ÉLODIE ANTOINE
ROSALÍA BANET
WIEBKE BARTSCH
BARBARA BERNSTEINER
TANIA CANDIANI
BARBARA CAVENG
LADA CERAR
ANDREJKA ČUFER
JOCHEN FLINZER
CLAUS FÖTTINGER
ZUZANNA JANIN
METKA KAVČIČ
JUSTYNA KOEKE
MICHAEL KOS
EDUARD LESJAK
MARTIN LÖFFKE
POLONA MAHER
ISA MELSHEIMER
JANET MORTON
ALEN OŽBOLT
SANDRINE PELLETIER
MARIJA MOJCA PUNGERČAR
IRIS SCHIEFERSTEIN
SAŠO SEDLAČEK
CHIHARU SHIOTA
KEI TAKEMURA
ANDRÉ TEMPEL
ANU TUOMINEN
JULIA VAN KOOLWIJK
MARJOLIJN VAN DER MEIJ
PETRA VARL
PATRICIA WALLER
SILKE WAWRO

Tania Candiani


Mattresses Mantras (detail of the installation) – From Temporary Studios Project, 2007
(bedspread, mattress, thread, polyurethane, dress, balloons)

This work entitled Mattresses Mantras, honours life – a life filled with the absurd. Candiani
speaks about such absurd situations with great irony. Homage is paid to the plethora of feelings experienced by a woman in the "great" developmental cycle of becoming a woman; later, when she is already a woman, she frequently experiences smaller cycles of the same feelings over
and over again. These feelings, of course, are connected with intimate relationships and experiences. In the installation, which pays tribute to women and life, we can conjecture an imaginary woman sitting at the sewing machine. The needle is hot, ironically inscribing the word "thanks" as a mantra in a loving, burning red colour. The installation is filled with symbolic messages. In Candiani's work, thread as a traditional material of household practices speaks about traditional roles of women (laborious housewife, caring wife and mother), while at the same time it encourages contemplation about the use of thread as an autonomous material in contemporary visual art practices. The "painting canvases" are mattresses, regularly sewn in mantric forms. The strands are abstractly intertwined, or they hang all around in different directions. On the one hand they symbolise our lives, while on the other hand they remind of
an abstract painting stroke. This is a return to symbols: in her work, Candiani speaks in a visual language about sensations connected with woman's fears of the unknown, with her fragility and sensitivity. Furthermore, there is woman's desire and seduction and also suffering, embroidered as a statement on inflated balloons: "Pain is the sophistication of pleasure." All in all, her work deals with a woman whose devotion and altruism comes near to the image of the Holy Virgin
(La Immaculata), ironically sewn onto one of the mattresses.

Born in 1974 in Mexico City (Mexico). She stopped studying literature and dedicated herself to visual arts. She has been exhibiting in solo and group exhibitions both at home and abroad: Casa de la Cultura in Tijuana, Yerbabuena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Instituto Cultural de México, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla in Canada and National Center for Contemporary Art. She lives and works in Tijuana and Mexico City.

Solo exhibitions (selection):

2005 Mattresses, Kunsthaus, Miami
Tania Candiani. Selected Works, David Zapf Gallery, San Diego
2004 Gorge / Gorgeous, Movimiento de Arte Contemporáneo de Latino America-MACLA,
San Jose
Protección Familiar, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Kunsthaus, Santa Fe; San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato
2002 Cerca Series: Tania Candiani at MCA, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego
Gordas, Museo de la Ciudad, Querétaro
2001 Galería de Arte Moderno, Culiacán
1999 De Cerca, El Lugar del Nopal, Tijuana
1998 Las bases moleculares de la vida, Ensenada

Group exhibitions (selection):

2007 Behind the Dream.Contemporary Mexican Photography, Nacional Center for
Contemporary Art, Moscow; Ivanovo Art Museum for Interregional Projects, Ivanovo
Sister Cities Testing Boundaries Exhibition, El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso
Art for Art's Shake, Palazzo Zambeccari, Bologna
Nuevo Arte: Colección Tequila Don Julio, New World Museum, Houston; White Box, New York; Aldo Castillo Gallery, Chicago; LACE, Contemporary Art Exhibitions, Los Angeles
2006 Plataforma, La Constancia, Intervenciones, Puebla
Transactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art, Museum of of Contemporary Art,
La Jolla
Tijuana Crude, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles
Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana, Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla; Cultural Institute of Mexico, Washington, D.C.

www.taniacandiani.com