Category Archives: 2020

Cabello/Carceller

 

Text on the exhibition by Pablo Martínez’s (Valladolid, 1979. Head of Programs at MACBA, Barcelona)

 

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We are pleased to present the third exhibition of Cabello/Carceller at Galeria Joan Prats, entitled I am A Stranger, and I am Moving, in which we show recent works: drawings, installation, video and photographs.

 

The exhibition appears as a chapter of an essay, whose central theme revolves around the video, Movimientos para una manifestación en solitario (Movements for a Solo Demonstration). Alike in structure, the exhibition also addresses various topics in its Notas al pie (footnotes), through drawings and photographs. The exhibition delves into fundamental issues such as the solitude experienced by those who choose to dissent from the lifestyle of the majority, the pressure felt to maintain a belligerent stance that defends freedom of choice and the need to produce entirely the limited vehemence that we often grant ourselves.

 

The title of the exhibition is a quote from David Wojnarowicz’s last conference before he died of AIDS in 1992. It refers to the stranglehold that accompanies the sick body, a despised body that society would prefer to expel. David Wojnarowicz is one of the artists that appears in the drawings and collages of Notas al pie, found in the first room, along with Tórtola Valencia, Pedro Lemebel, Agustina González López and Hélio Oiticica. Cabello/Carceller communicate through the past and present, speaking of those who have questioned the heteronomy of their bodies, who from their dissent, were able to transform disease, rejection and hatred into poetry.

 

This hatred saw Agustina González López shot in Granada, and later forgotten, during the same period as Federico García Lorca. She was defined by ‘social madness’ and suffered persecution and ridicule for her differences. Tórtola Valencia lived her sexuality as openly as time provided her, liberating her body and with it other bodies in search for new forms of physical expression. Pedro Lemebel dared to confront the Chilean dictatorship in the streets, but also the stale sectors of the Marxist left, wary of the revolutionary force of the transvestite, of her questioning of the patriarchal order and its obligatory gender conformity. Also, Hélio Oiticica, an anarcho-artist and a pioneer of relational practices that he chose to load with revolutionary content. He paired the aesthetics of the Russian avant-garde with dancing bodies in the favelas through a festival of colour and free expression, the ‘Parangolés’.

 

The video Movimientos para una manifestación en solitario features a body that becomes a manifestation in itself, a rebellious body that questions identity norms through movements, attitudes, and a way of being that vindicates itself politically. The body is alone but empowered in the awareness that its presence is itself a transformative presence, whose femininity gives it strength while being the cause of its social marginalization. The performer holds a banner that is present in the exhibition and quotes a fragment of a well-known phrase by Baruch Spinoza, ‘Lo que puede un cuerpo’, that opens the door to the philosophical sustenance of affect theory.

 

Fernando Prats

Introductory video to the exhibition

3D Virtual Tour

 

We are pleased to present the seventh exhibition of Fernando Prats at Galeria Joan Prats, titled Primera Línea (Front line), which shows his most recent work, carried out in the context of the protests that took place in Chile during the months of October and November 2019.

 

Fernando Prats work is determined by the relationship with the energy of nature and the territory, rooted in the ties that he establishes fundamentally with his origin country, Chile. The Andes mountain range, the Atacama desert, the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica, as well as memory, are inescapable and constitutive links of his work, turning the Chilean landscape into his poetic and pictorial language from a contemporary practice. Based on the constant observation of the context, nature, the human being and his intervention in critical situations, the work of Fernando Prats is understood from the concept of “pictorial geolicity”, that is to say, painting as a mobilizing agent, an active surface that works through layers that open up to new displacements. It is perceived in this way as a process that transforms the language of the work itself from a perspective far from the rational, seeking a space of creation free of judgment that considers chance as a revealing force. The use of smoke as a primary element in his work, a materiality of ancestral use, allows, through an original technical process, to capture the traces and pulsations that become in the painting.

 

On October 18, 2019, Chile was shocked by a true social earthquake that would begin to declare itself as “the awakening of Chile”, becoming the most eloquent call, after the dictatorship, for a profound change in the country’s neoliberal and cultural economic model. In this context, and as Fernando Prats’ method of work has always been, the artist introduced himself in the center of the demonstrations in Santiago, living in first person an experience that allowed him to record the movement and confrontation of the Front Line. The materiality, the social landscape, the superposition of the bodies in resistance, the visual languages and the word build a cartography of resonances, signs and drives of a country’s memory.

 

“To this alludes “Chile woke up”, the slogan that, starting on October 18th 2019, began to run through the streets and squares of the country like a trail, unexpectedly upholstered by a crowd that emerged from the most diverse corners to dust off a forgotten language – the language of dignity – and staging the creative moment of a destitute power. (…)

 

This is what the work of the artist Fernando Prats seems to exhibit, that work has consisted since its inception in capturing that particular moment in which certain materials in rebellion (physical, geographical, domestic) knot each other releasing the mnemic energy of the country. We perceive it in a palpable way in this new show, Primera Línea, a kind of small visual atlas in motion in which fragments of texts, images, slogans, emblems and bodies shape the hectic days of a community that shows the artistic moment that precedes both the script of the story, and that which is characteristic of aesthetic work.

 

The visual daily example that Prats traces -pictoric itself and articulated by means of records and video- gives the impression of fulfilling two crucial objectives in this way: undressing on one hand the raw visuality that during Chile’s revolt forges intervened monuments, the fire of the barricades, the cobblestones torn from the sidewalks, the rewritten flag and the fighting bodies as part of a performance practice that is anticipated when making the artist’s singular, and showing on the other hand that the extreme energy that his own work liberates is not part of the muse that visits the creator in silence, but the underground power of some images of the confines of a creative multitude. This shows Prats as a determined friend of those who fight for their rights, and not of those who defend their privileges.”

 

Fragments of the text “AHORA. Acerca de Primera Línea, de Fernando Prats” by Federico Galende (Rosario, Argentina, 1965)

 

 

Fernando Prats (Santiago de Chile, 1967) lives and works in Barcelona. His work is known for the actions or expeditions undertaken mostly in Chile, including among others Gran Sur, Elephant Island, Antarctica (2011), Acción Lota, acción Géiser del Tatio, acción Salar de Atacama, acción Mina a Rajo Abierto (2006) or Congelación, on the Collins glacier, Chilean Antarctica (2002).

 

He has received distinctions as the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Grant (2007); artist-in-residence at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter Köln, Cologne (2003); ‘Presidente de la República del Gobierno de Chile’ Honor Grant (1997-2000); ‘Pilar Juncosa y Sotheby’s’ special award (1994) or ‘Ciutat de Palma Antoni Gelabert d’Arts Visuals’ award (2010).

 

He has participated in international exhibitions as the Venice Biennale, representing Chile (2011); Mediations Biennale, Poznan (2012); Canarias Biennial, Chile Triennial (2009), ‘Exposición Universal del Agua’, Zaragoza (2008), Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2011); or Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile (2004), among others.

 

He has significant public space works as Pou de Llum, Manresa, Spain (2008); Acción Medular, in hommage to General Carlos Prats González (2017) installed as a permanent work at Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos de Chile (2007) or Su vertical nos retiene, monumental work built at Parque Cerrillos, Santiago de Chile, thanks to a public competition held by the Chilean Ministry of Public Works for the COP25 (Summit on climate change), which was to be held in Santiago de Chile in December 2019. Currently the Barcelona’s Town Hall has commissioned the artist to carry out a monumental project in Plaza Pablo Neruda in hommage to the task of the republican exiles welcome undertaken by the poet.

 

Fernando Prats has just been the winner of the third edition of the call to carry out artistic interventions in ‘Fragmentos, Espacio de Arte y Memoria, Museo Nacional de Colombia’, with the project ‘Aún tendría que haber luciérnagas’.

 

 

* To provide you with more information and images, please contact galeria@galeriajoanprats.com

 

 

exposure:the fact of experiencing something or being affected by it because of being in a particular situation or place (Cambridge Dictionary)

 

Exposures is a series of online exhibitions that aims to reflect on topics related to the current context, and around the general idea of ‘The body and the other’.

 

Exposures #03The hands

 

The third proposal revolves around the hand, the part of the human body most linked to the artistic creation along with the eyes and which at the same time helps us to communicate and relate, just like the word.

 

It brings together works by Erick Beltrán, Cabello/Carceller, Victoria Civera, Hannah Collins, Enzo Cucchi, Chema Madoz, Enrique Martínez Celaya, Muntadas, Perejaume, Marcel Rubio Juliana and Julião Sarmento.

 

Our hands are taking an unusual role in the last months due to their role in the transmission of viruses. Touching things, touching our faces, touching other hands has become dangerous, hands are now forced to cover themselves with gloves, to wash constantly, not to touch, not even to say hello.

 

But we have seen how its presence has been a constant in many artistic works, from prehistoric art to the present day, due to its formal and symbolic variety.

 

The non-verbal language of gestures reveals the relationship between hand and mind. In the works we show, the hand gestures express different moods, feelings, attitudes or emotions from fear or sorrow to sensuality or complicity. Sometimes, as happens for example in Julião Sarmento’s works, its representation alludes to the totality of the human body.

 

Hand gestures also refer to social conventions, thus becoming a representation of the human condition in close relationship with culture and expression. As evidenced in some of Muntadas‘ works, this rhetorical figure can define ambition, agreement, imposition, authority or power.

 

This exhibition will be on view until September 30th.

 

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think about the size

JORDI ALCARAZ, PAULINE BASTARD, ERICK BELTRÁN, ALFONS BORRELL, CABELLO/CARCELLER, CABRITA, VICTORIA CIVERA, HANNAH COLLINS, CARLES CONGOST, LUIS GORDILLO, ANNIKA KAHRS, LOLA LASURT, FABIAN MARCACCIO, ENRIQUE MARTÍNEZ CELAYA, MUNTADAS, JAVIER PEÑAFIEL, PEREJAUME, PABLO DEL POZO, FERNANDO PRATS, CAIO REISEWITZ, MARCEL RUBIO JULIANA, JULIÃO SARMENTO, JOSÉ MARÍA SICILIA, TERESA SOLAR, JUAN USLÉ 

 

 

“Escric amb rius i turons / sobre el paper de les planes”    Perejaume*

 

Spring has been marked by a radical transformation of our ways of moving, relating and exchanging. Suddenly everything has changed. Our perception of everyday things and also of the most relevant things has been questioned. What seemed essential to us becomes not essential. We have realized the precariousness of life, we have known the importance of solidarity, of family, of our loved ones, of our environment. Nature and the environment have also taken a leading role that they did not have before.

 

Facing this, we have dared to ask the artists of the gallery to participate in this exhibition that we now present, with works which they have carried out during this time of social isolation. They are diverse answers to the same question, they have in common the use of paper as a medium, common for some –like Victoria Civera or Perejaume– and unprecedented for others –like Hannah Collins or Annika Kahrs–.

 

The making of these works has been able to become an escape route, a tool to continue working despite the difficulties and, at the same time, they allow the spectator to enter the intimacy of the studios and the heads of their creators. They are, in most cases, works made at home, with house’s tools, testimonies of a unique and, we hope, unrepeatable moment.

 

‘Think about the size of the universe, then brush your teeth and go to bed’ takes the title of a work by the artist Annika Kahrs. Starting with humor, it invites us to reflect on the balance between micro and macro levels and on the search for meaning and identity within the unfathomable universe of which we are a part, reflections that become fundamental in the current context.

 

The result of this exhibition has been a series of diverse works. In some cases, we see that the themes that worried the artists, before the pandemic, have maintained their leading role or, even in others, they show fragments of their work process and are linked to future projects.

 

In other cases, we find proposals that speak directly of the current moment: reflections on personal relationships, the political situation, messages from the media or vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly.

 

Finally, we would also find a third group of works that focus on observing the closest environment and nature.

 

 

To provide you with more information and images, please contact galeria@galeriajoanprats.com

 

 

* “I write with rivers and hills / on the paper of the plains” Perejaume

Opening 16.01, 19h

Exhibition 17.01 – 30.05.2020

 

 

On Thursday January 16, we will open the seventh exhibition of Chema Madoz at the Galeria Joan Prats. We will present recent works made between 2012 and 2018.

 

The black and white photographs by Chema Madoz are characterized by their sharpness and fineness. Simple objects of everyday life appear in his pictures. The photographer has manipulated them, often combining two objects, looking for associations or paradoxes. These sculptures created by the artist are born only to be photographed, always with natural light. The change of scale and the absence of color allow us to establish a distance and at the same time distort reality, questioning ideas such as the true and the possible.

 

In the images of Chema Madoz, therefore, two points of view converge, the one from the photographer himself and the one from the viewer, who faces photography from the same place from where he faced the object. In the words of Chema Madoz, he is interested in “the idea of finding, discovering and perceiving the mystery in everyday life.” At the same time, the artist conceives reality as an exercise of reading, and with a cold look, he documents the destruction of its rules through photography.

 

All the photographs are printed on baryta paper and sulfide toned.

A Storm in a Teacup & Sideshow of a sideshow, 2012

exposure:the fact of experiencing something or being affected by it because of being in a particular situation or place (Cambridge Dictionary)

 

Exposures is a series of online exhibitions that aims to reflect on topics related to the current context, and around the general idea of ‘The body and the other’.

 

Exposures #02. The word 

The second proposal brings together conceptual practices around the word and the language, basic tools in our relationship with the world and with others.

The works of Erick Beltrán, Joan Brossa, Pauline Bastard, Muntadas, Javier Peñafiel, Perejaume, Teresa Solar and Anna Dot (guest artist) propose texts, phrases, messages, statements, which become resources for the analysis of reality, characterized by their critical and transforming character of the art system and society.

The works presented reflect the relationship between word and image and use various linguistic strategies. In the case of Teresa Solar‘s work, she plays with the aesthetics of phonetics and language learning posters. In other cases, language is used from a sound dimension -as in the work of Perejaume-, a sign –Javier Peñafiel– or poetic –Joan Brossa.

In the 2018 Muntadas work, the mechanisms of communication, language and the problematic relationship between the production of knowledge and economic power are analyzed. Also in the case of Erick Beltrán, through language, he dissects the world to classify it, categorize it, differentiate each of its elements in order to try to understand it.

In a more narrative line, Pauline Bastard‘s work starts from objects found casually that allow her to entrust strangers with the writing of creative fictions.

Lastly, we wanted to introduce an action carried out by Anna Dot at the Fundació Brossa in 2019, evidently for her connection with Joan Brossa, but also for her poetic reflection on the construction of words. 

This exhibition will be on view until 10 of June.

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Exposures#01

exposure: the fact of experiencing something or being affected by it because of being in a particular situation or place (Cambridge Dictionary)


Exposures
 is a series of online exhibitions that aims to reflect on topics related to the current context, and around the general idea of ‘The body and the other’.

Exposures #01. The first proposal is an adaptation of the project that we presented a few months ago for Loop’19, entitled 26 thousand light years. To the works by ANNIKA KAHRSALICIA KOPF and TERESA SOLAR, this time a work by PEDRO TORRES is added. This exhibition can be seen for 15 days.


26 thousand light years
 gathers a selection of videos that link stories or personal reflections with the space exploration, technology and science. The exhibition title, 26 thousand light years, refers to the distance that separates us from Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), a supermassive black hole located in the center of the Milky Way, the observation of which seems to confirm that black holes grow by absorbing minor ones and stars. The scientific speculation towards the outer space often approaches science fiction, as it appears in the works we present.

 ↵

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45. I tu ni te'n vas adonar, 2019

Opening Thursday, June 25, 5-8pm
Exhibition 25/06 – 17/10/2020

 

Visit by appointment only using Form.
(T. 93 216 02 84 – galeria@galeriajoanprats.com)

Joan Prats Warehouse. Passatge Saladrigas, 5 Barcelona.

 

 

As part of Artnou, Galeria Joan Prats presents the exhibition ‘El retorn a Ripollet’ by Marcel Rubio Juliana (Barcelona, 1991), that brings together a wide range of works, made between 2018 and 2019.

 

Marcel Rubio Juliana expresses himself mainly through drawing and painting, although his approach to creation has to do with the literary essay. Large charcoal canvases and oil miniatures confer the rhythm of a fragmented story that develops an apparently linear story, with unity of time and place. We could see certain analogies with the “nouveau roman”, where different points of view are adopted away from the narrator’s unique vision and where the writing itself acquires autonomy regardless of what is written. The Dogma film script could be another reference: both use real locations, flee from superfluous effects and seek a crude realism, creating a series of rules to follow and, sometimes, to transgress.

 

Alluding to his own experiences and desires, the artist evokes a summer day in which an stranger unknowingly becomes the main character of a singular story. Located in a coastal city near Barcelona, different sequences invite us on a journey in which, following a phenomenological method, contemplation, drift and falling in love offer a precise description of the environment.

 

The narration follows in the footsteps of a young man, from the train station to the city center, passing by the beach, the Yacht Club and various shopping streets, creating a cinematographic record of the places evoked. It also shows us bodies enjoying the water, the view of the sun over the sea, a kiosk, the facade of a theater, stains of humidity on the wall, a flower, a group of friends on a bar´s terrace… everything is there, present in the memory, although everything could be imagined.

 

 

Marcel Rubio Juliana (Barcelona, 1991) studied at Pau Gargallo School of Art and Design (Badalona), where he graduated in 2007. He later studied the Fine Arts degree at the University of Barcelona, which he completed in 2013.

 

Since then, he has shown his work in the following exhibitions: Surfeit, Fundación Arranz-Bravo, l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona (2018); Swab Art Fair, Barcelona, represented by Passatge Studio gallery (2016); The muscles of Zarathustra (with the writer Victor Balcells Matas), Passatge Studio, Barcelona (2016); Pasajes, La Puntual de Mercantic, Sant Cugat, Barcelona (2016); Carles Boïges, cycle of exhibitions, with the collaboration of Tom Carr and his team, TCTeamWork, Badalona (2014); University of Fine Arts, Barcelona (2014); Drawing the night (group exhibition), Anquin Gallery, Reus, Tarragona (2014).

 

He has been nominated for different awards: Bienal Torres Garcia, Mataró, with the work Spectro, 2016; Ynglada-Guillot Foundation, with the drawing Geschlagen, 2015, exhibited at Espai Volart, Barcelona; Drawing Prize of the Güell Foundation, exhibited in Palau Güell, Barcelona, 2015-16; Art Biennial : Tapiró Painting Prize with the drawing What time is it?, 2013.

 

In 2021 he will present an exhibition at Espai 13 of the Miró Foundation, in a cycle curated by Pere Llobera.

ARCO Madrid

 

26/02/2020 – 01/03/2020

 

Booth 9C09

 

LUIS GORDILLO . CHEMA MADOZ . MUNTADAS . FERNANDO PRATS . JULIAO SARMENTO . JOSÉ MARÍA SICILIA . PEREJAUME . ALICIA KOPF . TERESA SOLAR . JUAN USLÉ . PABLO DEL POZO . VICTORIA CIVERA . HERNÁNDEZ PIJUAN

 

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