Locust Projects is pleased to present Nobody knows me better than you, an exhibition by Miami-based artist Alan Gutierrez. Centered around a series of paintings, the exhibition utilizes a suite of theatrical production equipment as an arbitrary means to reframe the exhibition space as a site of production. Throughout the course of the exhibition, the artist will change the installation into different iterations, embracing process and the malleable nature of rehearsal.

Gutierrez writes:

I'm not one for metaphors, especially visual ones. The "rehearsal studio" as a space is one I think of quite literally. The continual danger of it to possibly come into play as a metaphor began when I made the choice to exist predominantly within that "space."

It's as if I'm rehearsing for an exit- an end result, with a knowing that I likely do not possess the ability to achieve it. I do however possess the ability to perform the attempt, in the key of success. But it can't be denied that every edit, contradiction, progression or pattern is an actual production in and of itself. And the production as a whole fulfills some demands.

Yet something has to function as tangible static outputs of the system. There needs to be things that materialize the productivity, thus distributing it's own cyclical system.

As quickly as these things can be consumed, for lack of individual expression, they stand for a lot. They stand for an unquantifiable amount of sheer effort. Regardless of the possibility that the love that drives the effort exists for the purpose of acknowledgement and recognition, the love (for the production) exists.

About the artist

Gutierrez was born in Miami, where he currently lives and works. Recent solo exhibitions include Emerson Dorsch (Miami) and Kosmeticsalon Babette (Berlin). With Low Lives, a multi-venue group exhibition of video-performance, his work has exhibited both nationally and abroad in institutions that include the Yamaguchi Institute of Contemporary Art (Japan), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá (Colombia), Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Salt Lake City, UT), Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn, NY), and SOMArts (San Francisco, CA). Gutierrez received a 2013 Tigertail Artist Access Grant from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs.