guadalajara90210 present’s ANIMALES DE CARGA, an exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by Leah Dixon (NY, NY). Dixon’s graphic handcrafted puzzles of masks, helicopters, skyscrapers, and cows are installed on large-scale site-specific sculptures of pack animals. These animals resemble oversized contemporary models of cave paintings — from a time when constructed imagery was almost nonexistent, and global transportation consisted of herds on the move.

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Architecture and Animism. A human pack animal. Transportation and play. She carries the water.

Architecture is an unrendered body of a human or animal, blasted outwards into a geometric vessel — still animal, but with enough space between the guts for us to dance through its core.

Large sculptures of primordial bovine, made of rough-cut and painted drywall panels, loom throughout the colonial house turned gallery in Condesa. On these oxen hang colorful, graphic puzzle paintings of masks — made to stare back at the viewers from the large flanks of their bestial walls. Tubs of water dot the space — drinking holes for the beings, places for the builders to wash. Handmade wheels poke out of the terrain. Alien-like thigh-high cow sculptures are dwarfed by their prehistoric, construction material cousins.

Historians believe that the wheel was invented in Mesopotamia around 6,000- 8,000 years ago. It is not known whether there were other, independent wheel inventions elsewhere, or if the wheel spread outwards from a central technological origin point. It is largely agreed upon that the wheel was never invented in our hemisphere — with the exception of ancient Mexican small, toy animal statues — mounted on wheels and axles, made to be pulled by children.

Historians theorize about why the toy wheels and axles were not scaled up for human use. As if play is not useful.

Our world did not have native and domesticated beasts of burden — no beasts to pull the wheel and axle. The tools were not present in nature to scale-shift the invention UP UP UP to human scale, to tribal scale, to national scale, to military scale, to war, to global transportation, to identity. Other solutions were found. Wheels were played with. The big animals roamed free.

To marvel at enormousness.

LEAH DIXON (New York, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, painting, nightlife, and site design/build. She has exhibited nationally and internationally — including exhibitions at The Austrian Cultural Forum in Berlin, The Goethe Institute New York, Edel Assanti Gallery in London, DOWNTOWN 2021 with Gordon Robichaux Gallery New York, The Foundation of Contemporary Arts at Greene Naftali New York, Parque Galería Mexico City, The Nicaraguan Biennial of Contemporary Art, and many others. She has an upcoming solo exhibition at BOMBON Projects in Barcelona, with a residency at Spirit Vessel Espinavessa - funded by Acción Cultural Española .

Dixon’s work has been highlighted in The New York Times, iD-Mexico, New York Magazine, Artsy, Forbes, HYPERALLERGIC, Art in America, CULTURED, Terremoto, and The New Yorker. She teaches and lectures about alternative practices at Arts institutions including UniArts in Helsinki, New Mexico State University, Agencia Catalana Joventud with MACBA Barcelona, The University of Winchester UK, The School of Visual Arts in New York, The City University of New York, Parsons The New School of Design in New York, ISCP New York, The Columbia University School of Architecture New York, and UDK Berlin University of The Arts in Germany. She holds a BFA from The Ohio State University, an MFA from The School of Visual Arts, and attended The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.