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15/4/2004

Juan Luis Moraza

Galeria Elba Benitez, Madrid

S¡, Juan Luis Moraza's (Vitoria, 1960) one-man show will be presented at Galería Elba Benítez from the 16 April to the 22 May, 2004. The Basque artist has spent over twenty years in art, creating a coherent body of work exploring several forms and formats including objects, images, installations and documentaries. Erotism, and the relationship between art and wisdom, are recurring elements in Juan Luis Moraza's work. S¡ combines all of the factors mentioned above.

The exhibition S¡ held at the Galería Elba Benítez explores the themes of love, wisdom and Capitalism. The title, consisting of the letter S and a Spanish style exclamation mark, should be read as an affirmative ''Yes!''. A ''S¡'' that attests to reciprocal love; a ''S¡'' that begins with the letter S which forms part of the formula used by Moraza (a-S) a (other –''autre''– art, amour) and S (subject, wisdom–''savoir''); but most importantly ''S¡'', an allusion to the lack of negation in contemporary society in which everything can be achieved and/or bought.

A seventy-three minutes long DVD is the first of four groups of work featured in this exhibition. This ''pseudodocumentary'', as the artist calls it, takes its plot from an apocryphal conference supposedly delivered by the psychoanalyst J. Lacan in Madrid, on 14th February 1973, entitled: ''De Amour, Savoère''. In Latin the concepts for knowledge and taste shared the same word: savoer. This lack of distinction between intellectual and sensitive experience attracted Moraza as a linguistic example of the artist’s concept in regard to wisdom. Moraza finds the basic arguments behind his exploration of the relationship between art and knowledge in psychoanalysis and cognitive biology. Distancing itself from scientific logic, based on the fantasy of observation without an observer, psychoanalysis sees the unconscious as a bedrock of a specific wisdom which comes to light in art. (1) ''Art is the bearer of a nesciente (nescient) wisdom at that unique moment when the work is born in a shocking unknow(do)ing, and at the expense of the artist's ego.'' Likewise, Moraza also confronts the love-art relationship in his apocryphal text by Lacan: (2) ''(...) the creative act resembles love. (...) One does not achieve wisdom in love, on the contrary, it is a making known (...) Art is not discourse, it is occurrence, ocurso, occurring. And what occurs is, of course, love.'' And lastly, the exhibition S¡ revolves around the relationship between love and Capitalism: (3) ''Possession turns property into a negation of the lack, and this lessens the value, characteristic of possession, and makes love unviable.'' The viewing conditions affecting the spectator's encounter with the content of this DVD –a visual piece designed to be seen in the framework of an art gallery in the somewhat limited timeline in which a visit is usually carried out– leads Moraza to criticize the demand for immediacy in every relation and action implanted by the contemporary society. Juan Luis Moraza defends complexity and difficulty, as ways for onlookers to attain a personal and creative viewing experience.

The second group of works consists of an assortment of small, silver sculpture molds depicting the shapes formed inside the mouth at the very moment of a kiss (4) ''Everything that affects love is related to the body like folds that open and close: mouth, hands, legs, arms essentially take on their amorous condition when their convexity opens into concavity, transforming them into kisses, caresses and embraces, provided by a body that has made itself into an opening, a gap, a lack, and a desire in the act.''

The third series of works is made up of a selection of autostereoscopic works. Each of these works conceal 3D erotic pictures behind the drawings. (5) ''My autostereoscopic works draw attention to the artificiality of our vision, aware of the viewer's time and place in this relationship. These are pictures that can only be viewed by looking ''behind'' the surface, by focussing on a point other than the surface of the picture.''

A series of photographs of the planet Eros, one of the oldest asteroids in the solar system, completes the exhibition. Eros is remarkable because of its unusual shape which has been produced by low level gravity. Moraza points to a parallel between the peculiar shapes of the planet, the surface of which is formed by curved horizons of indented and swollen volumes, and the morphology of urges and pleasure, peculiarities which can also be seen in his sculpture series.

Juan Luis Moraza is an essayist and lecturer who has worked at a number of universities and is currently professor at the University of Vigo. He conceives art as a particular form of knowledge, the core of which is production. This is not, in his own words, an extension of philosophical thought, but rather an original ''method without method'' which predates the differences between sensitivity and logic. The outcome of this experiment consists of complex conclusions brought to life, visually and theoretically, by sculptures, photographs and drawings. On many occasions, the discursive method is both a physical and conceptual aspect of the works, and the individuality of each piece is presented in a contextual framework that adds coherence to the group. The artist has tackled such subjects as ornament and its socio-political ramifications (Ornamento y Ley (Ornament and Law), Sala Amárica. Diputación Foral de Alava. Vitoria, 1994); the mask as an image of a system in which differences are increasingly minimized: (6)''The mask absorbs the face: the anonymous figure of the individual who governs, or who dreams about governing one day''; as well as public sculpture, in his Fanal (Garden of delights) project, executed in 2001 for the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao.

His major individual exhibitions include Botánica política. Usos de la ciencia, usos de la historia –until 9 May at the Sala Montcada de la Fundación La Caixa in Barcelona, for which the curator José Roca invited the artist to consider the relationship between science and art– Plata. Casa de América, Madrid, 2003, Interpasividad. Koldo Mitxelena, San Sebastián, 1999, Anéstéticas. Algologos. Centro Andaluz de Arte Moderno, Seville, 1998, Éxtasis, estatus, estatua. Museo Pablo Gargallo, Saragossa, 1995 and Ornamento y ley. Sala Amárica. Vitoria, 1994. His work has been featured at important group exhibitions, both in Spain and abroad: Plural. El Arte español ante el siglo XXI. Palacio del Senado. Madrid. 2002, Desesculturas. Círculo de Bellas Artes. Madrid 2002, Ironía. Fundación Joan Miró. Barcelona 2001, Ofelias y Ulises. La Giudecca. Biennale di Venecia 2000, as well as Mais Tempo menos historia at the Serralves Foundation, Oporto 1996. He is author of the books Ma(non é)donna, imágenes de creación, procreación y anticoncepción (1993) and Seis sexos de la diferencia (1990). Numerous collections feature his work including, among others, The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Museo de Escultura de la Caixa Barcelona, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Madrid and the Museo Provincial de Alava.

(1) D'Amour, savoère. J Lacan. Apocryphal text established by Juan Luis Moraza. 2004

(2) D'Amour, savoère. J Lacan. Apocryphal text established by Juan Luis Moraza. 2004

(3) D'Amour, savoère. J Lacan. Apocryphal text established by Juan Luis Moraza. 2004

(4) D'Amour, savoère. J Lacan. Apocryphal text established by Juan Luis Moraza. 2004

(5) Interpasividad. Exhibition catalogue. Koldo Mitxelena Kulturenea. San Sebastián. 2000

(6) Nas, Galería DV. Exhibition catalogue. San Sebastián 1998

Pía Ogea

Image: Atractor extraño. Autostereoscopic image. Digital print on canvas. 100 x 100 cm. 40 x 40 inches. 2004

Forthcoming exhibition: Premio Altadis Artes Plásticas 2003. >From 1 June to end July, 2004.

For more information: Pía Ogea. Tel. +34 91 308 04 68

Galería Elba Benítez
San Lorenzo, 11 28004 Madrid
Gallery opening times: Tuesday to Saturday from 11.00 to 14.00 and from 16.30 to 20.30

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