Negative Space

Actors are hired to populate the radius of the gallery, as informal merchants, homeless, prostitutes, and certain "other" types of people.

The closer to the gallery entrance, the more crowded and more sinister the impact of this "population". Some are even threatened to get beat up for getting too close.

Those who cannot be deterred, arrive into an empty gallery. The negative space speaks about what is not prioritized. What is not considered. What is left behind.

Most visitors only realize they've even experienced the piece in rerospect when they get to their facebook or twitter the next day.

Rafael Abreu-Canedo

Rafael Abreu-Canedo: CV

Born 1984, Brasil.

Languages:English, Portuguese, Spanish, 2+ years of Japanese.

Education:San Francisco Art Institute, BFA New Genres, 2008

Awards and Honors:

2009-Winner of a Franklin Furnace Fund Grant: Franklin Furnace

2008-Winner of a Sprout Fund Seed Award: Sprout Fund

2008-Winner of the Outstanding New Genres Student Honor: San Francisco Art Institute

2007-Winner of a 2007 SFAI Project Grant: San Francisco Art Institute

2003-Winner of the 2003 San Francisco Art Institute Merit Scolarship: San Francisco Art Institute

2002-Winner of the 2002 Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Award: Pgh Center for the Arts

2001-Winner of the All City Arts Showcase: Manchester Craftsman Guild

Selected Group Exhibitions:

2010-Art Institute of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA)

2009-Conflux Festival 2009 (New York, NY)

2009-Synthetic Zero Art Space (Bronx, NY)

2008-HotHouse 2008, Sprout Organization (Pittsburgh, PA)

2008-Spring Show 2008, Diego Rivera Gallery (San Francisco, CA)

2008-Sound Device, Root Division (San Francisco, CA)

2007-One Day It Will All Make Sense, Edge Zones Gallery (Miami, FL)

2007-Emission Theory, La Vie Gallery (Pittsburgh, PA)

2006-Eye Plugs, Little Roxy Theater (San Francisco, CA)

2005-Media Experiment, The RX Gallery (San Francisco, CA)

2005-Urban Revolution (St. Niklaas, Belgium)

2003-Jadite Gallery (New York, NY)

2002-Young Artists Show, GalleriE Chiz (Pittsburgh, PA)

2001-All City Arts Showcase, Manchester Craftsman Guild (Pittsburgh, PA)

Teaching Experience:

2010/2011-Pittsbugh Public Schools SDA, Pittsburgh, PA

Head Instructor. Sound and Body (6th-12th graders)

2008/2009-PS 212, Bronx, NY

Head Instructor. Performing Culture: dance to communicate. (6th-8th graders)

2007-Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY

Head Instructor. Body Language: performance and photography. (All Ages)

2007-San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA

Teacher's Assistant. Design + Technology. (College Level)

2005/2007-Calvin Simmons Middle School, Oakland, CA

Head Instructor. Performing Culture: dance to communicate. (6th-8th graders)

2001/2003-Kingsley Center, Pittsburgh, PA

Head Instructor. Dance. (All Ages)

Rafael Abreu-Canedo: BIO

Born 1984, Brasil.

I was raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, where my grandmother noted early on that I had a flair for drawing the birds around her house. Due to gang/police violence and poor living conditions, in 1994 we immigrated to the US: where school teachers talked in a mysterious language. Not understanding, I scribbled schooldays away. As I began to learn English, haha… By then, too late: I had already mastered bubble-letters, and my caricatures were beginning to compel me. In my confusion, art found me instead. I really wish I had a choice, but I don’t. I have to make art. And so, I make the best of it.

Up-rooted as a child, art became the means through which I could reconcile torn identities, remap borders between two homes so distant, and much more.

At The San Francisco Art Institute I began to follow in the wake of artists who, particularly since the seventies, have questioned the formalism of established languages, renewed an awareness of art’s political role (in a broad sense), and had their actions pervade the whole social space.

The greats that came before me deconstructed the old and artificially simple images of the world, exposing their infinite complexities. Born in 1984, I’m from a new generation of kids that grew-up on said complexities, fully engaged and standing on the backs of giants. Because of them, I can now hear with a unique disposition, the way the world speaks. The world, after all, has its own way of speaking.

It’s far too academic for me to try to speak about or for the world. That’s too much noun and not enough verb. As an artist, instead, I cultivate the ability to sculpt and curate the world’s infinite complexities into focus… within arm’s reach. I have since begun not documenting certain types of works, due to the fragile nature of their essence: which is not just contained within the materiality of the work, but that elusive yet very real je ne sais quoi that shrouds viewers into moments of inspiring emotions, thoughts and behaviors. Their experience renders reproductions and explanations superfluous.

Through the use of various mediums, I explore issues of language, social behavior, power relations, and identity, with focus on systems, the body, and space. I have exhibited and taught throughout the US, having my first exhibition in 2001 at the age of 16. Since then, I have worked with organizations such as Sprout Fund, No More Prisons, Oakland Unified School District, New York Department of Education, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Sprout Fund, Root Division, the Queens Museum of Art, Franklin Furnace, developing a commitment to communication through the arts; changing the future by working for a better today.