Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel - SAIC CLASS OF 2020 GRADUATE WEBSITE

The Future of Our Plans: SAIC Graduate Class of 2020

Graduates

The Future of Our Plans: SAIC Graduate Class of 2020

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel

Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Sculpture

jacobo.zambrano.rangel@gmail.com

jacobozambranorangel.com

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel (b. 1991, Venezuela) holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2015) and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2020). He graduated from the Academic Program at SOMA in Mexico City (2018). His collaborative projects have been exhibited at SOMA and Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte, Mexico City; Logan Center for The Arts, Threewalls, and Chicago Cultural Center (forthcoming), Chicago; QUEENS, Los Angeles; Duplex, Spare Room, and Access Gallery (forthcoming), Vancouver B.C.; 3rd Kamias Triennial, Manila, Philippines. Zambrano-Rangel is the recipient of the Arts, Science & Culture Collaborative Project Grant from the University of Chicago and The New Artist Society Full Merit scholarship from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He received the James Nelson Raymond Fellowship in 2020.

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel’s practice is grounded in the relationship between history and power and its modes of representation and translation. Through multi-layered narrative structures that adopt photographic, time-based media and sculpture as vehicles for storytelling, he re-stages situations and spaces where knowledge is exchanged and transmitted. From this ground, his installations become sites of inquiry about the roles and effects of knowledge institutions in the construction of colonialism, personal and collective memory, and national identity. He often employs methodologies associated with anthropology and ethnography to interrogate the past and its relation to the present moment.

An Introduction to The Exotic is Never at Home, 2018-ongoing, 4k video and stereo sound, 9:09 mins with Spanish subtitles.
In collaboration with ornithologist Natalia Piland, PhD and John Bates, Curator of Birds at Field Museum.

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel - Untitled

Untitled, From the series: Crude Matters and Other Narratives, 2020-ongoing, Digitally processed color transparency film printed with archival pigment ink on acid-free rag paper, 24 x 14 in., Edition 1/5+2 AP

The role of my personal archive is central to Crude Matters and Other Narratives. This project examines aspects of my identity as I confront events that have shaped my past since I left Venezuela 10 years ago. A series of family photos at the beach, as well as bird-watching field guides are incorporated into a narrative structure where I mix historical documents of the failed 2002 coup d'etat, the development of the oil industry in Venezuela and the recent human exodus into sequential photographic essays both printed and projected using carousel slide projectors.

Untitled, From the series: Crude Matters and Other Narratives , 2020-ongoing, Digitally processed color transparency film printed with archival pigment ink on acid-free rag paper, 24 x 20 in., Edition 1/5+2 AP

Untitled, after Epic Introductions, 2020-ongoing, 35mm color slide, in-camera original, unique.

Epic Introductions is a single-channel slide projection installation consisting of 80 color slides (in-camera matrix originals, not duplicates) depicting scenes I photographed during 2019-2020. The content of the images varies and are catalogued according to location. About 20 slides where produced at my studio, 20 at the Field Museum, 20 in domestic environments and 20 are documentation of other artworks, books and films involving historical event from Venezuela. Epic Introductions interrogates how the concept of “exotic” is constructed through multiple kinds of images.

Untitled, after Epic Introductions, 2020-ongoing, 35mm color slide, in-camera original, unique.

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel - Untitled

Untitled, From the series: Too Close in Time for The Comfort of Myth-making, 2019-2020, Archival pigment ink on acid-free rag paper, 25 x 20 in., Edition 1/5+2 AP

At the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, I photographed private collections containing indigenous objects from South America, with a focus on how these objects are preserved and maintained. These photographs have been produced using fine grain color transparency film in order to be shown through a carousel slide projector.

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel - Untitled

Untitled, From the series: Too Close in Time for The Comfort of Myth-making , 2019-2020, Archival pigment ink on acid-free rag paper, 25 x 20 in., Edition 1/5+2 AP

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel - Untitled

Untitled, From the series: Revisiting "Pueblos de Venezuela: Chuao, 1979", (Part I) , 2020, Digitally processed color transparency film printed with archival pigment ink on acid-free rag paper, 25 x 20 in., Edition 1/5+2 AP

Revisiting "Pueblos de Venezuela: Chuao, 1979" or The Material Condition for a Certain History, (Part I) s a photographic essay made from capturing still images from a historical documentary made in 1979 about Chuao, a cocoa producing town on the coast of Venezuela. The series focuses on specific scenes where the tradition of "Dancing Devils" is performed, adding an ethnographic view to the Afro-Caribbean influences in the town's colonial legacy through its distinctive style of documentary filmmaking e.g. French direct cinema style.

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel - Untitled

Untitled, From the series: Revisiting "Pueblos de Venezuela: Chuao, 1979", (Part I) , 2020, Digitally processed color transparency film printed with archival pigment ink on acid-free rag paper, 25 x 20 in., Edition 1/5+2 AP

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel - Untitled

Untitled, From the series: Domestic Scenes , 2018, Archival pigment ink on acid-free rag paper, 25 x 20 in., Edition 1/5+2 AP

In this digital photographic series, I engage with concepts of domestication and syncretism concerning the study of birds and cultural traditions. I re-enact a Venezuelan folklore fictional character also known as the ""Dancing Devils from Chuao"". I was interested in the possibilities of establishing symbolic relations through the creation of ""syncretic"" narrative images. Since this series began, my work has adopted a more conceptual approach to similar concepts, prioritizing the construction of identities and the politics of representation instead of fiction and myth.

Jacobo Zambrano-Rangel - Untitled

Untitled, From the series: Domestic Scenes , 2019, Archival pigment ink on acid-free rag paper, 20 x 25 in., Edition 1/5+2 AP

For the past two years my practice has been primarily focused on archives, both for historical research and as a method for the record-keeping of history. I often construct intricate narrative structures supported by such archives (written documents and film photography), as platforms for establishing connections between untold or “minor” histories and larger narratives of modernity and colonialism. I’ve worked with the Field Museum’s ornithological (the study of birds) and anthropological collections, as well as the archives at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. I have also worked on producing fictional archives of my own work as a metaphor for locating personal history within larger political contexts. As an immigrant Venezuelan artist, I’m committed to interrogating the relationship between history and power, as these two paradigms have deeply affected the way I think about identity and culture.

More graduates in this group