NEW YORK, NY.- Pioneering Mexico City-based contemporary gallery kurimanzutto announced it will open kurimanzutto new york—a new project space at 22 East 65th Street, New York, launching in May 2018.

kurimanzutto was conceived by Gabriel Orozco, José Kuri and Mónica Manzutto in 1999 and was initially founded as a nomadic enterprise. Its projects occupied disparate spaces across the urban landscape of Mexico City, driven by a commitment to foster local, national, and global bridges for its artists. In the following years, kurimanzutto has evolved as a forum for institutional exhibitions and international representation, while maintaining its profoundly collaborative approach with artists. Inhabiting unlikely places and partnering with diverse cultural entities to break ground for conversations and narratives outside the traditional white-cube gallery space has always been an underlying principle of the gallery.

Since its founding, the gallery has been instrumental in developing and supporting the careers of a wide cohort of artists, such as Abraham Cruzvillegas, Damián Ortega, Monika Sosnowska, Minerva Cuevas, Gabriel Orozco, Jimmie Durham, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Gabriel Kuri, Daniel Guzmán, and Dr. Lakra. Throughout the years, kurimanzutto has formed strong relationships with an international group of artists including, Adrián Villar Rojas, Gabriel Sierra, Leonor Antunes, Danh Vō, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Nairy Baghramian, Roman Ondak, and Haegue Yang. The ethos of the gallery was informed by and continues to evolve as a collaborative platform for the distinctive works and ideas of its artists.

kurimanzutto new york represents an extension of kurimanzutto Mexico City. This reaffirms the mission to create new spaces and situations that will transmit the gallery’s spirit, where the artist is central to its existence. kurimanzutto new york will act as a catalyst for this broad international program across North America.

Regarding the establishment of kurimanzutto new york, co-founder Mónica Manzutto says: “The opening of our project space in New York marks an essential development for our growing family of artists as a meeting point for their ideas. New York has always been close to us since living there in the nineties; it remained an important part of the conversations we engaged with through the years. With this new project we seek to establish even stronger connections to institutions, artists, and art professionals who have accompanied us across our evolution. It is a way to maintain and confirm our commitment to the development of the artistic current that lives and breathes in the city.”

In advance of the gallery’s official launch in May 2018, kurimanzutto new york will activate its project space with by presenting an installation by Abraham Cruzvillegas from his ongoing series Autoconstrucción—on view from April 2–May 12, 2018. A fundamental part of the artist’s practice is influenced by the collaborative building process undertaken by dwellers of improvised urban settlements around the world—favelas, barrios, slums, or shanti towns—who rely on recycled and scavenged materials to ingeniously, but often precariously, respond to their rapidly changing living situations. Composed of a constellation of locally-found objects suspended throughout the project space, the installation at kurimanzutto new york represents Cruzvillegas’ continuing exploration of placemaking and identity.

Concurrently, Abraham Cruzvillegas will present a multidisciplinary performance at The Kitchen that combines elements of theater, music, and dance in a harmonic activation of an assemblage of found-objects. On view from April 5–7, 2018, the performance will be anchored by a site-specific sculpture similarly composed of found materials sourced in New York, that will be suspended within The Kitchen and triggered by the artist and two renowned performers that have long collaborated with him: Bárbara Foulkes, an Argentinian dancer and choreographer; and Andrés García Nestitla, a dancer and musician from the Huasteca region of Mexico.

kurimanzutto new york will be overseen by Senior Director Lissa McClure and Director Bree Zucker.