26/3/2010
Juan Hidalgo
Artium, Vitoria-Gasteiz
Curator Carlos Astiárraga
This artist, born in the Canary Islands, exhibits 70 photographic actions, objects and ambiences in which
irony, humour and sex play a leading part. The works were created on his return to Gran Canaria in the late
nineties.
ARTIUM, Basque Centre-Museum of Contemporary Art presents the exhibition by Juan Hidalgo Desde Ayacata (North
Gallery, from August 29 2010), a sample of the work the last twelve years of one of the major reference models of
Spanish art of the last five decades. An unclassifiable artist and, partly for that reason, a little awkward for the art
world, Juan Hidalgo has remained faithful throughout that period to a number of ideas which many contemporary
young artists use as an immediate reference and which nevertheless, for a long time, were immersed in a cloud of
incomprehension and indifference. Desde Ayacata comprises almost 70 works created between 1997 and 2009:
photographic actions, objects and ambiences in which irony, humour, sex and risk (features that have always had an
important presence in his artistic career) play a major role. The exhibition, curated by Carlos Astiárraga, is a joint
production of ARTIUM (Vitoria-Gasteiz), TEA (Tenerife) and CAAM (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).
Together with Walter Marchetti and Esther Ferrer, Juan Hidalgo (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1927) was for more than 30
years a "leading light" of ZAJ, possibly the most controversial and disquieting avant-garde movement of the second half of the
20th century in Spain. With ZAJ, for the first time in a period of cultural and political obscurantism, the boundaries between
poetry, music, theatre and the plastic arts became less clear and merged within a framework of actions. A trained musician,
Hidalgo was also the first Spanish composer of an electro-acoustic work and the first to premiere a piece at the mythical
Darmstadt Festival (Germany), one of the most influential festivals on the avant-garde scene. On the other hand, one cannot
forget his most important conceptual discoveries, los etcéteras, which he himself defined as a "public document, as the
Chinese (gong an) or Japanese (koo an) would say", and which form the backbone of most of his oeuvre.
Nevertheless, for the art system, Juan Hidalgo it is rather an awkward artist: he has never been interested in recognising
museums; those institutions that, in general, as he indicates in the introduction to the exhibition catalogue, "give a great deal of
value to the singular object and to the singularising personality of its author". But it is also true, as he says later, that "for a
long time the work of Juan Hidalgo, in coherence with itself and with its author, did not coincide with what the museum was
looking for, neither in form nor as subject matter. Nor did it coincide with what the commercial galleries were looking for". A
work of extraordinarily expressive simplicity, more a proposal intended for the mind and the feelings than the materialisation in
an object or in a photographic action.
The recognition of Hidalgo as an artist came in 1996, when the Reina Sofía Museum dedicated a retrospective exhibition to
ZAJ. One year later, Juan Hidalgo, who was 70 at that time, decided to move to the small village of Ayacata on the island of
Gran Canaria, where he was born. What might be interpreted as the well earned retirement of the artist turned out to be just
the opposite, the beginning of a new and fruitful stage in his artistic career, which is still in progress. Desde Ayacata is,
precisely, a retrospective review in part, of the career of this artist, born in the Canary Islands, over the last 11 years.
Musician, poet, artist...
As an artist, Juan Hidalgo is difficult to pigeonhole: he himself often says that Spanish musicians consider him to be a plastic
artist, that Spanish artists refer to him as a musician and only poets consider him to be a poet. Multidisciplinary, which ever
way you look at it, his artistic discourse comprises plastic, poetic, sonorous and, especially, conceptual elements. Aspects
of everyday life, elements characterised for their apparent superficiality, irony and, very expressly, sexuality are present in his
work, as well as an inheritance from Marcel Duchamp –to whom he refers as his grandfather- and oriental philosophy.
All of this is present in Desde Ayacata, an exhibition of almost 70 works among which photographic actions predominate and
which are characterised by the ever more frequent introduction of objects found in Hidalgo’s natural surroundings and a less
interventionist treatment. The element of chance is more and more present in his work, while his maturity as an artist has given
him greater freedom in the execution of his work. Even so, his production during his time in Ayacata is consistent with the most
significant features of his artistic career prior to this: irony, humour, risk, sex, commitment and loyalty to himself and with his
way of understanding the creative act for more than five decades.
At the same time and in the same way that the 90s witnessed the recognition of the artistic work of ZAJ, the first decade of the
21st century has also brought with it a number of important events in the life and oeuvre of Juan Hidalgo: he has had numerous
one-man shows (among these En medio del volcán, of the SEACEX, and Biografías y corbatas, at the Galería Trayecto in Vitoria-
Gasteiz) and collective exhibitions (Eye on Europe, at the MoMA in New York and Arte de acción at the MACBA in Barcelona,
among others), his work has been profuse and profoundly researched. He has offered more than 20 concerts in a number of
different countries and has premiered his symphonic composition Perhaps, with the Yomiuri Orchestra of Japan.
In every aspect, Juan Hidalgo is today an essential reference model for many young artists who see him as a clear precursor of
the work they are producing at this time. In spite of that, as Daniel Castillejo points out in the exhibition catalogue, "in terms of
the system itself, Juan Hidalgo continues to be undigestible... Today he is accepted and supported, but previously he was
forbidden by Franco’s Ministry of the Interior, for being an anarchist. He is aware of that and for this reason he continues to do
just what he wants..... He continues in any state of unique and endless liberation, restricting himself to the job of liberating his
own life".
Exhibition catalogue with texts by Carlos Astiárraga, Daniel Castillejo and David Pérez. Published by ARTIUM, TEA, CAAM and
the Second Canary Islands Biennial
Produced by CAAM (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), TEA (Tenerife) and ARTIUM (Vitoria-Gasteiz).
Activities: Talk by David Pérez, Tuesday May 11, 8 p.m.
The utility of useless, seminar about performance, from May 22 to 25; a selection by Isabel de Naverán and Idoia Zabaleta.
Screening of documentary El espejo. Juan Hidalgo (Juan Cruz 2010), commented by Juan Hidalgo and Carlos Astiárraga,
Friday Mars 26, 6.30 p.m. Free guided visits
Dpto. de Comunicación - Antón Bilbao Tel: 945 209023 Email abilbao@artium.org - bgodino@artium.org
Inauguration: Friday March 27, at 8 PM
ARTIUM Basque Centre-Museum of Contemporary Art
Calle Francia 24 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Opening hours
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: From 11 AM to 2 PM and from 5 PM to 8 PM
Friday, Saturday and Sunday: from 11 AM to 2 PM and from 4 PM to 9 PM
Mondays closed (unless this coincides with a public holiday)