Studio Iván Argote, 15 rue du Cheval Blanc, 93500, Pantin
2nd – 6th of July, 2020 EXTENDED

The Brushback Pitch


A duo show with Abdul Vas & Christian Vinck






What made these two artists agree on such an adventure of massive paintings? A casual conversation back in 2011 and the love for what The Reds once were, was enough.


Persona Curada in collaboration with Sofía Lanusse and Studio Iván Argote are pleased to announceAV/CV The Brushback Pitch, a collaborative exhibition of paintings by Venezuelan artists Abdul Vas &Christian Vinck.

What made these two artists agree on such an adventure of massive paintings? A casual conversation in2011 and the love for what The Reds once were, was enough.

‘The Reds’ or ‘The Big Red Machine’, as once called in the 1970s. A group of men, almost heroes. One ofthe brightest and boldest teams to exist in the history of baseball, and one of the first major leaguedynasties. The first two Latinamericans to play in what is now Major League Baseball were Rafael Almeidaand Armando Marsans, both joining the Cincinnati Reds of the National League in 1911.

Baseball was first introduced to Latin America by Nemesio and Ernesto Guilló in 1864 in Cuba with thefoundation of the Habana Baseball Club. Other Latin American countries quickly followed with Mexicointroducing the game in 1882, Nicaragua in 1888 and Venezuela starting its own league in 1895.

In conversing about ‘The Red’s’ deeds and triumphs, with a playful gaze to a past untold and mysterious,this collaboration was born. The artist’s perspectives opened a conversation of alternative themes andmeanings into the symbolic and iconic spaces of the game of Baseball, prompting each to critically reflecton the historical, cultural and social imaginings that surround and constitute the foundation of its dynamics.

In this context, it is a project in which a »game« is played: in the meeting of two glances, two differenthands, and two ways of ‘doing the painting’.The Brushback Pitch, projects itself as an active space in which identities and physical environments, withthe cultural and social, are combined by re-articulating its actuality and its symbolic constitution. And AV/VC becomes one solo player.

Noelia Portela, Pantin, July 2020.

Download the full exhibition text here. 








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