Gallery

CRUDO is participating for the first time in ARCO Lisboa, the most important contemporary art fair in Portugal. At the fair, which hosts a total of 84 galleries from 15 countries, we are presenting works by Yuyo Gardiol y Nicole Mazza.

Yuyo Gardiol and Nicole Mazza share a profound sensitivity towards temporality and the construction of identity, using their respective techniques and materials to explore and challenge perceptions of time, space, and inhabiting this moment in society.

"Summer," from the series "Nearby Landscape" - Photographs of the artist's skin taken with a cell phone, printed on satin and framed with gold leaf. Unique copies. Polyptych composed of 13 photographs - 46.5 x 124.5 cm. 2024 - Yuyo Gardiol

Yuyo Gardiol creates pieces that reflect the passage of time, the transformation of environments, and how these environments change and affect us as we inhabit them. He uses natural elements such as plants, branches, sand, and light to highlight change and temporality in his works. Many of his elements reference other senses, aiming to generate multiple ways of perceiving a piece. The use of ephemeral materials underscores the temporality and fragility of things, connecting his works to the natural environment and the flow of time. Constant movement, potential movement through tension and stillness, are elements that Yuyo Gardiol uses to choreograph each of his works.

Nicole Mazza 

learned the tradition of embroidery from her Portuguese maternal grandmother, with ARCO Lisboa being the first presentation of her work in Portugal. Embroidery, like any craft technique, has a different temporality of work and concentration in dynamic times that demand the instantaneous. She explores female identity and stereotypes through religious iconography, references to Western modes of representation, and contemporary popular culture. Her embroidered figures, often distorted and in uncomfortable positions, comment on the construction and fragmentation of women's identity in society. By contrasting the delicacy of embroidery with grotesque, violent, or erotic images, Nicole Mazza exposes the tensions between external perception and the internal reality of women. Thus, embroidery, historically associated with women's work, transforms into a critical tool that questions and dismantles stereotypes and cultural norms.

Swan Song (La Muerte) - Embroidery - 32x25 - 36x29 - 2023 - Nicole Mazza

"Sunrise," from the series "Nearby Landscape" - Photographs of the artist's skin taken with a cell phone, printed on satin, and framed with gold leaf. Unique copies. Polyptych composed of 7 photographs - 41.5 x 160 cm. 2024 - Yuyo Gardiol

Yuyo Gardiol
San Carlos Centro, Santa Fe. Argentina

Her work is permeated by reflections on how humanity inhabits the world and its relationship with nature. The passage of time, balance, fragility, and at the same time, the power of simple, everyday things are recurrent concepts that materialize in various forms: sculptures, installations, performances, and photographs. Her works often depict an attempt to freeze a moment, an instant, a state of things, which nevertheless slips away like water slowly escaping from the hand that holds it.

Artist, cultural manager, and independent curator. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Faculty of Humanities and Arts at the National University of Rosario (U.N.R). She completed the Prestada School program at the Manuel Musto Municipal School in 2019.

Her latest exhibitions include: "Ghost Town" at Crudo Contemporary Art, "How Much Does Love Weigh," a group exhibition curated by Daniel Fischer at the Recoleta Cultural Center, "In Absolute Darkness, Even a Mountain is Invisible," a solo exhibition at the Juan B. Castagnino Municipal Museum of Fine Arts, among other participations in Pinta Art in Miami, and Zona Maco in Mexico City during 2023 and 2024.

She has participated in residencies in Madrid (Spain), San Martín de los Andes (Argentina), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), among others. She received grants from the National Arts Fund in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, from the Municipality of Rosario in 2016 and 2018, from the province of Santa Fe in 2018, and from the New Bank of Santa Fe in 2013.

Since early 2014, she has founded and directed CRUDO Contemporary Art, where she runs the projects "Crudo Residencies" (national and international), "Crudo Gallery," and "Shared Workshop," an annual training program for artists. She lives and works in Rosario, Argentina.

Nicole Mazza
Gainesville, Florida. Estados Unidos.

Nicole Mazza works with fabrics, embroidery, sewing, and hand-dyeing. She uses religious references, telenovela stereotypes, and pop culture as reflections of human conditioning, contrasting the delicacy of embroidery, largely associated with a feminine tradition, with sexualized images. She is interested in the iconography of women seen through the lens of fantasies constructed in society over time. "She, the woman constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed, devoured and fragmented."

A first-generation Portuguese immigrant, Nicole learned the traditions of knitting, sewing, and embroidery from her maternal grandmother. She sees sewing as an act of repairing something that has been broken. The figures are often twisted: bodies in positions of discomfort and impossibility. Limbs intertwine, envelop, reach, and desire. They sometimes depict acts of cannibalism, illustrating how society consumes women. Her current aesthetic phase weaves together the delicate and the grotesque with an erotic veil, representing the ruptures and fissures in the social fabric.

She has exhibited her works in Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba, Santiago de Chile, Punta del Este, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Gainesville in exhibitions and art fairs. She has also shown her work at art fairs such as ArteBA (Buenos Aires), Frieze (London), and Pinta (Miami). Her work has been selected for numerous art competitions such as "La Fugaz" (Castagnino + Macro, 2019 and 2022, Argentina), "Fondo Nacional de las Artes" (2021, Argentina), and "Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales" in the Textiles category (2022, 2023, Argentina), receiving a Special Mention from the award jury in 2023 for the piece "Sobremesa." Her work has been reviewed by Vice Magazine and recognized by The New York Times and The New Yorker.

In recent years, her solo exhibitions include: "Swan Song" at Distortion Society (April 2024, New York); "Canto del Cisne" at the Borges Cultural Center (September 2023, Buenos Aires); "El deseo de no querer," curated by Irene Gelfman at Quimera Gallery, co-produced with CRUDO (April 2023, Buenos Aires); "Blandir el quiebre," curated by Tamara Alarcón Castrillejo at CRUDO (May 2022, Rosario); the group exhibition "Glimpses – We Are What We See," curated by Auronda Scalera and Lidia Ravviso as part of Frieze London (October 2022, London); and "Temporal Atemporal," curated by Yuyo Gardiol at CCD Arte (Punta del Este, Uruguay). She lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Holy - Bordado sobre tela - 36 x 47 cm - 2023 - Nicole Mazza

"All Thoughts Engraved in the Sand" - Rotating object composed of a branch and glass drawing on sand - Variable measurements - 2024 - Yuyo Gardiol

We invite you to join us at this fair, either in person at Cordoaria Nacional, Av. da Índia 1300-598, Lisbon, Portugal, from May 23rd to 26th, or virtually through our social media channels.