Curated by Juan Ramón Barbancho for Dean Project, New York.
This exhibition brings the photography and video work of nine artists from Spain; María Cañas, Francis Naranjo, Felipe Ortega-Regalado, Andrés Senra, Alex Francés, Miguel Soler, Eduardo Sourrouille, Paka Antúnez and Víctor Manuel Gracia.
This exhibition offers a reflection on the body and the gaze, and their relationship with other elements such as light, space, and the individual himself. This reflection is both on and within the works of the artists who are participating in the show. The works presented in this exhibition, although very different among themselves, each share the same objective and the same intention: they are visions of the human body, different ways of treating a vision of corporeal nature that are related to very different issues: the reality of death in the cases of Víctor Manuel Gracia and Miguel Soler (although his is of a someone peculiar form), the passage of time in Alex Francés, the relationship of man and animal in the world of Eduardo Sourrouille, María Cañas’ Post vision of the gaze, the spaces of Felipe Ortega, and the power struggles in the work of Andrés Senra.
Diverging Gazes
By Juan Ramon Barbancho
This reflection is both on as well as within the works of the artists who are participating in the show, and on other works, as is the case with Maria Cañas, who creates her pieces by delving into films and ‘pirating’ them, provoking a schizoid relationship between stills. The results of her efforts are spectacular, both arising from and reflecting perfectly upon the world in which we live, a world in which the concept of originality and ownership has changed completely, one in which Postproduction has come to the forefront as typical and emblematic of our time, resulting in the legitimization of the task of ‘cut and paste’ which can and does end in a ‘new work’ made up of pieces of others.
According to Nicolas Bourriaud, who has theorized extensively on this idea, the most representative visual arts of recent years expand and extend the previous concept of the readymade elaborated by Marcel Duchamp. There exists everywhere, including in the art world, a continual reflection on the fusion of production and consumption. Artists often work with already existing materials, generating meaning through a selection and combination of heterogeneous elements. Thus for Bourriaud, Postproduction is a term that arises as an explication of artistic endeavors that have recourse to known forms and have introduced them into the artwork, therefore creating a network of signs; that is to say, an appropriation of the codes of our culture and its forms. In this context, the work of Maria Cañas uses already existing images, seeking out not only new readings, but new gazes on that which has already been seen in another context, and new gazes and relationships between certain works and others.
Postproduction consists of a series of processes carried out on one or more original materials such as, for example, montage, subtitling, the inclusion of voiceovers and the insertion of fragments from other sources to give them a new form and a distinctive touch, something that is clearly reflected in the work of Cañas.
Domingo Hernandez talks of the the esthetic of ‘save as’ (‘cut and paste’): an ambiguous artistic form that responds to the apparent need of our society to be at the same time copy and original. Without doubt, the paradigm for this discourse lies in publicity, which is capable of recycling and renewing its contents over and over. But this is not the case with all of the works shown in this exhibition. As I have said, the works offer reflections on the gaze. If, as Duchamp said, ‘the viewers are the ones who make the work’, it is clearly so in this case, but in a double sense: in that of the artist who makes the work and what he sees and in that of the viewer who looks at what has already been seen, at what he has been given to see and formulates his reflection: ’creating the work’, or rather, completing it. It must be a collaboration, a negotiation between the artist and we who contemplate the work.
Our task as viewers is to discover what the artist presents to us in each case.
In the case of Francis Naranjo, his work is a reflection on the gaze and on light. To a certain extent it could be the absence of the gaze, as in his work El poeta tuerto [The Blind Poet]. The highly developed aesthetic – and technical – conception of Naranjo can lead to our being deceived by visual perception that is purely retinal – and therefore ‘gestaltic’ - which can result in a lack of appreciation of his work and the beauty within it by considering it as a whole made up of diverse parts equally, when in reality it is a whole made up of other ‘wholes’, ‘wholes’ brought together as elements of meaning in themselves, although mutually dependent in that they make up the work in its entirety and contribute to a real and utterly profound perception of each of the works.
Since his work habitually employs the format and medium of installation, our sensorial and aesthetic experience is even greater because he creates a space that is not only conceptual but also physically real. The observer – involved viewer – is physically placed within the work, taking on an ‘aesthetic posture’, savoring the experience. This may make our initial ‘confrontation’ of one of Naranjo’s work somewhat difficult. We are too accustomed to look for other things, our sense of sight seems habituated to seek the ‘utility’ of things, something that we can use to achieve certain objectives. This makes us see everything with a visual sense limited only to recognizing and identifying objects and people, but not to analyzing what is given to us or what someone is trying to sell us, what is presented to our sight.
Felipe Ortega-Regalado introduces us to gaze and space. We find in his work a peculiar way of creating paintings as well as video and photography. In his paintings there is a curious dialogue between a way of creating metaphysical spaces, vacant spaces, planes that are almost impossible; when he carries over expands this discourse into other media, space is turned into both contained and container, housing the characters of his narrative at the same level at which – along with light – narrative itself exists. One only has to look at the work and involve oneself in its history ‘to make the work’, as Duchamp said.
Ortega-Regalado’s work, originally only painting, has ’expanded’ to photography and video (as image-movement, painting-movement) and offers an interdisciplinary hybrid that, sharing its visual aspect with painting, expands into audiovisual media, language, the possibilities of the image, the technical media that produce them, visual practices and the meaning of their relationship with space, time, and the viewer. This is even more strongly emphasized by using the photograph as both image and reference to painting, as is the case with the work that is included in the Dean Project exhibition.
The work of Andres Senra presents quite clearly the curiosity of the voyeur. Accounts of our contemporary condition abound, along with an involvement in social and political problems, as in his video Sacrificio [Sacrifice] (2005), for which he combed the history of art, looking for iconographic images of sacrifice and then applied these images to actual events such as the war in Iraq. This is the role that an artist today must assume, one of social commitment, a quasi-political involvement in reality and in the lives of others – a far cry from making work in which the narrative pivots around an axis that is solely aesthetic. In fact, I believe that one of the problems of contemporary art is the ongoing loss of political and social involvement of many who create: let us call them only artists.
Works such as that which is part of the exhibition bring ‘other’ visions to the piece and are ‘narratives of place.’ These are places where certain roles are easily transgressed and are converted into ‘spaces of transgression’ for behaviors that in other circumstances would not be permitted. I am referring to ambiguous behaviors, repressed desires, zones of resistance where an out-of-bounds sexuality explores the limits of tolerance: attitudes and ‘camaraderies’ that in other places would be impossible.
In many cases the work of Alex Frances shapes ideas that deal with painful situations, sickness, the weakness of the Human Being, decrepitude, fragility, the passage of time as reflected in one’s own body or that of another. Madres e hijas [Mothers and Daughters] is a triple portrait in which Frances revisits a theme widely found in the history of Art: the passage of time or the Ages of Man. This is a theme that has been treated by many artists, either directly or indirectly, such as in the Concert of Giorgione, or by Velazquez in his Card Players, in which each person represents a single age: the vigor of youth, the prudence of maturity, and the wisdom of old age. The passage of time is also manifested in the body, such as in Gustav Klimt’s Three Ages of Woman; this is made more than evident in the work that Frances presents in this exhibition. The three women do not look at each other, they look at us and are exposed to our gaze, our curiosity, and make us reflect on our own lives.
It may be that the work of Miguel Soler deviates from our norm, but his is the work that requires the most personal involvement on the part of the viewer. To be sure, his work En Blanco [Drawing a Blank] asks us to approach for a moment the desperation of one who attempts suicide, but it is much more than that. It is a narration of life and the conditions that many times place us at the limits of our abilities, of anguish and loneliness, of one who looks at himself and sees no reason to preserve himself; an introspective gaze into oneself that compels us to reflect not precisely on ourselves, but, quite the opposite, on the game of life. When all is said and done, it is only a game, the pistols are fake.
The work of Eduardo Sourrouille is distinguished by an elegant and refined treatment of various issues. His own image, frequently repeated in his work along with images of his friends, is executed with an aesthetic perfection that is highly scenographic. He himself indicates that many of these pieces explore the most intimate aspects of our relationships with others and with ourselves; love is the binding force and motivation behind this relationship. It is the loss of the body itself, so as to submerge oneself in Love, resulting in a changing, mobile identity. These ’images of desire’ appear in his work along with other images that while not directly related are yet intertwined. In the series Personas que visitaron mi casa [People who Visited my House] he reflects on issues such as the domestication of human relationships, the feelings involved, the stability of relationships, power, loneliness, love, desire, as well as lack of fulfillment.
There are also series in which he appears with other ’friends’ that seem to be dearly beloved: portraits of the artist with taxidermied animals. These are scenes of intimate friendship in which the gaze of Sourrouille, full of goodwill and subtlety, takes us to the animal world. They explore the relationship of man to animal, or perhaps with himself.
In this exhibition Paka Antunez presents part of an interesting series of photographs, much in the way of Hazekamp, where a duality of portraits is presented in which she herself appears characterized as woman and man: Mi parte masculine y femenina [My Masculine and Feminine Part]. In some of them we find the same photograph in which the person appears divided in two, one half man, the other half woman. In other works there are two people – man and woman – who look at each other, and who, as I have said, are each the artist herself. This is an investigation into the duality of our feminine and masculine parts, into the possibilities of our body’s own image.
On a totally different plane from the others, yet sharing with them the interest in the image, Victor Manuel Gracia’s work began with an admiration of the Spanish Baroque as the high point of painting, especially from a conceptual point of view, and from its capacity to represent ideas and symbols. Within this aesthetic world his work shows evidence of forms of the Andalusian iconographic tradition. Gracia’s point of departure stems from his observation and study of the heritage of the Baroque and the icons characteristic of the world of Spanish – particularly Andalusian -religious forms, employing an appropriation of history, tradition, and a strong presence of the body, which in this artist’s work involves the reality of decrepitude and death.
Although very different among themselves, the works presented in the exhibition at Dean Project each share the same objective and the same intention: they are visions of the body, different ways of treating the perception of corporeal nature. They examine a wide range of issues: the reality of death in the cases of Victor Manuel Gracia and Miguel Soler (although his is of a someone peculiar form), the passage of time in Alex Frances, the relationship of man and animal in the world of Eduardo Sourrouille, Maria Cañas. Post vision of the gaze, the spaces of Felipe Ortega, and the power struggles found in the work of Andres Senra.
By Curator Juan Ramon Barbancho, translation by David Wayne
Dean Project, 43-45, 21st Street, Long Island City, New York
ON VIEW: Jun. 13 2009 – Aug. 02 2009
