Celeste: Manta de cielo

Artist Talk & Community Picnic

UPDATE: Pre-Registration For This Event Now Closed. Walk-Up Tickets Available Day-Of.

Join us on the lower grounds of Laguna Gloria as we welcome creative duo Celeste back to Austin for an artist talk and community picnic, hosted under the shaded space provided by their temporary installation, Manta de cielo.

Manta de cielo is a portable textile sculpture made up of eight pieces of dyed fabric tied together with knots, creating a flexible space adaptable to a variety of installation sites. The title of the piece, Manta de cielo, connects the grandiose to the everyday. A manta is an ordinary kitchen rag and cielo, which means sky, refers to the fabric of the universe. The sculpture incorporates the area where it is installed, filtering natural light through dyed fabric and into the space, turning the interior a bright shade of pink. This creates an atmosphere that transforms not only the space, but everything that enters it. The textile piece was created as a shelter to host gatherings, events, and celebrations. This will be the third installation site of Manta de cielo.

We hope you’ll join us for what is sure to be an enlightening discussion with the artists themselves, their collaborator Macarena Hernandez, and curator Robin K. Williams. We invite you to stay after the talk for an evening picnic featuring a special musical performance by Andrea Cortez and Mario Garza. We’ll provide complimentary drinks, tasty tacos from Taco Flats will be available for purchase, and our onsite café, Spread & Co., will be open to take your orders. Or, feel free to bring your own refreshments.

About Celeste

Inaugurating the HOST series is Celeste, an artist duo based in Mexico City formed by María Fernanda Camarena (b. Guadalajara, 1988) and Gabriel Rosas Alemán (b. Mexico City, 1983). The artists’ collaborative practice centers on explorations of archetypal images and the creation of spaces that are both physical and social. Their largescale, dyed and painted fabric installations employ a distinctive warm color palette and respond to architectural environments while incorporating abstracted images, such as extended hands and empty vessels, that speak to the personal and collective unconscious.

About Macarena Hernandez Estrada

Macarena Hernandez Estrada is an art historian, cultural manager and Mexican editor. She is co-founder and public program manager of Aeromoto, a library specializing in art and independent editions in Mexico City, along with co-founders Maru Calva, Mauricio Marcin and Jerónimo Rüedi. She is currently the co-curator of the Festival Poesía en Voz Alta 2023, at Casa del Lago UNAM. In 2020, she co-curated an online version of the same festival entitled: The Language that Vibrates Before the Word, (UNAM, 2021) with Cinthya García Leyva. She currently participates as co-editor with Renata Cervetto (AR) and Miguel A. López (PE), of the second volume of Agítese antes de usar: Artistic, educational and social displacements in Latin America (Temblores / Fundación Jumex / PAC / CIAC, 2023). Additionally, she is the editorial coordinator of the first catalog of the Mexican artist Marcela Armas, entitled Looking with Mountain Eyes (MACG/ Museo de Arte de Guanajuato, 2023). She is currently editing a publication by the Japanese artist Aki Onda (UNAM, 2023) and she has coordinated the catalog of the Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, 2022, Hasta que los cantos sprout (forthcoming, 2023).

About Andrea Cortez & Mario Garza

Integrating traditional sounds of Mesoamerica and South Asia, Andrea Cortez and Mario Garza combine elements of harp and tabla, the representative instruments of the West and East. Together the duo expounds on indigenous practices of cantos medicinas, or medicine songs, that connect to natural elements. These traditional songs are catalysts in evocations for healing and hope.

IMAGE: Celeste, Manta de cielo, 2022. Pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas. 275 1/2 x 354 3/8 x 110 1/4 inches. Installation view at JO-HS, Mexico City, 2022. Artwork © Celeste. Image courtesy the artists. Photograph by Sergio López.