Andrés Janacua: My Dad Drips

839 is pleased to announce “My Dad Drips,” a solo show of works by Andrés Janacua, opening Saturday, November 2, 2024. The exhibition will bring together recent woven wall works, as well as two new sculptures. The title “My Dad Drips” hits multiple registers, on one level evoking a visceral, almost gross materiality, suggesting bodily fluids or decay; simultaneously, it taps into contemporary slang where “drip” signifies fashion, style or swagger.

Viewers are likely to see “Wound Licker,” 2024, first. A free-standing folding screen, it is an ostensibly domestic item, with panels composed of black and white toquillo (plastic lanyard) woven in various rhythmic configurations. The inverse side, outfitted with pegboard, displays draped chains of gold, silver, and copper. Serving as a metaphor for the barrier between public and private space, the screen invites consideration of identity and presentation. This work is emblematic of Janacua’s ongoing exploration of the tensions between the utilitarian and the decorative, layering notions of labor, luxury, and the malleability of signifiers of indigenous heritage, and production patterns across cultures.

In “If you light a man a fire he stays warm for the night; if you light a man on fire he stays warm for the rest of his life,” 2023, a tall wall-bound weaving is set into a handsome custom-milled MDF frame. The toquillo is uniformly black. In the right light, viewers can make out the geometries of the interlocking patterns. The light color of the MDF frame contrasts with the black monochrome surface. But the top edge of the frame, around the perimeter of the work, has been crudely spray-painted black, at once heightening the effect of the dark monochromatic face of the work, as well as its sculptural supports on the side of the frame. This piece exemplifies Janacua’s production of works that function in both two and three dimensions.

In the back room of the gallery, the artist has installed a cedar sculpture entitled, “A Party Without Cake is Really Just a Meeting,” 2024, depicting an ostrich with its head in the ground and its feathery ass in the air. A simple visual riff on the classic concept of a creature that attempts to avoid its problems by putting them out of sight. With devastating realities unfolding on the global stage and increasingly dystopic partisanship at home in the U.S., this lyrical sculpture is a compact representation of our moment.