calendario eventi  :: 

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7/2/2007

Two exhibitions

Sala Rekalde, Bilbao

Dolores Zinny and Juan Maidagan

The coast, the attack, the same

Under the title La costa, el ataque, lo mismo (The coast, the attack, the same), Argentinian artists Dolores Zinny (Rosario, 1968) and Juan Maidagan (Rosario, 1957), both of whom live in Berlin, present a new installation made specifically for the sala rekalde, comprising a series of works that establish reciprocal play between design, painting, sculpture and architecture.

Curated by Leire Vergara, the exhibition is composed of an architectural construction within the exhibition space, and a series of complementary works, including some drawings inspired by this intervention, some collages, a sculpture and a piece entitled The same made in 2005 and readapted for the show. This collection captures the reverberations from various work processes developed by the artists whilst conceptualising the show. This is specifically the case with the formal translation of the design of an initial model, executed in cardboard and paper, to its consequent architectural construction within the gallery space; the transition of a photographic image to a sculpture; or the transformation of the repetition of an ornamental shape to its consolidation as a differentiated aesthetic signifier.

These processes of transition or of translation from one format to another, from one language to another, constitute one of the original ideas that triggered the exhibition. In fact, the central piece is developed from two series of intertwined ephemeral materials (methacrylate and wood). One is therefore faced with a split structure, where one current extends to meet another and as a result they end up colliding without interruption. As the title of the exhibition, La costa, el ataque, lo mismo / The coast, the attack, the same, indeed suggests, Zinny and Maidagan’s work in the sala rekalde communicates as a metaphoric formula exemplifying the inevitable semantic battle between signifier and signified within any process of translation and aesthetic interpretation. A system in constant movement that suggests a phenomenological fracture in relation to works of art and becomes a fiction scenario where the space of expectation is suggested as a space of transition.

Zinny and Maidagan’s work is characterised by their architectural interventions within exhibition space. Some of these interventions develop in terms of post-minimalist formalism, in that they occur as discrete architectural alterations and with a clear reference to minimal aesthetic tradition. Others, though, reproduce prototypes, previously designed in small model format, on an architectural scale, recreating subjective scenarios that spark off questions concerning the space in which they are placed.

Beyond the merely physical, in each of their installations one can discover a poetic dimension, due to the utilisation of various levels of lyricism to produce fictions that defy all conventionality in their interpretation of a space, an institution or a system of values. Their spatial explorations mix fiction with the specificity of the space, the fantastic with the metaphysical, and also introduce a literary element, all of which expresses a desire to encourage reactions that depart from an orthodox institutional critique.

Some of the previous work of these two artists helps us to understand their artistic development and their interest in the construction of poetic narratives within exhibition space. In Semantic Gap (2004), an installation made specifically for the Lund Konsthall and inspired by their research into the history of the building and its architect Klas Anshelm, they turned to linguistic devices to interpret the exhibition space as a text. In 2003, in Such a Good Cover, the duo set up a beige curtain with folds of colours and gold inside the DAAD gallery in Berlin. With the seams facing into the architectural space, rather than towards what was outside that area (the outer space that curtains ought to conceal), the visitor was placed within an inverted or negative space that did not exist in reality, just like in the theatre: the existence of what the curtain hides is denied, because it is invisible.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue designed by the artists, which will include texts by Mónica Amor, Hyunjin Kim and Leire Vergara.

Biographical notes about the artists:
The work of Zinny and Maidagan is already well known in Europe and America, as demonstrated by their exhibitions in different museums or galleries in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Mexico, the United States and Argentina, to name just some. Among their most recent individual shows mention must be made of I have no revelations, Sabine Knust Gallery, Munich, 2005; the above-mentioned Semantic Gap, Lund, Sweden, 2004; Such a Good Cover, at the Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany, 2004, and the DAAD Gallery in Berlin, 2003; Movement in Art, in the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, 2000; Por donde saltó el león / Where the lion jumped, in the Rufino Tamayo Museum, Mexico F.D., 2000; and Öffside, in the New Musem of New York, 1999. Among the collective shows they have taken part in there is Exile of the Imaginary, at the Generali Foundation, Vienna, 2007; Deviation, at the Seville Biennial, 2006; If it doesn’t exist, at The Showroom, London, 2006; La estructura de la supervivencia / The Structure of Survival, at the 50th Venice Biennale, 2003; ForwArt - a choice, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, 2002; and Exterior Enclosure, in New York’s Soho Square, 2001.

Activities within the context of the exhibition

As part of the show The Coast, the attack, the same, next Tuesday February 13 at 7.00pm a conference about Zinny Maidagan´s work will be held by the Professor of Contemporary Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art Mónica Amor, followed by a discussion moderated by the curator of the exhibition, Leire Vergara.

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Inaki Imaz

Lo Mío

08/02/2007 - 08/04/2007

With a new painting installation Iñaki Imaz (Donostia-San Sebastián, 1965) establishes a line of work that mentally links two parallel contexts: the Abstract Cabinet exhibition space in rekalde and the educational space of the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of the Basque Country.

Image: Dolores Zinny and Juan Maidagan. Architectural prototype of the installation Stick out your tongue for the exhibition The coast, the attack, the same in the sala rekalde, 2007 Courtesy of the artists

For further information, please contact:
Constanza Erkoreka, Press Officer
Tel. +34 94 406 87 07 Fax. +34 94 406 87 54
salarekalde@bizkaia.net

Inauguration: Thursday, 8 February 2007, at 8.00 pm

sala rekalde
Alameda de Recalde, 30 - Bilbao

stampa

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