calendario eventi  :: 

X

20/4/2005

We: Identity and Difference

Artium, Vitoria-Gasteiz

The ARTIUM centre-museum of Vitoria-Gasteiz presents the exhibition "We: identity and difference. Javier Tudela and Raimund van Well" (Upper East Gallery, from April 21), a creative "experiment" of two artists, one from Alava and the other German, born and trained in very different social, economic and cultural environments. These artists are to share a unique architectural space to exhibit their works, the result of more than a year of intense collaboration. The exhibition presents three installations by Tudela ("Yo quiero ser un artista alemán", "Los músicos de Bremen", "Atelier-agitar las ideas") and a large installation by van Well ("Carta vasca"), the spatial immediacy of which allows and demands different readings and interpretations. The exhibition also features a selection of photographs taken during encounters between the two artists in Duisburg, Vitoria-Gasteiz and Vigo. "Us: identity and difference", a project produced by ARTIUM and directed by José María Argumedo, will be open until July 20. A catalogue will be published shortly.

Javier Tudela and Raimund van Well began to work on this project two years ago after a chance meeting during a visit by van Well to Vitoria-Gasteiz. As a result of that initial meeting, they had the idea of putting on an exhibition like a creative "experiment" of two artists born and trained in two different and far distant locations, from the social, cultural and economic viewpoint. It involves a risky proposal in which the different works created individually by two artists will be made to coexist in a shared architectural space in a common project that overcomes differences and distances.
Since that first meeting in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Tudela and van Well work far apart and exchange views, reach agreements, express their disagreements and discuss the progress of their project using the most diverse means: telephone calls, e-mail messages, parcel post and a few short meetings in Duisburg, Pontevedra and Vitoria.
Both artists share points in common in their work (re-utilisation, transformation, de-contextualisation and redefinition of existing objects) although their points of origin are very different. Raimund van Well, German, born in Duisburg, in the Ruhr Valley, disciple of the Dusseldorf School, has worked with Kounellis and Beuys among other artists; Javier Tudela, from Alava, resident in Galicia, teacher of advanced audiovisual techniques that the Faculty of Fine Arts of Pontevedra, with references in Christian Boltanski, Joseph Kosuth and Víctor Grippo. Even so, the artistic project developed by both does not intend to be an exhibition of Hispano-German art, but of global art, transcending the boundaries of both artists.
The gallery
"We: identity and difference" defines, in the Upper East Gallery of ARTIUM two large spaces in which each of the artists arranges their creations. The immediacy of the spaces they occupy, however, allows feedback from one work to another and obliges one to look and read them differently in accordance with the perspective.
Javier Tudela presents three different installations: "Yo quiero ser un artista alemán" (it seems that Tudela's first comment when he learnt of the project was 'I want to be a German artist'), the recreation of a private space in which the artist places a table and four upturned chairs made with white threads; "Los músicos de Bremen", an audiovisual installation made up of old recovered objects, a kind of Tower of Babel, including a mixture of languages; and "Atelier -agitar las ideas-", the workshop built with greenhouse materials in which a video "Agitar las ideas" is shown.
For his part, Raimund van Well presents "Carta vasca", sixteen large sculptures in iron and glass arranged in a controlled manner, recalling a megalithic monument. Van Well into intervenes in these vertical "drawers" with suspended objects (from a leg of ham to a shovel), video projections, drawings, photographs, newspaper cuttings and words and phrases in English, German, Spanish and Basque.
The common area, situated in the entrance hallway to the gallery, is occupied by a selection of photographs that document stages in the development of the working relationship between these two artists.
Javier Tudela and Raimund van Well's project considers the architectural space as an element that integrates into the exhibition itself, in the same way as the constructive elements intervene in the space: DVD devices, video projections, wires, panels and chairs.
"We: identity and difference", by Javier Tudela and Raimund van Well, will include a catalogue with text by both artists and the project director, José María Argumedo, and will be illustrated with images of the installation in the Upper East Gallery of ARTIUM of Álava.

Works on show
Carta vasca. Instalation. Raimund van Well, 2005
Yo quiero ser un artista alemán. Instalation. Javier Tudela, 2005
Atelier-agitar las ideas. Instalation. Javier Tudela, 2005
Los músicos de Bremen. Instalation. Javier Tudela 2005

TEXT FROM THE EXHIBITION'S BROCHURE

To date, a large number of artists have developed individual and specific projects for ARTIUM. Nevertheless, this is the first time that a joint exhibition of two artists from different backgrounds and with heterogeneous artistic languages has been promoted intentionally; an exhibition in which these artists have shared a physical space, examined the subject of identity from their own, individual perspectives and, especially, constructed their own personal but converging discourse. The result of this intellectual adventure between the Basque artist, Javier Tudela, and the German artist, Raimund Van Well is We: identity and difference, a project which presents a group of installations to reveal private spaces, ideological self-portraits which include the idea of the other in their structure, in which one can perceive the importance of the process of artistic practice in the presentation of their works. It is the consciousness and notion, therefore, of the difference between each of the participants and the influence of the creative process and the installation of the project itself that determine and qualify the approach of each artist as well as a reading of their proposals.
Javier Tudela and Raimund Van Well grew up in different and politically disturbed geographical contexts. On the one hand, the Basque Country of the period of political transition and the other, the traumatic division of Germany after the Second World War. The awareness of identity awakens concerns in both environments, due either to separatist ideals or to a desire for reunification. In each of these contexts, marked by social and economic change and by struggles and ideological positions, the words identity and difference may be interpreted as a provocation or at least be seen in an ambiguous and delicate light. Tudela and Van Well began to discuss their idea two years ago. Questions, empathies, connections and disagreements between both artists would give shape to the project and their artistic commitment become a reality. Without losing their artistic individuality and with traces of their own idiosyncrasy, art has, once more, been the backbone, the vehicle of communication, capable of crossing physical and ideological boundaries to reach a point of consensus and to build and experiment with "a common place". The resources developed by both artists in their life and artistic experience to exorcise their own tensions, to discover their desires and inhabit the corners of their own nature, have transcended individual identities, have merged and conversed in a common space and time.
It is in this shared space where the spectator encounters, on entering the gallery, a series of images, installations, sounds, screens, sculptures and day-to-day objects. It is the experience of the encounter and of the consensus established by the artists. In his proposal, Javier Tudela includes objects made by Van Well, soundless images of the dialogue between both, or elements that interact with each other or with the spectator. The titles of the works are also enlightening- Quiero ser un artista alemán and Los músicos de Bremen -, alluding to the methods and approaches to artistic creation of these artists. The title of the work Agitar las ideas, a video projection on one of the internal walls of a precarious greenhouse, expresses the spirit of this collaboration.
For his part, Raimund Van Well proposes a universe of large, vertical structures with printed images and objects that invade the space and expand haphazardly in circular fashion as if drawn by a centrifugal force. These elements make up a kind of sacred place, full of collective memory, which is highlighted through several day-to-day and ethnological objects on display. The almost circular appearance of the whole and the allusion made in the title - Carta vasca -to the identity of his people, refer us to the sacred ancestral enclosure of Oteiza's cromlech. In contrast to the reflexive work of Tudela, with its evocation of individual memory, Raimund proposes in his work a global territory in which we are all included and in which, in spite of the apparent chaos, there is an all prevailing balance.
The "experiment" of merging two different cultural and artistic identities under the same roof, was taken to its ultimate consequences in a space in the gallery reserved for the final interaction of both artists during the mounting stage of the exhibition. The result remained an unknown quantity until the exhibition was inaugurated, and today, the final reading and interpretation (never identical and always different) is the job of every spectator who comes to the museum.

Upper East Gallery
Project director: José María Argumedo
Coordination: Temporary Exhibition Development of ARTIUM
Production: ARTIUM of Alava
Forthcoming catalogue with texts by Javier Tudela, Raimund van Well, José María Argumedo and Javier González de Durana

Image: Javier Tudela, Atelier, agitar las ideas, 2005

Arabako ARTIUM de Álava
Arte Garaikideko Euskal Zentro-Museoa - Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo - Basque Contemporary Art Museum-Centre
Francia 24, 01002 Vitoria-Gasteiz

stampa

permanent link