Tania Pérez Córdova: Precipitation

Tina Kim Gallery is pleased to announce Tania Pérez Córdova: Precipitation, opening February 2. This is the second show of the artist's to be held at the gallery, and coincides with her solo exhibition currently ongoing at the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. Incorporating within her practice sculpture, found objects, and activation or performance, Pérez Córdova is recognized for her poetic and contemplative works that often bear narrative implications. Born and based in Mexico City, Pérez Córdova's practice is distinguished by its provisional nature—both in its process of making, but also in its reception. Although she often works with conventional materials such as metal, glass, ceramics, and marble, Pérez Córdova allows chance encounters in everyday life (for example, coins gathered in the bottom of a friend's pocket, or a meeting with a street musician) to inspire or influence the outcome of the works themselves. As a result, the artist integrates unorthodox materials—including found objects, detritus, clothing, jewelry, amongst others—into the works themselves. Presented in the context of an exhibition, her works frame relationships between objects and narratives, pointing towards situations or events that may have happened outside the space of the gallery.

Precipitation features two new bodies of work: a series of sculptures developed using artificial leaves, and another of blown glass that references the rhythms of breathing patterns. In the first, the appearance of the lush, green leaves are disrupted by their punctured and torn surfaces, patterned to resemble that of insect infestations, or botanic infections. Adorned with jewelry chains falling from the ceiling, these works evoke an affect that lies in between alluring and unnerving. The positioning of their chains draw from rainfall patterns—drizzles, showers, and storms—in the density of their arrangements, as though inviting viewers to imagine a singular meteorological event.

Seen together, the works present an imaginary of a verdant landscape; yet, they simultaneously hint at an abstract, discomforting presence that is revealed upon close inspection. Accompanying this body of work are a group of blown glass sculptures, which are interspersed throughout the gallery's space. Inspired by the notion that different patterns of breathing can induce different psychological states, these sculptures are presented as containers for the human breath. Pérez Córdova's works thus invite viewers to read into the scenarios implied by the formal appearances and mediums of the works themselves. Collectively, the works evince the artist's lyrical approach to art-making that moves seamlessly between object, personal biography, and conjured imaginaries. They ask viewers to read personal or general meaning into each object, allowing for speculation to become part of the experience of the exhibition itself.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in 1979, Tania Pérez Córdova lives and works in Mexico City. Her work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, including at the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City (2022), Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2018), and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2017), amongst others. She has also exhibited in numerous group shows within an institutional context, including the Aichi Triennale (2019), SITE Sante Fe (2018), the Gwangju Biennale (2016), the New Museum Triennial (2015), and the Shanghai Biennale (2012). Her work can be found in public collections including the SFMoMA, San Francisco; MCA Chicago; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; and the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.