Antoni Muntadas
dal 25/2/2011 al 7/5/2011
Segnalato da
25/2/2011
Antoni Muntadas
Pinacoteca do Estado, Sao Paulo
Image Mechanisms. One of the constant themes of his work is the link he establishes between the different forms of media communication and the architecture, both private and public, that makes its existence possible. Muntadas refers to the power that the media exercises on the individual through subtle persuasion tactics. This exhibition includes four works and a new one, currently in course, entitled Alphaville e outros.
Curators: José Ignacio Roca
Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, Spain, 1942) is a contemporary artist who stands out for his sharp description of the way in which the media influences our perception of reality. Since the seventies, his work has focused on the phenomenon of press and television, carrying out a critical analysis of the way in which the media builds the public world and establishes its idea of “common sense”, following clearly ideologized alignments.
In one of his early texts, About Invisible Mechanisms (1978), Muntadas refers to the power that the media exercises on the individual through subtle persuasion tactics: “The different strategies used by the media, the subliminal techniques are the perfume and flowers used for this seduction. Power is not imposed through weapons, but through campaigns, signs, radio and television, through sound and image.” Therefore, he has developed a work on the cultural effects of mass media, highlighting the diagram that supports the media mechanisms of persuasion through installations that, although they are often a parody of the media structures, use its tactics and strategies.
Since the beginning of his artistic career, Muntadas has made very sharp critical analysis of the media landscape of his time. One of the constant themes of his work is the link he establishes between the different forms of media communication and the architecture, both private and public, that makes its existence possible: domestic spaces, meeting halls, recording and broadcasting studios, auditoriums, stadiums and public, open spaces such as streets, squares and parks.
In the seventies, Muntadas was interested in the communications means and in the sensory processes associated to them. These works belong to the private sphere, to his most personal relation with the media. In the eighties and nineties (although this division into decades does not imply a break with the previous one, but rather a continuity), his work focused on the communication structures associated to power, namely on public organizations.
In the last decade, his perspective registers an interesting turn in connection with the structures that constitute an instrumentalization of fear in frontier situations, expressed in exclusion architectures and town planning – from the walls that separate nations to those that define communities when confronted with allegedly hostile environments.
The exhibition includes five works: Stadium XIV, 1989 (2011) and Alphaville e outros, 2011, contextualizadas no Brasil, On Subjectivity, Video is Television?, 1989, e On Translation: Fear/Miedo, 2005 e Miedo/Jauf, 2007.
Organized by: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
In collaboration with: SEACEX, Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior
Image: Videotapes 1971-2008
Press contact:
Carla Regina tel +55 (11)3324-1007, e-mail coliveira@pinacoteca.org.br
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
Praça da Luz, 2 Jardim da Luz São Paulo (Brazil)