Bosco Sodi
Today, save for coronavirus-challenged pilgrimages to Roden Crater and Marfa, we typically look to documentation of 1970s Earth Art to communicate the ground-shaking power of the great outdoors. With the art of Bosco Sodi, the experience of hard-encrusted dirt and age-old geological matter comes closer still. His studio experiments with organic and inorganic materials regularly produce sculptures and paintings that resemble real-life boulders from Yosemite and expanses of desert in the Sonoran Desert. For his latest series of sculptures, Reflexiones—meditations on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic from his lockdown in Oaxaca—Sodi begins with a perfect form: a cube of wet clay. After shaping it, the sculpture is dropped onto the ground so that it molds itself to its new surface. The artist then throws additional wet cubes atop the first one in order to arrive at a new equilibrium. Through these actions the artist suggests a shapely parallel to the world’s present condition: a situation in which balance is upset but in time readapts to arrive at novel forms.
— CVF, USFCAM
Bosco Sodi working on Reflexiones in the studio at Casa Wabi, Oaxaca, April 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
“The idea here is both simple and complex: from the man-made form, a square—which is rarely seen in nature—it is possible to arrive at an organic and natural form through chance, destruction and, ultimately, adaptation.”
— Bosco Sodi
Photo credit: Hans Neumann. Courtesy of Studio Bosco Sodi.
About Bosco Sodi
(Mexico City, 1970)
He lives and works in New York and Mexico City.
Bosco Sodi is known for his richly textured, vividly colored large-scale paintings. Sodi has discovered an emotive power within the essential crudeness of the materials that he uses to execute his paintings. Focusing on material exploration, the creative gesture, and the spiritual connection between the artist and his work, Sodi seeks to transcend conceptual barriers. Sodi leaves many of his paintings untitled, with the intention of removing any predisposition or connection beyond the work’s immediate existence. In 2017, the artist constructed his first public installation, Muro, in Washington Square Park; it was followed by a similar performative installation in front of London’s National Theatre on July 7, 2018, and at USFCAM on January 24, 2019. Sodi’s work has been shown in museums and galleries all over the world including Museo Barracco di Scultura Antica (Rome, Italy), Axel Vervoordt Gallery (Antwerp, Belgium), Museo Nacional de Arte (Mexico City, Mexico), and Johyun Gallery (Busan, South Korea). Bosco Sodi is also the creator Fundación Casa Wabi, a non-profit, civil organization that aims to promote collaboration and social commitment through art, and has residency programs in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Tokyo, Japan.
Artist website: boscosodi.com
Gallery website: kasmingallery.com
Casa Wabi website: casawabi.org
Artist Instagram: @studioboscosodi