Orphans of the Void
The world as seen through drawing
23 June - 4 September 2005
Opening: 23 June, 8 p.m.
sala rekalde
Alameda de Recalde, 30
48009 Bilbao
T 34 94 406 87 55
F 34 94 406 87 54
salarekalde [at] bizkaia.net
Opening hours: Tuesdays to Saturdays: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Sundays: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Mondays closed
Free entrance
www.salarekalde.net
The title of this group exhibition of drawings and animated films is taken from a famous best-seller from the 1950s. In the novel, a curious character tries to discover what the future has in store for us, but is only capable of seeing himself launched into the void, alone with his imagination. If the territory is at stake, our greatest concern is to turn our attention to the main players in the global game, which makes a good starting point for considering the relationship between high and low technology nowadays. The increase in space and speed does not necessarily detract from other spaces that relegate the panoptic ambition, to the benefit of synoptic, individual and extraterritorial readings.
This exhibition presents a number of works produced specifically for the occasion by six artists who work in the medium of drawing:
Nathalie Djurberg (1978) lives and works in Berlin Charo Garaigorta (1964) lives and works in Bilbao Susanne Jirkuff (1966) lives and works in Vienna Javier Peñafiel (1964) lives and works in Barcelona Peter Pommerer (1968) lives and works in Stuttgart Francesc Ruiz (1971) lives and works in Barcelona
Drawing makes it possible to reclaim in a modest manner the artists direct intervention on the wall or on paper, and at the same time offers the opportunity to give the spectator a spontaneous commentary on everything around him, as occurs in the comic strips we come across in our newspapers each morning. These artists do not seek to exhaust the technical possibilities of this artistic medium. Instead, they each manage to develop a singular language using very simple resources, such as crayon applied to a wall, photocopies or a particular form of caricature. In shunning other, more technological media, they are not attempting to turn back the clock, which would be a kind of nostalgic escapism. On the contrary, the centrality of drawing in their works is a response to their desire to describe reality from a specific viewpoint.
Unlike technological languages, low-resolution media enable us to devise a conceptual model for thinking about history that does not necessarily need to be progressive.
This show presents six very different and highly individual ways of constructing a language with which to rethink some of the key notions of societies today, namely temporality and the capacity to take action. The six projects are, in the final analysis, an attempt to place us beyond time and the world, and so give both the artist and the spectator the distance to be able to develop other criteria, other forms of a slow relationship with the real, different narrative forms far from the idea of action.
The catalogue published by sala rekalde accompanying the exhibition will include essays by the art critic James Roberts and by Chus Martínez.
While this exhibition is on, the Abstract Cabinet, the lobby space of sala rekalde, will host a project by the young Basque artist Kepa Garraza (1979), which consists of three large-format hyperrealist paintings and a series of six photographs entitled Images of Violence, Passion and Death.
For further information please contact:
Constanza Erkoreka, Press Office
Tel. 34 94 406 87 07