SANDRA CORDERO

PLANETA SANDRA

The first New York solo exhibition by Cuban artist Sandra Cordero, Planeta Sandra was a pop-up exhibit on display in the Lazy Susan Gallery at 191 Henry Street which ran from

October 10th through 13th, 2019.

Press Release:

We join the artist on a journey of discovery into a world where precise, multi-layered, dimensional paper collages, often cut from fashion magazines, spring to life as the thriving inhabitants of Planeta Sandra. She manages to blend the whimsical and the sensual, the threatening and the sublime as she recounts the mythological folklore of a primordial world not that far from our own. With an explorer’s eye and a botanist’s discipline, Sandra meticulously catalogs each Sandremio by genus and species as specimens deserving of further study.

"Using magazine clippings and layers of paper, I create collages with spatial depth that embody the whimsical ecosystem of Planet Sandra. When I set out to create new forms, I seek to understand the life drive of each. Delicate details, sinuous shapes, intricate hiding places and delusional characters make up the scene of that planet that orbits in my mind. When I work with recycled materials from our culture, which in themselves are a filter of reality, I like to think that my creations become living palimpsests, born from the exercise of devouring images."

- Sandra Cordero

Sandra studied Film Direction at Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), Havana, Cuba.

Her work has been included in group exhibitions in the United States, including a recent show in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The artist currently lives and works in Union City, New Jersey.

Essay by Luis Ramaggio:

An exploratory approach to emotional phenomena and banality revealed.

We might as well acknowledge it: Emotions are creatures.

Understanding is a dangerous endeavour, and there is no right way to do it, or even "to control it". Humans have built everything around them. Everything we do, feel, say and think, lies behind a spirit of understanding. We live and suffer for it. And we give our lives for it. But what else could we do? We are voracious. And weird.

What are we?

Seen from afar, every single thing around us (humans), represents (for us) a certain understanding. We know that, if something exists, it is because a certain mind brought it to life. Natural or not, if something is "here", it was "made". Our common belief is that we´re all part of a harmoniously created universe, and that we are deeply aware of what (or who) "made us". Do we really know it?

We are planets.

Sandra Cordero (Cuba, 1979) is taking on a difficult task: Exploring the depths of her inner self, in search of whatever triggers her (and the other) forbidden drives and desires. Justified lust, logical greed, capitalist hunger, elegant envy, tender consumerism and many other forms of superficiality and human behavior are part of her quest.

This is what she discovered, and all the involved reasons revealed. As any respected expeditionist, she quietly observes and classifies. As a visionary. As a hungry expert. As a mentalist. Lurking around her own self, and wandering through her habits and personality, Sandra discovers that she herself is a world. That there are wild dimensions and layers within her mind, and the places around it. But we don´t rule our inner worlds. On the contrary, we are enslaved by them.

Consciousness is a dangerous farm. Committed to itself, within the rigid structures of our bodies. We are vessels. According to Sandra Cordero, conduct and behavior are passionate forms of undercover life that systematically inhabit us. And there is a vast array of them. As a crucial part of her findings, human emotions play a clear role in everything. Some sort of evolution has led the human feelings and compulsions to become "incarnated". These life forms are tenacious. They represent and control our wit.

This exhibition presents part of the large taxonomy of Sandra Cordero´s study on human shallowness and its spirits. Taken from fashion magazines, the artist shapes up a sort of cute way of life with eager standards toward consumption, desire and contemporary neediness. Through cardboard and paper cutouts, she reaches a powerful, almost installation like state in her art pieces, that may be easily understood as a visual document or a satirical essay on our weak common drives. We feed them. We cultivate them. We host them. However, we don't know them. We can't see them. And they are eating us alive, as we speak. Microorganisms? -Think again.

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible....”

-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray