Pedro Lasch[1] is a visual artist born in Mexico City, and based in the U.S. since 1994. He produces works of conceptual art, institutional critique, social practice, and site-specific art, as well as paintings, photographs, prints, and works in traditional media.

Pedro Lasch
Lasch teaches a painting class at Duke University in 2013
Born
Mexico City
Websitewww.pedrolasch.com

Background

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Born in Mexico City, Lasch studied art at the Cooper Union with Dore Ashton,[2] Hans Haacke, Day Gleeson, and Doug Ashford (Group Material),[3] among others, and later completed an MFA in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Lasch has been regularly involved with the New York art and politics collective 16 Beaver Group[4] since 2000. He has been at Duke University since 2002, where he teaches art and art theory in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies,[5] is graduate faculty for the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts,[6] and was a fellow at the Franklin Humanities Institute.[7]

Duke University

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During these years at Duke, Lasch's work has developed in an intellectual environment that, among the List of Duke University people includes influential figures in critical theory such as Fredric Jameson, Katherine Hayles, and Mark Anthony Neal. His co-publications and direct artistic collaborations with colleagues there include projects with Esther Gabara,[8] Walter Mignolo,[9] Michael Hardt,[10] Kristine Stiles, and Ariel Dorfman,[11] as well as the staff of the Nasher Museum of Art,[12] which opened to the public in 2005 in a new building designed by Rafael Viñoly.

Artwork

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Lasch's work, like that of many other artists who make participatory art, actively engages with pedagogy. His art has intersected with the international immigrants’ movement, and the philosophies of critical pedagogy,[13] radical democracy,[14] and the coloniality of power.[15] Between 1999 and 2004, Lasch created a series of simultaneously local and transnational social projects with immigrant and indigenous groups in Chiapas and Quintana Roo (Mexico), and Jackson Heights (Queens, New York). In collaboration with grassroots organizations like Asociación Tepeyac de New York[16] and Mexicanos Unidos de Queens, Lasch founded and directed the experimental afterschool program Art, Story-Telling, and the Five Senses (El arte, el cuento y los cinco sentidos, in Spanish). This pedagogical work received consecutive years of support from artist Robert Motherwell’s Dedalus Foundation,[17] and it included noted guest participants such as Ricardo Dominguez[18] from Electronic Disturbance Theater. During the peak of the 2006 United States immigration reform protests, three of the projects begun in Queens (Naturalizations,[19] LATINO/A AMERICA,[20] and Tianguis Transnacional[21]) were presented in Lasch’s first major solo exhibition at the Queens Museum of Art in New York.[22] This show was named as the best of the year by Michael Rakowitz in the journal Artforum.[23] The museum and its immediate neighborhoods have since become increasingly recognized for their rich and globally significant immigrant culture, featured in popular films like Maria Full of Grace, Salma Hayek’s hit TV-series Ugly Betty, and most recently, Tania Bruguera’s Creative Time[24] IM International project.[25]

Early work

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Lasch’s productions from the early Queens period, as well as his work with 16 Beaver, have expanded over the years to engage a growing network of international grassroots and interdisciplinary collaborators.[26] His projects with official art institutions include shows at Sean Kelly Gallery,[27] Baltimore Museum of Art,[28] Queens Museum of Art,[22] Walker Art Center,[29] MASS MoCA,[30] Nasher Museum of Art,[31] MoMA PS1[32] (U.S.A), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art[33] and The Royal College of Art[34] (U.K.), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía[35] (Spain), Centro Nacional de las Artes[36] (Mexico), Singapore Art Museum[37] (Singapore), Gwangju Biennale[38] (South Korea), as well as the AND AND AND platform of documenta 13[39] (Germany).

Other involvements

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Lasch has also served on various public and private boards, including the North Carolina Arts Council (2007–2010), and he occasionally curates exhibitions of other artists’ work that complement his artistic production. Flesh & Metal, Bodies & Buildings: Works from Jonathan Hyman's Archive of 9/11 Vernacular Memorials,[40] is a curatorial project by Lasch, related to his own 9/11 memorial painting series entitled Phantom Limbs, as well as his work with the organization of Twin Towers Go Global.[41]

References

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  1. ^ "Pedro Lasch, Duke University". Aahvs.duke.edu. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  2. ^ Dore Ashton, Cooper Union Archived November 21, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Doug Ashford Archived January 24, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ 16 Beaver Group, “Iraq Questionnaire Answers,” October Magazine, MIT Press, Winter 2008, No. 123, Pages 149–160.
  5. ^ "Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University". Aahvs.duke.edu. 11 January 2012. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  6. ^ "Pedro Lasch, Master of Fine Art in Experimental Documentary Arts, Duke University". Mfaeda.duke.edu. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  7. ^ "Recycle Seminar, Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University". Fhi.duke.edu. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  8. ^ Gabara, Esther. "Recycled Photographs: Moving Still Images of Mexico City, 1950/2000," Photography and Writing in Latin America: Double Exposures. Eds. Marcy Schwartz and Mary Beth Tierney-Tello. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, (2005)
  9. ^ "Walter Mignolo. "Aiesthesis Decolonial." Revista Calle 14 Arte y Cultura vol. 4 no. 4 (2010): 10–25". Gemini.udistrital.edu.co. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  10. ^ "Free Association/Means in Common." Rethinking Marxism, Special Issue: The Commons and the Forms of the Commune. Edited by Anna Curcio and Ceren Ozselcuk. vol. 22 no. 3 (July, 2010).
  11. ^ "Point-Counterpoint-Fusion – Homage to Daniel Buren (Punto-Contrapunto-Fusión-Homenaje a Daniel Buren)". Naturalizaciones.com. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  12. ^ "Pedro Lasch, editor, Black Mirror / Espejo Negro (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010)". Dukeupress.edu. 29 October 2010. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  13. ^ Hayward Gallery, Deschooling Society
  14. ^ McKee, Yates. "Contemporary Art & the Legacies of Democracy." A Guide to Democracy in America (2008): p 34-35.
  15. ^ Walter Mignolo (entrevista). "Matriz Colonial del Poder, Segunda Epoca." Desenganche: Visualidades y Sonoridades Otras (2010): 160–173.
  16. ^ "Asociación Tepeyac de New York". Tepeyac.org. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  17. ^ "Dedalus Foundation". Dedalus Foundation. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  18. ^ "Diane Ludin, "Art, Storytelling, and the Five Senses,"". Rhizome.org. 27 January 2003. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  19. ^ "Pedro Lasch, Naturalizations". Naturalizaciones.com. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  20. ^ "Pedro Lasch, LATINO/A AMERICA". Latinoaamerica.com. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  21. ^ "Pedro Lasch, Tianguis Transnacional". Tianguistransnacional.com. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  22. ^ a b "Open Routines: Recent Projects by Pedro Lasch". Queensmuseum.org. 9 July 2006. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  23. ^ Rakowitz, Michael. “The Artists’ Artists- Best Shows of 2006, ArtForum, December 2006.
  24. ^ "Creative Time". Creative Time. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  25. ^ "Immigrant Movement International". Immigrant-movement.us. 13 January 2012. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  26. ^ "IDEA Journal, Art & Society, Issue #33–44, Romania". Idea.ro. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  27. ^ Cotter, Holland. "PRIMITIVISM REVISITED: After the End of an Idea." The New York Times (January, 2007).
  28. ^ "16 Beaver Group, "Counter-Campus". 16beavergroup.org. 5 November 2005. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  29. ^ ""How Latitudes Become Forms," The Walker Art Museum". Latitudes.walkerart.org. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  30. ^ The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere (29 May 2004). "The Interventionists, MASSMoCA". Massmoca.org. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  31. ^ "Black Mirror / Espejo Negro: A Museum Installation by Pedro Lash, The Nasher Museum of Art". Nasher.duke.edu. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  32. ^ Kartofel, Graciela. Greater New York / MoMA PS1, Art Nexus, Issue No. 78, Nov. 2010.
  33. ^ "Lasch's Work in Martha Hellion's Selection, Baltic: Artists Books Exhibition". Balticmill.com. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  34. ^ "cofthewilling(webpdf).indd" (PDF). Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  35. ^ Disruptive Memories
  36. ^ "Taller Intercambio Sonidero Transnacional, Centro Nacional de las Artes". Transitiomx.net. 6 April 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  37. ^ Suan Hiang, Lee, et al. SENI: Singapore 2004, Art & the Contemporary. National Arts Council. Singapore, (2004): 36–49.
  38. ^ The 16 Beaver Group, “Between US: Introduction,” Fever Variations: Gwangju Biennale 2006 Catalogue, Vol. I. Editor, Hong-hee Kim. Gwangju Biennale Foundation. (2006): 281–295.
  39. ^ McKay, George. "1st Anniversary Report for AND AND AND, Documenta 13". D13.documenta.de. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  40. ^ "Flesh and Metal, Bodies and Buildings: Works from Jonathan Hyman's Archive of 9/11 Vernacular Memorials curated by Pedro Lasch, Special Collections Gallery, Perkins Library, Duke University". Exhibits.library.duke.edu. 9 November 2001. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  41. ^ "Twin Towers Go Global". Twin Towers Go Global. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
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