Join us to celebrate the opening of A Project by Mariana Castillo Deball.

A Project by Mariana Castillo Deball
April 14–August 6, 2016 // Free and Open to All
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 14, 2016

Grandmother’s biography has many loose threads. We knew that she was born in New Orleans, she eventually moved to San Francisco and then to Cuautla, Mexico, where she lived in a tiny house with hundreds of cats.

One day she asked Adriana to pick up a big wooden trunk, and to not open it before she died. Adriana didn’t know what the trunk contained, but only that it had to remain sealed. Anyhow, she was very curious about the contents and could not stop gazing at it. She longed to give in to temptation and open it, but she always re-tied the cords and returned the chest to its shelf. However, one day she untied the knots and opened it.
Inside was a collection of notebooks with short stories, poems, and theatre plays all written by hand. At the bottom of the box there were some documents in an envelope. It seems that she was adopted and for years she tried to find her ancestors. The genealogical tree was a big drawing with names connected to arrows and tiny annotations. The tree ended up in Nottingham, England with a final remark that concluded that we were relatives of Robin Hood. Adriana had finally found the perfect argument to justify her mastery of thievery.
– Mariana Castillo Deball
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About the Artist
Mariana Castillo Deball is the inaugural artist-in-residence of the SFAI + Kadist Art Foundation Fellowship—an annual partnership to commission new works and support curatorial work by artists.

Her work explores the role objects play in our understanding of identity and history through work in installation, photography, drawing, and sculpture. She has participated in major international survey exhibitions including the 8th Berlin Biennale, Documenta 13, the 54th Venice Biennale, the 29th Bienal de São Paulo, and Manifesta 7. She is the recipient of the Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst, Zürich Art Prize, Ars Viva Prize, and the Prix de Rome. Deball lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
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Image credit: Fragments of Teotihuacan murals at the de Young Museum in 1978. Image courtesy of the Archive of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas Department, Fine Art Museums of San Francisco