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A beautiful and haunting display of art by Pasquale Verdicchio and Irén Tété.
Pasquale Verdicchio
Acknowledgement of the role and value of death as a an important part of a cyclical and natural continuum is common in many cultural traditions around the world.
The photographs in this exhibition are from two different series yet find confluence in their iconography, cultural practices, and as acts of resistance. Most are from the Day of the Dead celebrations in Oaxaca city and Teotitlan, a Zapotec governed town in the Oaxaca region; the others are from two catacombs from my native city of Naples, Italy.
Pasquale Verdicchio is professor emeritus in literature, film and writing in the Dept of Literature at UCSD. Considered a leading translator of major Italian writers, he has englished the work of Pasolini, Merini, Caproni, Porta, and Gramsci among others. His poetry, reviews, criticism and photography have been published in journals around the world. As an author his books include Devils in Paradise: Writings on Post-Emigrant Cultures (Guernica, 1997), Bound by Distance: Rethinking Nationalism through the Italian Diaspora (1998), and the poetry collection This Nothing's Place (Guernica, 2008). He is a founding member and past president of the Association of Italian Canadian Writer and a founder and Associate Director of the San Diego Italian Film Fetival.
Irén Tété
"Born in Bulgaria during the fall of communism, I carry the dissonance of collapsed systems, ancestral beliefs, unfinished houses, and fractured time. My work draws from proto-Bulgarian pagan cosmology, the unbuilt cinderblock homes of my childhood, and rituals connecting us to lineage and place. These experiences—my mother’s demolished home and my Turkish Bulgarian father’s forced renaming—shape my exploration of architecture, memory, and cultural identity through elemental materials and gesture. Clay, language, and form become tools to reclaim and reimagine my fragmented past while envisioning potential futures. My installations resist linear time, existing instead in liminal spaces, inviting reflection on what it means to remember, to connect, and ultimately, to let go."
Irén Tété (Sofia, Bulgaria / San Diego, CA) is a sculptor whose practice centers ceramic, architecture, and language. Her work merges industrial-infrastructural and human-organic vocabularies, questioning boundaries of belief, structure, language, belonging. Recent solo exhibitions include Sarasota Art Center (FL), Union University (TN), Galleri Urbane (Dallas, TX), and Gallery 371 (Calgary). Her sculptures have been exhibited internationally, including triennials in Poland, biennials in Italy and Latvia, and shows at Kouri + Corrao (Santa Fe), Dallas Art Fair, and Untitled Art Miami Beach. Tété has participated in residencies at Wassaic Project (NY), Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (NE), Hambidge Center (GA), Archie Bray Foundation (MT), and Zentrum für Keramik (Berlin). She is currently Assistant Professor and Program Head of Ceramics at San Diego State University.