Category Archives: No category

- Beam I, Projects, No category

Beam I

Beam I

– 2021. Archeologies of the present. ALDTU. Reus

Lacquered wood supports, pine beam with carving and redrawing of the waters of the wood on one side and Walter Benjamin’s history theses manuscript on the other. 300 x 56,5 x 190,5 cm

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In the present, history and geohistory intersect in an obvious way; human action has a devastating effect on the natural environment. What until recently we called nature and which since the Enlightenment we believed we had to understand, dominate and exploit indefinitely, is systemically rebelling and dragging us into a zone of uncertainty where the ontological parameters suffer a collapse. This installation shows the tension between history (human historical time) and geohistory, which we used to call natural history and today we define, among other terms, as the Anthropocene.

The wooden beam, an architectural object of structural support, is shown on scaffolding that provides another type of physical support. Two different conceptions of time are revealed: on the one hand, the waters of the wood redrawn in pencil on one of the sides suggest the time of the -bios, where the sinuousness of the drawing depends on the atmospheric conditions linked to the tree growth and deployed in a natural time. On the other side of the beam, the hand-copied transcription of Benjamin’s history theses offer, in contrast, the burden of his philosophical thought intensely concentrated on the idea of ​​historical progress. His angel of history would probably also feel fear today for the horrors caused by human action on the environment and its consequences for the future of life on the planet.

- The Neck at the Foot, Projects, No category

The Neck at the Foot

The Neck at the Foot

– 2021. Finalist at the 2021 Sculpture Award of the Vila Casas Foundation.
Museu Can Mario

Concret. 40 x 150 x 150 cm

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The Neck at the Foot is a sculptural group that starts from a chance find on a walk: an old damaged cement pipe that was used to lead the water to a reservoir and was confused with the natural elements of its surroundings. The association of this image with the situation experienced in recent months as a result of the pandemic, reactivated the memory of a biased appreciation made by one of the greatest exponents of American expressionist painting, Barnet Newman: “Sculpture is that with what do you stumble upon when you pull back to look at a painting”. On the contrary, for me, sculpture is what you stumble upon (as a finding) when you are in a state of maximum alertness and perception and that activates a series of reflections that go beyond itself. Therefore, the reversal that this episode has meant requires breaking the structures of meaning that until now we took for granted and justifies the change of order in the sentence that gives name and meaning to the piece.

- Bibliogeometry II, Projects, No category

Bibliogemetry (You and Art)

Bibligeometria (You and Art)

– 2020

Steel plate and old book. 43 x 28,5 x 47 cm

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The finding in the street of a vintage volume of art history serves as a pretext to generate this work that contrasts the formal and material options included in the book, with the constructivist character developed in the program of contemporary sculpture and not collected in the volume, despite having been published contemporaneously to these practices.
Values ​​such as interior space, exterior volume, geometric configuration, etc. become present in the support that holds the book and present a counterpoint to its content. Its title, which appeals directly to the reader, becomes an ironic claim to a sculptural experience that calls into question the categorizations of the classical tradition of art history.

- Projects, The Assistants, No category

The helpers 1

The helpers II

– 2019.

Iodine and water on paper. 56 x 75 cm each one

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“The helper is the representation of what is lost. But this formless chaos of the forgotten, which accompanies us like a silent golem, does not remain inert or ineffective. So his stubborn gestures, his impassive mime face. For this reason, too, its irremediable ambiguity. Because there can only be a parody of the unforgettable“.

Giorgio Agamben. Profanations.

The extreme elasticity of the meidosems: here is the source of their joy. Of his misfortunes too. Bullets falling from a cart, a wire swaying, a sponge soaking, almost soaked, the other empty and dry, a mist in a mirror, a phosphorescent imprint, look carefully, look. Maybe it’s a meidosem. Maybe they are all meidosems … scared, stung, full, hardened by various feelings …

Henry Michaux, Portraits of the meidosems (1948)

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The beginning of this project lies in my interest in the work of Henri Michaux and his relationship between the poetic writing, the experience of language limitation and the exploration of drawing as an expressive resource straddling unconscious and surreal imaginary. His biography runs parallel to the historical tragedies and artistic pursuits of the first half of the 20th century, but his journey draws a path between disciplines and heterodox research within the framework of the avant-garde.

In some way, and despite the historical leap, Michaux’s work fits into what Giorgio Agamben writes about assistants years later. In fact, the filamentous characters that emerge in many of Michaux’s drawings and series become a kind of constantly changing hybrid beings that could well be ascribed under the description of the Italian philosopher.

The series of drawings “The Helpers”, developed episodically in recent years, approximates some of Michaux’s approaches and probes through automatic drawing, a graphic exploration of areas and figures not previously conceptualized, which has a lot to do with that suspicion about the informal chaos of the forgotten that tries to reveal itself. In fact, in times of the so-called anthropocene, these figurations evoke both past forgetfulness and fictions of an uncertain future through forms that seem to transit between mineral, vegetable and even animal worlds.

Drawing with iodine and Indian ink allows me to free the premeditation so that it flows on the paper, the iodized water, containment dams and the appearance of unforeseen elements. The risky behavior of the liquid and its reaction with humidity conditions, the material composition of the paper and the drying process compromise the results and lead it far from control zones. Working in series and displaying them in groups rearranges the resulting forms and allows one to explore relationships between the various drawings, where the tension between fluid stains and constructive forms is the principle that articulates them. The luminosity caused by iodized water crystallizes in different densities and gives depth to the figures despite their contoured outline, recalling natural solidification processes such as vegetable resins or amber.

- Process, No category, Situation

Eutrophic Economy

EUTROPHY: growth in geometric progression during thirty years of green algae on the surface of a pond produces suffocation underwater life in a single year, from the middle of the occupation of the surface.

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The desire for self growth of Western civilization, linked to the idea of ​​historical progress, infinite development (which has no end or purpose, as Cornelius Castoriadis criticized) is inherent to capitalism has colonized the globalized world, beyond the ecological footprint sustainable and produces a outgrowth stifles economic opportunity biodiversity by altering the course of social becoming.

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- Exhibition, Found System, Manidemo, No category

Guerilla Creative Collective ‘Kut’ Brings Unexpected Weather to the Streets of Riga

A Latvian group that goes by the name Kut who describes themselves as “a creative collective consisting of filmmakers, musicians, artists, politicians and cats,” recently undertook an action on the streets of Riga called “Oh Joy!” where the group brought nature to the city and made the weather change unexpectedly. Aside from the few “Oh dear god what is this stuff all over me” moments, it looks like most people enjoyed it quite a bit. Love the editing. (via vimeo)