Andrew Roberts and Mauricio Muñoz at Best Practice

Best Practice gallery in the Bread and Salt complex will open two new solo exhibitions by Mexican artists Andrew Roberts and Mauricio Muñoz. The works will be on view from Jan. 8 through Feb. 12, 2022.

Read the KPBS feature here:
Two Mexican artists unveil new work at Best Practice

Opening reception:
Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022
5-8 p.m.

From the gallery:
"A house on fire is a ghost, a factory on fire is a specter" is a computer-generated installation by Mexico City-based artist Andrew Roberts. Through exploring his family history and its close connection with the arms industry, the artist focuses on both of his grandfathers - an American fighter pilot and a Mexican assembly line worker, or a soldier and an engineer - as two parallel figures within the military-industrial complex narrative.

Through the employment of video game design and development software, Roberts recreates two long-lost sites that belonged to his family, equally lost to fire: a house in California, property of his paternal grandfather, and a maquila in Tijuana, owned by his maternal grandfather. As a way to understand generational trauma, the work featured in this exhibition dismantles and critically analyzes the industrial interdependence between Mexico and the United States reconstructed by a personal story in a web of affective relationships, mental health policies, cross-border labor, and war technologies.

"A thirst for misery," is an exhibition of paintings by Mexico City-based artist Mauricio Muñoz. Through this new body of work, the artist finds in the early 2000s media portrayal of celebrity misery the roots of today's pleasure for disaster, an obsession fueling contemporary digital voyeurism and self-righteous social media patrolling.

So vain it had to be on a canvas. So superficial, just like the bidimensionality of a painting. So banal, and therefore a sudden urgency to make a lot of them. Stars having a melt down, just like acrylic paint melting into a gooey plaster. A theater of cruelty molded by the tabloids and sensationalist blogs we´ve been reading since our teen days. A thirst for misery: the climax of a series of unfortunate events that we´ve been eager to consume and enjoy.

About the artists:
Andrew Roberts
Mauricio Muñoz

Related links:
Best Practice on Instagram
Best Practice