Join us for a virtual artist talk with Patrick Costello and Fedderico Cuatlacuatl on Monday, October 25 at 7:30PM EST. Patrick's work is on view this month in Situated Knowledge this month at New City Arts' Welcome Gallery. Registration is required for this free, virtual event. Register here.
For Situated Knowledge at New City Arts' Welcome Gallery in October 2021, Patrick created Ceding Ground II. Patrick Costello’s wall invokes Jefferson’s serpentine walls at the University of Virginia, believed to obscure the enslaved workers behind the Academical Village. By building a wall that curves, Thomas Jefferson estimated that 25% fewer bricks could be used as compared to a straight wall. The curved wall supports itself while being only one brick thick instead of two. The structure is inherently messy and unstable. Each brick in Costello’s wall is embedded with native perennial grass and wildflower seeds; local ecotype seed mixes uniquely wellsuited to support biodiversity and ecological health in central Virginia. Gallery visitors are invited to take a brick away with them and plant it. In dismantling the wall, the viewer actively transforms the structure–this is not a piece advocating erasure, but rather one concerned with composting racist architectures and crumbling mythologies, making seeds and clay into thriving meadows of possibility.
At this virtual artist talk on Oct 25, Patrick will introduce his work in this exhibition, which will be followed by a conversation with Federico Cuatlacuatl and audience Q/A.
About Patrick Costello
Patrick Costello is an interdisciplinary artist and ecological horticulturist who makes work arising from specific relationships, histories, and ecosystems. His work spans the disciplines of drawing, sculpture, gardening, and theater. Patrick completed his MFA in Combined Media at Hunter College in 2018. Patrick’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, 601 Artspace (New York), Second Street Gallery (Charlottesville), and Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens), as well as independent and alternative spaces nationally and abroad including Cinema Balash (Brooklyn), Space 1026 (Philadelphia), and Trance Pop (Tokyo). He has performed in venues including Ars Nova (New York), the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center (Waterford), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia), Space Gallery (Portland), Ohranimo Tovarno Rog (Ljubljana), and a sheep farm in Waikawa, New Zealand. Patrick has held residencies with New City Arts (Charlottesville), ACRE (Chicago), and HewnOaks Artist Colony (Lovell). Patrick lives and works in a seven-person collective house in Brooklyn, where he maintains a small wildflower meadow on the roof.
About Federico Cuatlacuatl
Born in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico, Federico Cuatlacuatl is an artist based in Virginia and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Virginia. Federico's work is invested in disseminating topics of Latinx immigration, social art practice, and cultural sustainability. Building from his own experience growing up as an undocumented immigrant and previously holding DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), Federico’s creative practice centers on the intersectionality of indigeneity and immigration under a pressing Anthropocene, transborder indigeneity, and migrant indigenous futurisms.
Situated Knowledge is presented by The FUNd at CACF and sponsored by Lisa M. Draine. Patrick Costello thanks Ben Simon, Ye'ela Wilschanski, Jessi Li, Lizzie Hurst, Rebecca Zakheim, Mitchell Dose, Isa Vento, Evelyn Manlove, Rachel Hillery, Sarah Schluep, Bel Falleiros, Emma Terry, Jeremy Stern, Ben Frye, Mary Lamb, Ellie Giles, Ocean Aiello, and Maggie Rogers for their generous assistance in making and transporting this project.
