POSSIBILITIES OF MATTER: Creative Workshop with Poncili Creación

Inspired by the group exhibition ‘Nonmemory,’ take part in a creative workshop led by Poncili Creación – the puppetry collective comprised of identical twin brothers Pablo and Efrain Del Hierro whose work intersects sculpture, performance and sound.

The workshop will focus on taking a different approach to the production and creation of ideas in our modern world, with the intent on delivering a crash course on object manipulation and the transformation of matter. Every participant will have the opportunity to test new materials and unleash their creativity in an attempt to bring an idea from the mind into the 3D world. Championing DIY culture and artistic risk, the brothers will explain why we see no limits when it comes to acquiring and transforming matter into objects that can come alive and interact with reality. Together, we will go through the steps of conceptualization, sketching, creating, and activating our soft sculptures. The ultimate goal is for you to learn the skills needed to bring an idea to life and create an example — be it a puppet, a tool against the apocalypse, or both. This is not a workshop directly intended for artists; we can all benefit from using our creativity more wisely.

Tickets are $20 each. The event is designed for adults. Teens ages 13-17 may join if accompanied by an adult taking the same workshop.

All workshop fee proceeds will be donated to PILAglobal. Participants can reach info@hauserwirth.com and inquire about our accessible pricing options. Click here to register.

Poncili Creación will perform an audio-visual poem on 11 November. Click here to learn more.

About Mike Kelley
Mike Kelley is widely considered one of the most influential artists of our time. Originally from a suburb outside of Detroit, Kelley attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, before moving to Southern California in 1976 to study at California Institute of the Arts from which he received an MFA in 1978.  The city of Los Angeles became his adopted home and the site of his prolific art practice. In much of his work, Kelley drew from a wide spectrum of high and low culture and was known to scour flea markets for America’s cast-offs and leftovers. Mining the banal objects of everyday life, Kelley elevated these materials to question and dismantle Western conceptions of contemporary art and culture.

About Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts
The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts advances the artist’s spirit of critical thinking, risk taking, and provocation in the arts. Established by Kelley in 2007, the Foundation seeks to further Kelley’s philanthropic work through grants to arts organizations and artists for innovative projects that reflect his multifaceted artistic practice. The Foundation also preserves the artist’s legacy more broadly and fosters the understanding of his life and creative achievements through educational initiatives including exhibitions, educational events, publications and the preservation and care of the Foundation’s art collections and archives.

About Nonmemory
Curated by Jay Ezra Nayssan, ‘Nonmemory’ brings together six seminal works by Mike Kelley and a group of seven contemporary artists – Kelly Akashi, Meriem Bennani, Beatriz Cortez, Raúl de Nieves, Olivia Erlanger, Max Hooper Schneider, Lauren Halsey – whose works all play with the role of memory as it posits our perceptions of space and place. Through a variety of media and material, the artists in this exhibition use space as the repository for dreams, fantasies, traumas, and anxieties, while offering opportunities to re-imagine and recreate reality. The title of the exhibition ‘Nonmemory,’ takes direct inspiration from Kelley’s use of the term, a way of treating, reordering, and representing the complex and unstable relationship between memory, space, and identity.

About Poncili Creación
Established in 2012 in Puerto Rico by twin brothers Pablo and Efrain Del Hierro, Poncili Creación is best known for their subversive public interventions using multiple media, experimental narratives, and an assemblage of hand-crafted objects often made from salvaged foam stuffing and foam rubber.

About PILAglobal
PILAglobal partners with local organizations to establish “Nests” which offer culturally responsive early childhood education and holistic family services in refugee camps, migrant shelters, and communities experiencing poverty.

About Del Vaz Projects
Founded in 2014 by Jay Ezra Nayssan, Del Vaz Projects is an arts nonprofit based in Los Angeles, California. Beginning as an alternative exhibition space located in Nayssan’s home, Del Vaz Projects has expanded over the last decade into a curatorial platform, independent press, and artist production fund. In addition to the on-site projects at Del Vaz Projects, Nayssan has organized exhibitions and programming for galleries and institutions, including this year’s inaugural series of off-site projects at Frieze Los Angeles.