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26/3/2008

Two exhibitions

Galeria Helga de Alvear, Madrid

Ester Partegàs is exhibiting her recent work at Galería Helga de Alvear, returning to the underlying themes of her artistic investigation; the consumer society and its waste as a political and ironic metaphor. On this occasion she emphasises the aspect of failure.

In her own words: “it’s not so much about rubbish, commerce, dependence rather than the impossibility of plenitude, of a clean project as society” In “Daily Collapse” Partegàs addresses tensions, binds, slavery, dependence, relationships, collapse, overloading, fragmentation, rupture, ties and disconnections. Initially conceived as a series of independent works, when grouped together the meanings and relations are multiplied. The works bearing these meanings are themselves, in turn, created by combining, uniting and interrelating fragments or pieces culled from various sources.

“Daily Collapse” is a series of varying sized collages in which words taken from magazines and ads are like links in a chain binding them together. The chain made its appearance as an expressive symbol in Partegás’ work with the “Barbarians” series she presented at the 2nd Moscow Biennial, touching on slavery and dependence, yet also serving in this case as a connection between these terms, chaining and connecting them.

The major work featured in the exhibition titled “Mandala”, the chains are substituted by lines of colour connecting the words cut out from ads and magazines. The title ties it in directly to the Tibetan mandalas with which monks make an overall representation of their lives. In a similar way, the artist cuts out words from texts charged with a certain economic and emotional load to underpinning how these two aspects are intimately related.

Together with the collages, Partegás is also exhibiting a series of sculptures titled “Yes collection”, almost as though it were an exclusive collection or line of jewelry. These oversized pieces of jewelry force us to revaluate them, to view them as objects of doubtful utility and even less meaning. Objects of desire that, in short, are good for nothing.

Ester Partegás (1972, La Garriga, Barcelona) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She has shown in group shows at the Whitney Museum in New York (2001), at Aldrich Museum in New York (2002), at the Pontevedra Biennial (2002), and the 2nd Moscow Biennial (2007) and has had one-person exhibitions at Centre d’Art Santa Mónica in Barcelona (2003) and the Aldrich Museum in New York (2008).
Partegás has recently exhibited at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid as part of its ongoing exhibition programme “Producciones”.

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Julian Rosefeldt's solo show

Julian Rosefeldt (1965, Munich, Germany) exhibits “Requim” his inaugural exhibition at Galería Helga de Alvear in Madrid. His film work features highly theatrical mise en scènes with cinematographic narration.
One of the works which brought him into the public eye was “Global Soap” (2001) in which he compiled footage of expressions, gestures and language of soap opera actors from all over the world. When put alongside one another, the scenes reveal the fallacy of cultural, national or racial differences.

Perhaps Rosefeldt is best known for his work “Asylum” (2002), an ambitious nine-screen project laying bare the purposeless nature of human life. By means of other theatrical mise en scènes, almost tableaux vivants, groups of people play out absurd and pointless actions against exotic backdrops.

In his “Trilogy of Failure” Rosefeldt continues his exploration of the inconsequential, following the misfortunes of a man “The Soundmaker”, “Stunned Man” and “The Perfectionist”, The man relates to his private and personal surroundings within his apartment, in a surrealist and ultimately tragic way, ultimately the absurdity of contemporary life in a tone bordering on the comical.

In “Ship of Fools” Rosefeldt returns to the theatrical, operatic tone of “Asylum” in a four-screen installation, dissecting the history of Germany in a series of apparently unconnected poetic sequences without any lineal narrative. Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes, a German shepherd and Wagner’s music are some of the fundamental references within the work.

“Requiem”, is also a four-screen film installation. Filmed in the jungles of Brazil, a series of characters recounting other personages from Rosefeldt’s earlier works, as they wander through the jungle amoungst the deafening crash of falling trees all around.

His vision of the jungle ties in with Romanticism, a sublime, intimidating and unsettling landscape. An almost claustrophobic mysterious place in which one suddenly hears a crackling, the sound of a breaking branch, a tree falling. We never see nor hear the chainsaws doing the cutting. Yet there they are

Galeria Helga de Alvear
Doctor Fourquet, 12 - Madrid

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