16/1/2013
Enrique Radigales
The Goma, Madrid
Disolvente sobre .TIFF. The different images, either the origin or result of his work over recent years, have been corrupted with the passing of time. Once printed on vinyl -a material chosen for its durability and for its relationship with the artist's discourse- they are then manually treated with solvent.
For his latest expedition Enrique Radigales started out from the digital universe with inevitable autobiographical overtones. Data recovery software brings back to the present archives he had previously thrown into his computer’s recycle bin. The different images, either the origin or result of his work over recent years, have been corrupted with the passing of time. Once printed on vinyl—a material chosen for its durability and for its relationship with the artist’s discourse—they are then manually treated with solvent. This new attempt at erasure, now analog, blurs the inflexibility of the computer processes that have worm away at the images and adds another trace, that of the painter, with acrylic brushstrokes on the print. A real palette now overlaps and contrasts with the virtual colours. In one way, this process synthesises the problematic which Radigales faced after having studied Painting and then Interactive Systems and it is also one of the greatest dilemmas contemporary man must face in his relationship with the physical and the technological world.
The premonitory power of Radigales’ practice is evenly balanced with its memory of the past: the obsolescence of technology’s legacy announces an imminent archaeology of future channels and devices for storing information. The dissolvent the artist uses to erase the vinyl prints is the same used in many Latin American countries to erase advertisements on big billboards in the city or along roadsides, thus heralding the arrival of the next poster. In the series Souvenirs, on the other hand, the images recovered from the hard drive are only modified by a computational algorithm. In these prints, also with a pixel quality, there is no trace of the artist and the past is a constant variable, unlike the vinyls where the artist paints over his biography, modifying his memory albeit with the intention of erasing it even further. Souvenirs are memories which have scarcely been experienced as a result of delocalisation: they are images of landscapes as seen through the window of a computer and culled from Internet, a new Romanticism born from the digital revolution.
Enrique Radigales (Zaragoza, Spain, 1970) majored in Painting at the Massana School and then in Interactive Systems at UPC, both in Barcelona. He has had residencies at Casa de Velázquez (Madrid), at Museu da Imagem e do Som (Sao Paulo) and at Eyebeam (New York). His large installations have been seen at Matadero in Madrid and at Centro Cultural de España in Guatemala. After several solo shows both in Spain and abroad, this is his first exhibition at The Goma.
Image: 07358345792.TIFF, 2013, Solvent and acrylic on vinyl canvas 73 x 60 cm
The Goma
Calle del Fúcar 12 Madrid 28014
Hours: thu—Sat 11—14, 16:30—20:30 h.