Mexican Wolf (gre mɛksəkən woŏlf) - lat. canis lupus baileyi, a subspecies of the Gray Wolf. It is native to North America, where it is the rarest and most genetically distinct subspecies.

Illustration by William Jardine, 1839

Linda Tegg’s first solo exhibiton in Mexico City district will display two investigations into relational realities and the experience of looking. The first investigation takes place in a remote location near Sierra Blanca in western Texas. The artist works with a Mexican Grey Wolf, a threatened species that teeters on the edge of wildness and domesticity. Though the video study Wolf, Linda Tegg hopes to understand something of our experience of nature, the idea of the animal and how the wolf’s perspective differs form our own.

The Mexican Grey Wolf originally ranged from central Mexico to the southwestern United States. By the 1950’s, intensive efforts by to eradicate the wolf had succeeded in eradicating the species from the wild. In the 1970’s the wolf was declared an endangered subspecies and today exists primarily in facilities in the United States and Mexico.

Along with Wolf, Linda Tegg will present the site-specific video work Tortoise. The work brings together a group of performers under a mirrored exoskeleton to become a distinct organism – a slowly moving blind spot in space. It reflects its audience and offers innumerable perspectives on its environment. This work follows on from a series of investigations into the experience of looking, both temporally and spatially, and what can happen to an audience during this experience.

Biography Linda Tegg

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Linda Tegg is the recipient of the 2011 Arts Victoria International Cultural Exchange Grant, the 2011 Australia Council ArtStart Grant, the 2010 Keith & Elisabeth Murdoch Traveling Fellowship and has exhibited extensively throughout the world. Selected exhibitions include the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (g); The Arts Centre, Melbourne (g); Alliance Française de Melbourne (g); Neue Galerie, Switzerland (s); HetWildeWeten, Rotterdam (g); Arts-Apporia, Osaka (g); Area Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne (s); and Museum of Modern Art, New York (g).

Linda Tegg (Australia) makes explorations in her new animal study about the Mexican Wolf (canis lupus baileyi) while confronting and commanding the wolf with a video camera. The subspecies of the the Gray Wolf was declared an endangered subspecies since the 70’ and has remained so ever since. The investigation forms the basis of her first solo exhibition in Mexico City. Along with Wolf Study, Linda Tegg will present the site-specific video work Tortoise. The work brings together a group of performers under a mirrored exoskeleton to become a distinct organism – a slowly moving blind spot in space.

> “Linda Tegg busca entender nuestra experiencia de la naturaleza, la esencia del animal y la manera en que se diferencia la perspectiva del lobo y del humano.” (De-Dealer, 02-06-2011)

> “Añadió que Linda Tegg hizo una intervención en el desierto de Texas con espejes monumentales; dejó a un lobo gris libre con estos objetos y llevó a cabo un video sobre el comportamiento del animal en este entorno intervenido.” (Publimetro, 08-06-2011)

> “La naturaleza animal cambian de acuerdo al entorno humano.” (Pulso Politico, 08-06-2011)

Video Shoot @ Centre d’Art Neuchâtel (Switzerland)

Selection of Press Voices about Unknown Animal

Neue Galerie is a curatorial initiative by Sandino Scheidegger & Luca Müller

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