Nuria Montiel: Wxnder Wxrds

Participant in the 2014 Jackman Residency Program at Hyde Park Art Center, Nuria Montiel expanded her participatory printmaking practice by collaborating with various communities across Chicago and producing a new series of relief prints. Montiel brought her mobile printing press, La Imprenta Móvil, to The Franklin, Sweet Water Foundation, Hull House, National Museum of Mexican Art, among other sites to play with language through conversations over art-making.

The exhibited monoprints feature the Bauhaus-Chicago type created by the Mexico City-based artist to voice desires and concerns from the city’s citizens. The font combines traits from the letterforms of Dutch graphic designer Jurriaan Schrofers and a type found in south east Mexico that references Mayan architecture. Inspired by Brazillian educator Paulo Freire’s (1921-1997) pedagogy connecting knowledge and literacy to social change and action, Montiel turns every encounter into an opportunity to learn, hoping that “the written word can be understood as action.” The exhibition Wxnder Wxrds presents the artist’s process in collecting words, wandering through neighborhoods, pasting up posters in various wards, and wondering about the how these abstract collected poems on posters can activate a public.

  • January 11, 2015 – February 21, 2015
  • Gallery 5
Monoprints from the Wxnder Wxrds series, 2014, on Japanese rice paper 
made from movable type blocks
Monoprints from the Wxnder Wxrds series, 2014, on Japanese rice paper made from movable type blocks

About Nuria Montiel

Nuria Montiel began her training at Facultad Nacional de Artes y Diseño (FAD-UNAM) and continued her studies in contemporary art at SOMA, an artist organization dedicated to pedagogy based in Mexico City. Montiel’s work has been presented individually in Sacúdete (2013) curated by Maria Elena Ortiz at Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico and in group exhibitions, including Entre Utopía y Desencanto (2014), a project created by Sofía Olascoaga at Jardín Borda in Morelos; Panamericana (2010) curated by Jens Hoffman at Galería Kurimanzutto, Mexico City; Jardín de Academus (2010) curated by José Miguel Gonzáles Casanova at Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Ésto no es un museo, artefactos móviles al acecho, AcVic Barcelona; 2012 New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, New York among others.

In 2012, Montiel participated in the International Studio and Curatorial Program residency program in New York City. She collaborated with artist Abraham Cruzvillegas and other six members in La Galería de Comercio (2010-2014), a non-profit artist run project, which presented ephemeral events in a street corner of Mexico City. La Galería de Comercio’s documentation process has been presented in Memoria Abierta, La Galería de Comercio en Casa del Lago (2014), México city and 4 Projects in Mexico at Kunstverein München (2013), Germany. Montiel is currently Davidoff Art Initiative artist in residence at Altos de Chavón, Dominican Republic.

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