We are hosting four new artists in our 2020 “Cuarto de Invitados”. Four proposals that under the generic title STRUCTURES AND SYSTEMS will make us enjoy their particular aesthetics and reflect on the intricacies of this crazy world that advances in fits and starts and with serious difficulties.
Existence is made up entirely of structures that are articulated in more or less complex systems. From the first associations of elements that gave rise to minerals and cells to the formation of the human brain, language, cities, globalisation, ideologies and Big Data. Systems connect to each other forming nodes, generating enormous networks that interact with each other. They are becoming exponentially more complex, causing interference, confusion and collapse with serious consequences for societies and nature. The impact on the planet is unsustainable. Inequalities are increasing. The virtuality brought about by new technologies multiplies the dimensions of this combinatory scenario. So much complexity makes it increasingly difficult to understand the functioning of our contexts, the structures that lie beneath the overflowing development of today’s world.
In order to think well, it is necessary to take other perspectives, to go to the essential, to go deeper, to take critical and creative positions. Thinking about structures and systems is edifying. In this exhibition we will see constructive contributions on these concepts.
-Oceans21k (Santander, 1997)
The systems and structures that come into play in the photographic work of Oceans21k are those of the big cities, their functioning and that of their infinite parts, that of perception, that of our gaze-thought… and many more interrelated ones.
There is a widespread artistic practice that consists of photographing cities from rooftops. It is called rooftoping and it unites photographers from all over the world who are connected and help each other, as it is a risky and dangerous activity. For them it is a way of life in which travelling and meeting like-minded people is an essential part of the job. Oceans21k captures with his Olympus camera the big cities (in this case New York, Seoul and Incheon, South Korea), taken from an unusual and surprising point of view, from the top of the skyscrapers. Impressive, sharp shots that give us a privileged perspective and new sensations. The adrenaline and vertigo that come into play in the process of executing the work seems to be transmitted to the spectators who can see the city as if it were a large model with a life of its own.
-AMAIA BREGEL (Santander, 1996)
Her work is based on certain questions about education and the accumulation of knowledge. Her sculptures have a lot to do with architectural models, and also with the geometric and mathematical structures that vertebrate nature. For her pieces she uses pictorial matter as a structural element and they are the result of a detailed study of materials, tensions and balances. Their fragility, chromatism and design suggest a certain utopian character, as they give them a sensitive beauty. She also works on the concept of module, of unity, as well as the aesthetic behaviour of constructive elements. Her paintings on the grid pattern of the notebook – doing homework – seem as much the result of unconscious scribbling as of binary strategies of ones and zeros or the schemes of the weavers that later gave rise to computer science. They could be curious codes of secret functions, encrypted messages or imaginary constructions.
-CARMEN G. SOMAVILLA (Santander, 1992)
The project she presented in Cuarto de Invitados is based on the observation and study of the unique district of Cazoña in Santander. It is a very charismatic peripheral area with distinguishable features that are analysed plastically through frottages of its tiles, photographic collages and drawings that delve into the types of construction in the area, the superimpositions that are generated over the years, the urban furniture, the resources or the green areas. The work is based on the concept of context – subtle networks of connecting systems – and also on the human and emotional part inherent in the urban fabric. It talks about different housing ranges and how economics and politics determine these relational spaces. Although a local enclave is studied, the models are universal as they are at the mercy of the same processes, such as gentrification, tourism, speculation or inequalities.
-RAQUEL DEL VAL (Corrales de Buelna, 1997)
The systems that Raquel de Val deals with are those of the human body, and are taken metaphorically to the field of landscape and constructive practices. Very interested in anatomy and the drawings that are developed to illustrate it, she allows herself to be carried away in front of the painting by surrealist practices to approach the functioning of our organs, thus also investigating the creative process itself and the richness of metaphors. Another of the themes she analyses in her oil paintings is water, elemental and primary body: its fluid structure, its movement, the tonalities it acquires according to its context and how to capture all this on the canvas to motivate the spectator to look at things from another side, to relate, to imagine, to feel what we live creatively.
So let’s think about the behaviour of systems, the structures of bodies and the relationships between them. Let’s try to discover guides and models. To go from the simple to the complex – or vice versa – in order to understand better. The art system – of which we are a part – and all its development, also comes into play. These are the observatories of this 2020 Guest Room.
CUARTO DE INVITADOS 2: ESTRUCTURAS Y SISTEMAS
10th December, 2020 – 30th January, 2021
Oceans21k
Amaia Bregel
Carmen G. Somavilla
Raquel del Val
Galería Juan Silió
C/ Sol 45, bajo. 39003 Santander.
Opening Hours:
Monday-Saturday
10:30AM – 1:30PM
6PM – 9PM
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Exhibition subsidised by Ministry of Culture and Sport
