Political Poster Project 
Lothringer Dreizehn of the City of Munich and Max Fish, NYC. 2003

installation view

article in Collezioni Italy


Sports, Hope and Loss (Barry Bonds), curated by Pedro Velezdistributed at Yerba Buena Arts Center and published at the Poor Pony #113 in an event by Shane Selzer. 


*The name of Julia Child included in invitation for exhibition.



Hirsch Farm Projects on Easter Island, curated by Pedro Velezcolored flyers, edition of a 1,000'02

cryptic text on invitation for exhibition The Aging Quail at Galeria Comercial



Brian Wilson's Synchronized Swimming, curated by Pedro Velezpostcards and flyers, '02


No Metaphorspostcard


front side of The Dams Piedras Negras, curated by Pedro Vélezpostcard

back side of postcard: The Dams Piedras Negras,curated by Pedro Vélez
Adults in PJ BwleranMy Space banner (from Hell in Lamb UC on line exhibition series and viral campaigns)

Godfucks Miami onto Others
My Space banner

Godfucks Miami onto Others in ChicagoMy Space banner


The Aging Quailsflyer (the ex governor)


Smoke s in its Rethoric' s
My Space banner

Paul Kemp and Hunter Thompson(The Rum Diaries)My Space banner


Studentspostcard, 2002

Adult Republicans in JFKMy Space banner


KDUTRAphotographic flyer