The title of Mao’s grooved, and richly copper-plated box refers to a street in Mexico, referencing the subterranean architectural grids on the Mexican USA border where primarily Chinese immigrants would create a life. Although we can peer inside, the cut-out corner reveals very little as most of the interior remains an enigma in shadow. There is sense of the ground holding hidden memories whilst the presence of the copper element emphasises the drawing forth to surface then re-burrowing back into the earth.

Active in the 1990s -2000 as part of the New York queer art scene, Mao now lives in Mexico. His work engages in issues of fragmentation, exploring equations of the body and architecture through restraint, domination and absence. His practice is an ongoing dialogue with materiality and vernacular building systems, challenging the perception of the cultural context of materials and images. Heavily influenced by both the theory and practice behind the architectural modernist movement, he challenges the conventions of object-hood, presentation, and the historically charged relationship between craft and industry.

This box is one of a series of named streets, plated in copper with a wax finish.

Yeni Mao (b. 1971 Guelph, Canada) lives and works in Mexico City. He graduated BFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA (1993) and 995Artworks Foundry, Berkeley, USA (1995). His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, at venues including Ise Cultural Foundation and Chashama, both in New York; ROM Gallery for Art & Architecture in Oslo; and Shang Element Contemporary Art Museum in Beijing.Solo shows include: Campeche, ‘Yerba Mala’, Mexico City, MX; Co-Lab Projects, ‘will you meet me by the river’s edge’, Austin, USA; Fierman, ‘I desire the strength of nine tigers’, New York, USA; PAOS GDL, ‘vol. 2: cabal, with Gamma Galería’, Guadalajara, MX; guadalajara90210, ‘vol. 1: cowboys’, Guadalajara, MX; Casa Lu, ‘Ripple and Shear’, Mexico City, MX; Second Street Gallery, ‘The Conqueror’, Charlottesville, USA; Munch Gallery, ‘Regatta’, New York USA; Zidoun-Bossuyt, ‘Whiskey Papa’, Luxembourg, LU; Flash Atöyle, ‘1725 Sokak No.43’, Izmir, TR; Collette Blanchard Gallery, ‘Dead Reckoning’, New York, USA.