Animales Familiares

Red pumas, shark whales, and flamingos are among the animals populating Oakland-based artist Miguel Arzabe’s (b. 1975) second solo presentation at Johansson Projects.  Emerging from the abstracted surfaces of his painting-weavings, Arzabe’s creatures form a contemporary bestiary that expands on a genre that spans European Middle Age illustrated books to the watercolors of Mexican modernist Francisco Toledo. Yet, whereas such artistic predecessors reflect imagined mythological beasts, Arzabe presents more familiar specimens, as declared by the title of one of the show’s anchoring pieces.

Animales Familiares is a large-scale diptych that features owls, felines, rabbits, fish, and other birds and animals in blue-green and umber tones. While the work’s title should be properly translated as “Familiar Animals,” it is also suggestive of a false cognate, “Familial Animals,” a meaning which resonates with Arzabe’s artistic practice and personal ethos. The son of Bolivian parents, Arzabe is deeply connected to his family and to his Andean ancestry, whose weaving traditions inform his process and iconography. Thus inspired by the textiles that he grew up with as well as his own research, Arzabe’s bestiary includes less familiar, but nonetheless culturally familial creatures such as a double-headed cat or the hybridized Jaguar Alada (winged jaguar), with its spiritually significant shamanic associations.

Animals who move between all three realms of Amerindian cosmology are depicted in the works on view. These environments of sky, earth, and water are intuited through zig-zag lines, curves, and shifting colors. Forgoing the Western landscape tradition, the delineation between figure and ground is largely omitted in a reflection of what scholar Vanessa Drake Moraga has described as an Andean concept in which “animals are simultaneously of the environment and in it. They are both symbolic of the world and a direct vehicle for human engagement with it.” So important to Amerindian thought, this human-animal connection has been largely severed in today’s Anthropocene era, whose dangers are suggested in Arzabe’s ominously titled and stridently toned La bestia del progreso, devoid of animal life. To this end, in his own practice Arzabe is conscious of not producing unnecessary waste, such that his striated Imárgenes (a portmanteau derived from the Spanish imagen [image] and margen [edge]) series are constructed from the remaining scraps of his multi-step process.

To make his work, Arzabe first paints reproductions of modernist abstract artworks onto canvases that are subsequently cut to serve as the warp and weft for his weavings. Although in some works elements from the base paintings surface, they are largely subsumed into one another or manipulated for effect, as in Tiburón Ballena in which the Rothko-derived substrate (a rare case where the original painting is identifiable) merges into the toothy marine animal’s aqueous environment. The confrontations that arise from the Western and Andean sources in Arzabe’s work have been described by the artist as representative of Aymara sociologist Silvia Rivera Cusicanqi’s decolonial philosophy of ch’ixi. Indeed, Cusicanqi has turned to beings from the animal world to serve as metaphors of the concept, which seeks to embrace the coexistence of contradictory and complementary natures. Held in tension like the plaited structures of his  weavings, such are the ideas embodied by the snakes, birds, fish, and mammals that exist within Arzabe’s bestiary of Animales Familiares.

Animales Familiares opens Sept 16 with an Artist Reception from 12-3.

For all inquiries, contact Johansson Projects at 510-444-9140  or info@johanssonprojects.com

Miguel Arzabe’s Kaleidoscopic Thunderbolt | October 23, 2023 by Agustín Maes
Color is a beautiful language, not often well spoken, but ​“Animales Familiares,” on exhibit at Johansson Projects, is fluent in it. Arzabe’s visual lingua franca is intuitively graspable by anyone despite the works’ complex geometric grammar. And if his paintings’ tactile-looking geometries seem woven, that’s because they are. After replicating modernist paintings, Arzabe has them disassembled into lengths of canvas he then reassembles, weaving them into patterns that reference the textile crafts of his Bolivian heritage. LINK

Fantastic Creatures and Common Animals Materialize in Miguel Arzabe’s Woven Bestiaries | September 12, 2023 by Grace Ebert
In Miguel Arzabe’s bestiaries, wide-eyed owls, pink pumas, and whale sharks emerge from planes of woven acrylic. The Oakland-based artist draws on his Bolivian roots and Andean textile traditions as he laces strips of sliced paintings into landscapes occupied by creatures both real and mythological. Arzabe’s most recent body of work, Animales Familiares, brings these beasts to the fore through vivid planes of blurred Earth and sky. LINK

Woven artwork at CJM speaks to our broken world | October 26, 2022 by Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell
“Varicolored strips of linen intersect over a frame from different angles, converging and diverging to create images that waver between angular rhythmic patterns and softer, moody abstractions. Its dispatch of color — sometimes rising out of the warp and woof and sometimes superimposed on top of it — weaves a mysterious tale of its own, its seeming conflicts becoming woven into resolutions.” LINK

A weaving of worlds: Miguel Arzabe explores ch’ixi | September 23, 2022 by Mary Corbin 
“Artist Miguel Arzabe weaves his cultural roots into paintings, quite literally. A singular process that is not just about applying paint to canvas, but rather research, deconstruction, and adaptation, takes place in his Oakland studio. LINK

3 Bay Area visual artists win 2022 Artadia Awards: ‘I’m honored and a little bit in shock’ |  July 6, 2022 by Joshua Kosman for SF Chronicle Datebook
“The award is a validation that the ideas I’ve been working on are deemed to be an important part of the conversation,” the Oakland artist said. “This is an exploration of my own political and racial identity. I never learned anything in school about Andean weaving — everything I learned about that I had to seek out on my own so I could put those aspects of my identity into a productive confrontation.” LINK

REVIEW: Infinite possibilities from trash in ‘Reclaimed: The Art Of Recology’ | September 3, 2021 by Genevieve Quick for 48 Hills
‘…Weaving holds a strong presence in the exhibition, a nod to the long history of fiber arts in Northern California, in ways that expand the craft. Ricki Dwyer’s Pink and Green, a synthesis of two fabrics woven together at the center like an “x,” was created using a loom donated to Recology, which the artist assembled while in residence. Michael Arcega’s sharply-titled Shimmerysunset or Ibeweave (Nacireman aesthetic object) transforms secondhand, fast-fashion belts and IKEA shelving into a rippling sculpture that echoes woven cloth. Miguel Arzabe’s work reassembles local visual culture in San Francisco art scene circa 1973, by weaving bright strips of silkscreen posters into geometric, abstracted forms.’ LINK

Miguel Arzabe Cóndor de Cuatro Cabezas/Four-Headed Condor| July 2, 2021 by Barbara Morris
’…Arzabe’s work is very much of this moment, reflecting a combination of influences and concerns, a mingling of materials and techniques that intertwine the ancient and the modern, the physical, mental and spiritual realms as well coming into play. Created during the time of COVID, it is infused as well with an undercurrent of uncertainty, wariness. Reflecting on that aspect, the artist stated that he found immersion in his complex process allowed him to focus his energy into something positive, and it is that resilient spirit of hope which resonates throughout.’ LINK

Review: Miguel Arzabe’s ingenious hybridizations summon mythic forces | June 9, 2021 by Genevieve Quick for 48 Hills
…Arzabe’s energetic patterns and meticulous crafting present a formally strong show where the artist’s process of making, unmaking, and reassembly speaks to the hybridity and nonlinearity of traditions, narratives, and place. Moreover, Arzabe’s show demonstrates the artist’s keen ability to push viewers back to take in the whole while also pulling them into to inspect the details, where from both perspectives the view is entrancing….’ LINK 

SF/Monthly insert for the New York Times | June 2021 by Mark Taylor
“…Arzabe explores his Bolivian heritage through weaving. The four heads in this show represent two artists whose work inspired the paintings Arzabe creates that are then sliced up and woven in combination to be experienced and interpreted by the viewer.” LINK 

McEvoy Foundation for the Arts “Miguel Arzabe Talks Recuperation as a Form of Resilience” | August 13th, 2020 by McEvoy Foundation for the Arts
“My work spans across the mediums of painting, video, and paper weaving. I was born and raised in the US by my parents who immigrated from Bolivia, and I trained and worked as an engineer before pivoting to visual art. Holding all these distinct cultural identities simultaneously informs my practice. I am inspired by the textile tradition of my Andean heritage and have developed a weaving technique that I apply to reproductions of artworks as well as my own paintings. Currently, I am working on a large triptych, woven acrylic paintings on yupo paper.”  LINK

San Francisco Chronicle, “Weaving present fight with past”| March 22nd, 2018 by Ryan Kost
“His pieces were inspired by traditional Andean weaving — both his parents are from Oruro, Bolivia. But rather than using cotton or wool, for this project he weaves together pieces of ephemera, replicas of vintage posters created for various Bay Area political and social movements…Arzabe’s pieces are, in part, meant to tie this fight to all the others that have come before it.” LINK

San Francisco Cottages and Gardens, “Dedicated Space”| 2016 by Alisa Carroll 
“One can see his engineer’s mind at work in everything from the custom stretcher bars he designed with a team from One Hat One Hand in Bayview–with digital instructions accessible via phone–to his meticulous paper weavings made from art flyers, posters and ephemera.”  LINK

BmoreArt, “The Anti-Fair: Artist-Run Miami Beach” | 2015 by Cara Ober
“On the whole, Artist-Run exuded an invigorating ‘I don’t care’ attitude, where some doors were closed when we arrived and others open, a place where authentic visions, like the sand sculpture presented by Arzabe & Reichert from SF and the Stupid Bar presented by Baltimore’s Open Space, could function in immersive, smart, and funny ways.” LINK

The Sacramento Bee, “Art review: Artist’s unusual work redefines painting in ‘Las Cosas Que Pintan’”| 2015 by Victoria Dalkey
“While the piece has an underlying sense of anxiety and loss — the artists who owned the paint have given up — it is also humorous and celebratory as well as being a kind of homage to the artists who gave him the paint.”  LINK

SFGate, “Hacking the view from the Transamerica building” | 2014 by Andrea Valencia
“With these tablets, Arzabe is not trying to connect the dots for the participant but rather let naturally curious people come across something they want to know more about. “It’s about leaving the city in the time that is the most productive time, and doing something unproductive; taking distance from the world and doing ‘work’,” he said.” LINK

StoreFrontLab, “sightlines” Interview | 2014 by Arianne Gelardin
“MA: It’s important to me that my work is visually accessible to anyone regardless of their prior knowledge of any specific field of study, be it art, architecture, geography, etc. The formal characteristics should entice the viewer to look deeper and come up with her own interpretations. Abstraction is a great tool for opening up space for multiple meanings. Having said that, the work can have more complex implications for our understanding of our urban environment if these other fields are taken into consideration.” LINK

SFGate: Art & Not, “Arzabe at Cult by appointment, but hurry”| 2014 by Kenneth Baker
“If the word “gifted” makes any critical sense in the hugger mugger of today’s art world, then Miguel Arzabe merits it. / His small show at Cult brings into focus an artist of intense but more than merely egotistic ambition.”  LINK

Whitehot Magazine, “Two Solo Shows in SF” | 2014 by Leora Lutz
“The film is an autobiographical hybrid of performance spliced with a documentary of Arzabe’s process. Glimpses of objects appear and then disappear; Arzabe’s body comes and goes creating a disjuncture between what is hidden and what is revealed. Also in the exhibition are the actual paintings created while working on the film. The completed works remain as archives of activity.”  LINK

Carets and Sticks, “/*Reject Algorithms*/” | 2014 edited by Bonnie Begusch
“Miguel Arzabe: When I find a mark, or a gesture that speaks to me while I am painting, my first impulse is to try to repeat it, to do it again and again. I want to feel it again. But the whole ethos of the project was to resist that impulse, because it can be a way of getting trapped into a mode of thinking where I am trying to achieve that feeling again instead of being present in the moment of creation.” LINK

SFAQ, “In Conversation: ‘/*Reject Algorithms*/’ Solo Exhibition by Miguel Arzabe at Cult Exhibitions, San Francisco” | 2014 Interview with Jesi Khadivi
“Miguel Arzabe: The goal with this work was to not have a goal, to break patterns when I became conscious of those patterns. By chance I found a book at a thrift store of clip-art — isolated silhouettes of people playing various sports. I’ve played sports my whole life. For me it’s more like Zen: not thinking, but doing. I set up the studio, (a dancer’s studio) so that movement could be a part of the painting process. One side of my studio turned into a performance stage, and the other side of the studio was a production space for the paintings.” LINK

SF Chronicle, “CULT Objects” | 2013 by Kenneth Baker
“Miguel Arzabe has executed what’s known as a Sierpinski Gasket — a fractal pattern made up of ever-diminishing nested triangles — in the upper corner of the front room. / It floats mostly unnoticed overhead, as we might picture an unthought notion doing.” LINK

Santa Fe New Mexican, “The Art of Miguel Arzabe” | 2012 by Michael Abatemarco
“San Francisco-based artist Miguel Arzabe works in a variety of mediums, including painting and video. Circles imagery is a common motif in his work. While rendered abstractly in his paintings, in his videos, circles are included as objects – fruit, ping-pong balls, and a circular kite are among them, all of them orange. In the videos, these objects sometimes mimic the sun in the sky, or are used in conjunction with human actions – being thrown in the air or pushed over a hill. ‘Many artists have used orange circles.’ Arzabe told Pasatiempo, ‘most famously the Californian John Baldessari in his Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts), 1973, to which my video work owes a big intellectual and formal debt. But perhaps on a more primal and personal level, my roots come from Bolivia, and the Incas worshipped the sun god Inti, and that makes sense to me.’”  LINK

SF Chronicle, “Thin Ice” | 2011 by Kenneth Baker
“…Arzabe has turned in several small paintings, on the cusp of abstraction, that evoke landscapes about to be engulfed by darkness or cold – or human history.”  LINK

Ampersand Intl Arts, “Falling In” | 2011 by Bonnie Begusch
“Using repetition as a device that points to a continuous process of testing, mastering, failing, and starting all over again, Arzabe examines the body’s endurance and limitations as it struggles to exert an impact, traverse a distance, access an exterior, and make its idiosyncratic mark within the territory of the picture.” LINK

East Bay Express, “Post-Apocalypse Now” | 2008 by Dewitt Cheng
“Color is central to my work: bold, assertive and unusual combinations are a potent language I use to create space, invite the viewer in (or confront, depending on the viewer) and to speak loudly…” LINK

Miguel Arzabe holds a BS from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS from Arizona State University, and an MFA from UC Berkeley. His work has been presented in museums and galleries, including MAC Lyon, France; MARS Milan, Italy; RM Projects Auckland, New Zealand; FIFI Projects Mexico City, Mexico; Marylhurst University, Oregon; Johansson Projects, Oakland, California; Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, California; Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, California;  Albuquerque Museum of Art, New Mexico; the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; the Jewish Contemporary Museum, San Francisco; Marin Museum of Contemporary Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville. He has held many residencies, including Facebook AIR, Headlands Center for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, and Santa Fe Art Institute. He has been featured in such festivals as Hors Pistes at Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Festival du Nouveau Cinéma Montréal, Canada; and the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale in Gongju, South Korea. In 2022, Miguel received the Artadia Award, and his recent work “Te Quiero Inti” was acquired into the permanent collection at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California. In 2023, Miguel was a Pollock-Krasner award recipient and received a Golden Foundation Residency. Arzabe will be featured at FOG Fair and EXPO Chicago/Frieze Fair with Johansson Projects in 2024. 

Miguel Arzabe makes colorful and dynamic abstractions – weavings, paintings, videos. He starts by finding outdated beauty in paper ephemera from art shows, modernist paintings, discarded audio recordings. They are methodically analyzed, deconstructed, and reverse-engineered. Drawing inspiration from the cultural techniques and motifs of his Andean heritage, Arzabe weaves the fragments together revealing uncanny intersections between form and content, the nostalgic and the hard-edged, failure and recuperation.