Maximiliano - Siñani Spalding

About

The name Spalding is ubiquitous on basketballs and while this brand is used for professional games, it’s also used in communities all over the United States. On half courts, like the one on 17th Street, neighbors play games, abbreviating and amending rules of the game to fit the court. Every day, these games take place in our neighborhoods and bring our communities together. At Open Source, Spalding will focus on the game of basketball within communities–activating both the private space of the gallery and the public space of the court with confetti. On August 31, Maximiliano Siñani will orchestrate a performance at a local basketball court. Community members will be invited to play a game of basketball with balls covered with confetti. Throughout the exhibition, basketballs will be available in the gallery for visitors and community members to borrow for use at the basketball court down the street.

Confetti’s importance to Siñani not only stems from its celebratory use, but he is also interested in the significance of the traces it leaves behind. When put in use, the tiny particles of confetti expand, covering everything they touch and remaining after the party has ended, leaving evidence of the people that were there and the event that took place. Confetti was originally created for use in the Italian carnival, eventually migrating across the ocean to find importance in Latin American and South American celebrations. First created as a by-product from the production of other materials, confetti is now manufactured as a product itself for the party industry. Siñani has created his own confetti machine that, through a repetitive motion of perforation and extraction, can produce 1.2 kilograms of confetti during an eight hour workday.

On the court, each bounce of the ball will mirror the action of a person throwing confetti, spreading the colorful fragments across the court and the basketball players themselves. As the confetti shifts, it will evoke the festivals where it was first used, engaging the people it touches and celebrating our local community. After the game, remnants of the confetti will remain on the court, leaving traces of the rules and structure of the game, evoking the festivals where it was first used and remains in use today, and suggesting the footprints of the people who played there.

Maximiliano Siñani (Bolivia, 1989) lives and works in New York. He started his studies in Architecture at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz and finished his degree in Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Together with Kim Junsung, Siñani founded 67 on the Lower East Side. He has had solo exhibitions at El Museo del Barrio of New York, Museo Nacional de Arte in La Paz, Y Gallery, Gallería Hilo in Buenos Aires and Era Aurora in Turin. He has been a part of all the Bolivian Biennials and guested in collectives frequently. Among other awards, Siñani won the Sylvia Lipson Allen Memorial award through the School of Visual Arts in New York and first prize at the 19th Santa Cruz Biennial in 2014. He participated in the Kiosko Residency program in Santa Cruz , ISCP (International Studies and Curatorial Program) in Brooklyn, and CRIPTA747 in Turin. His work has been published by Disonare Magazine, Bukow Press, Arte al Límite and A – ediciones arte contemporáneo. He currently produces confetti.

This program is supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Joseph Robert Foundation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Open Source Gallery programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.