Jorge Barbi
dal 15/10/2009 al 13/2/2010
Segnalato da
15/10/2009
Jorge Barbi
MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Vigo
Solo exhibitions
Curator Juan de Nieves
On October 16 opens at MARCO this solo exhibition on JORGE BARBI (A Guarda, Pontevedra, 1950),
which will occupy all the galleries on the ground floor, and curated by Juan de Nieves. The exhibition is
based on the idea of the path, the stroll, and the everyday observance of nature and its mutations, as
a vast archive built by the artist over time. The plot is built from several series of photographs taken
over the last few years, together with a careful selection of early pieces, and new specific productions
for this show, with an aim to establish new interpretations of his work in what will be the first large
solo exhibition of this artist.
Included in a new line of solo exhibitions introduced in 2009, MARCO of Vigo begins the Fall Season
with a large solo exhibition by Jorge Barbi, curated by Juan de Nieves, and coproduced with Fundação
Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon and Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior de España, SEACEX.
Jorge Barbi embodies one of the most interesting careers of the last twenty five years on the artistic
scene, both because of the parameters in which his creative practice has been developed — especially
sculpture, photography, and site-specific installations — and for his independence from the rules of
the market and the general artistic system, with an inalienable attitude from which he still keeps on
strolling his particular path of poetic and conceptual introspection today. The reflexion on the passage
of time, the object and its context, the dialectics form-content, and the concerns regarding
mechanisms of perception, are some of the constants in his work.
The title of the exhibition at MARCO, 41o 52’ 59" latitude N / 8o 51’ 12" longitude W, refers to
the geographic coordinates comprising the area where the artist takes his daily walks.
From the early 80’s onwards, Barbi has adopted the journey as a working method in order to observe
a geography very familiar to him and from which he is able to extract a broad repertoire of debris and
geographical accidents, a comprehensive cartography of the landscape and of the changing elements
conforming it. Nature offers the artist with a whole series of objects he appropriates both because of
their energetic power and for the possibility of introducing new symbolic values. Strolling around and
observing animals, stones, seaweeds, plants, droppings, pieces of wood and also other objects of
inorganic nature on a daily basis, make Barbi become a kind of scientist who thoroughly registers its
transformations and displacements, which later, and starting from a thorough and slow process, he
turns into poetic and enigmatic fragments.
The exhibition at MARCO, installed in all the spaces on the ground floor, brings together various series
of photographs taken over the last few years, together with a selection of early works, and several
pieces specifically designed for this show or newly produced.
The curator, Juan de Nieves, has tried to avoid the concept of customary ‘retrospective’ and the
chronological sequences in the presentation of the works, in order to establish his own order, circular,
specific for this project, which tackles the idea of process and, above all, a pathway with high poetic
intensity. The installation process has taken deeply into account the exhibition concept, making the
most of the combination of architectural structures, light conditions and visual resources that
emphasise the relationships between the works, in a continuous dialogue with his most recent pieces.
Sometimes, the pieces have become specific by means of the museum’s own architecture, by
transposing the works into other formats, as in the case of the works — initially sculptural —
Diluculum and Aquí tampoco se desvela ningún enigma, or the large installation titled Esperanza de
vida animal, in one of the patios. In the centre of the panopticon, the polyurethane disc titled Estoy
perdido, no me retenga, is almost a declaration of principles, while the central gallery shelters a nine-
channel projection including over two hundred photographic images of the artist’s personal archive.
On the occasion of this exhibition, MARCO of Vigo, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Sociedad
Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior de España, SEACEX, will publish a catalogue, which includes a
text by the curator, Juan de Nieves, and critical texts by Xosé Lois Gutierrez, Ignacio Fernández and
Luis Ortega, as well as images and information of the works in the exhibition.
After its closure in Vigo in the month of February, the exhibition will travel to Lisbon, where it will be
on exhibit in Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian from May 6 to July 6 2010.
Production:
MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, CAM Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon and Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior de España, SEACEX.
Image: Diluculum, 1995-2009. Wooden sphere and installation
Communication & Press Department
Marta Viana Tomé
Pilar Souto Soto
Tel. +34 986 113908 / 113903 Fax +34 986 113901 e-mail marta.viana@marcovigo.com - pilar.souto@marcovigo.com
MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo
Rúa Príncipe 54 - 36202 Vigo (Pontevedra) Spain
Hours:
Tuesday to Saturday (holidays included). From 11am to 9pm. Sundays, from 11am to 3pm