calendario eventi  :: 

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27/9/2012

Three exhibitions

CAB Caja de Burgos, Burgos

Pello Irazu
Una oportunidad cada día

Pello Irazu (Andoain, Guipúzcoa, 1963) is one of the members of the generation that renewed Spanish sculpture during the 80’s. Throughout his career, he has developed an artistic language of his very own, taking artistic movements such as constructivism, minimalism and pop-art as a starting point so as to then go deeper into the relationship between humankind and space, with the colossal work of Jorge Oteiza as a reference.

Space, indeed, is not only the domain for thoughtful work loaded with a subtle lyricism and sensuality, but also a part of the artist’s approach in itself. Irazu moves between sculpture and photography, painting and drawings that seem to acquire depth, and relief, that seem to expand and to possess a sort of sculptural tridimensionality.

Una oportunidad cada día (a reference to the wishes, doubts and ambitious nature of creative work) is the title of a piece included in general works belonging to 2011, as well as some pieces that were conceived before (such as the aluminium sculpture Noli me tangere, 2009) together with some works specifically created for the Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, CAB.

Together with aluminium sculptures, drawings (such as the series Reiniciar – Retomar – Reiterar done with graphite, adhesive and painting) are shown as well as some paintings on photographic paper (the series Sillalfa, among others) shown on different walls; at the end new wood and plaster sculptures can also be seen. For the latter, Irazu uses a resin-like material to cover some objects (boxes, remains of other constructions, etc.) without concealing them completely, that are then assembled in groups according to their material.

The photographs presented show images of the artist’s immediate environment, mainly from his studio. He applies a surprising use of the light, colour and space and he also makes use of his own idea of combined artistic disciplines: he produces some ‘interventions’ with painting on photographs that question the means itself, highlighting some aspects, triggering some ambiguous images, opening up meanings.

Irazu’s works are currently part of art collections both in Spain and abroad: the Artium in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Barcelone, the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Yves Klein Foundation in Arizona and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, California among others. The CAB welcomes an artist who has successfully deepened his passion for shapes in space, and who is able to create new ways of perceiving artistic works by making the viewer involved in the exhibition area.

Méndez (Burgos 1960) started painting during the 70’s, a discipline that he would combine with etching, drawing, performance, happenings and installation up to the year 2000. The show he brings to the Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, CAB, presents an overview of his work as a video-artist since 1990, when he started to work with video. Since then he has focused his abilities on looking into the less visible spaces of everyday life and he has patiently applied his sensibility to both the poetic dimension of reality and to its environmental and socio-politic angles, from where the recurrent ideas in his work stem.

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Gregorio Méndez
Pulso

Gregorio Méndez (Burgos 1960) started painting during the 70’s, a discipline that he would combine with etching, drawing, performance, happenings and installation up to the year 2000. The show he brings to the Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, CAB, presents an overview of his work as a video-artist since 1990, when he started to work with video. Since then he has focused his abilities on looking into the less visible spaces of everyday life and he has patiently applied his sensibility to both the poetic dimension of reality and to its environmental and socio-politic angles, from where the recurrent ideas in his work stem.

His exhibition begins with Cayendo – Falling (2006), a series of drawings showing people leaping into the void which are directly inspired by September 11th. These drawings are related to 180 Frames, 180 Lies (2008) shown in the same room, it is the manipulation of a supposedly amateur video showing the impact of the second plane on the Twin Towers, from which the image of the plane has been eliminated frame by frame. At the very beginning of the show these works together depict a civilization fighting in the chaos, fear, and lies of the present, evidence of a non-conformist artist in relation to the explanations we are given on how social reality is constructed.

The message in Ledscapes (2006) opposes the one conveyed in the first room, it is a less heavy aesthetic game in which Méndez exploits the contrast between a series of videos filmed in different spaces: landscapes, domestic images, his own workshop…and sentences taken from films which appear on an LED screen built into the center of each of the monitors. These sentences, devoid of their context, take on new meanings and trigger new and thought-provoking readings of the images.

The conflict between nature and technological and mechanised civilisation is presented in the next room with the series Arbor ex machina, the beauty of the trees is highlighted by means of moving and symmetrically doubled images that create a surprisingly aesthetic effect. Sound works as the agent activating the viewer’s reaction: images are projected accompanied by an audioscape of machines, frequencies, the trill of birds and the sound of insects.

At the end of the exhibition three works study the relationship between humankind and spirituality: Cavalcanti rap (a performance based on Boccaccio), Madonna (triptych-shaped projections dealing with the role of women in the Catholic religion and their representation in Western art) and GodDog (an animated palindrome). As a perfect end, Composición abstracta, Jennifer López (2001) sees the viewer off, a playful ingredient and a cross between abstract painting and digital methods.

Méndez has already shown his works in Burgos, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Lisbon, and Suttgart among others and has also developed various scenographical projects. The CAB enthusiastically welcomes the work of a lively artist who questions the validity of many of our imposed ideas.

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Burgos, marca de fábrica

Works of art are often able to convey their essence in the spaces we inhabit, to offer us a new look at and new ideas about our surroundings. At the same time, what triggers the creative work, the thoughts, the reflections and the obsessions that provoke it, sometimes originate in an inspiring space, when the work itself is conceived for the place where it will be shown for example, or when it stems from a fruitful dialogue with a physical atmosphere, with a concrete place.

This dialogue is a primary ingredient in the show Burgos, Marca de Fábrica that gathers work together at the Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, CAB, that, in the main, belongs to the Caja de Burgos Art Collection. It has been created and produced to a large extent in the city of River Arlanzón coinciding with the artists’ visits to this city. The show offers us the possibility of enjoying the variety of expressions that the streets and landscape of Burgos have sparked off in these artists. The viewer will also have the chance to uncover the “trademark” that Burgos has stamped onto the creative impulse of those who have stopped to experience the city’s rhythm, just as the medieval stonemasons did with their chisels on the buildings.

Many of these works originated from the invitation made by the CAB to the artists to carry out a solo exhibition or to create a specific work for the art center or for other exhibition rooms belonging to Caja de Burgos. In other cases, the organisation suggested that the artist create an artwork or a series inspired by the natural or urban landscape of Burgos. Finally, some other works were created spontaneously, from ideas, thoughts and images born out of the artist’s stay in the city.

The emotional relationship between the artists and Burgos can be perceived in Fernando Rene’s paper paintings, Marchesi’s interventions and the Croatian artist Igor Eskinja’s installations, as well as in the Argentinian Humberto Rivas’ photographs about a series of monasteries in Burgos, the urban portrait captured in the Swiss Ingo Giezendanner’s mural paintings, José Manuel Ballester’s original vision of photography, Parisian George Rousse’s interventions displaying a great play on light and perspective, the ”artefacts” transforming landscape brought to us by the Russian artist Francisco Infante and in the work of other artists that have at one time fallen in love with the universe of Burgos.

This exhibition, a new show of the Caja de Burgos Art Collection, gathers the differing, original, and unique vision of an heterogeneous group of artists that identified themselves with Burgos and its idiosyncrasies at one time, and thus offer us a fresh way of contemplating the everyday perspectives that protect us.

Image: Pello Irazu, Sin titulo. 2012

Centre of Arts Caja de Burgos (CAB)
C/ Saldaña s/n - 09003 Burgos (Spain)
Tuesday-Friday 12,00 - 14,00 h. and 17,30 - 20,00 h. On fridays we close at 21,00h
Saturday 11,30 - 14,30 h. and 17,30 - 21,00 h.
Sundays and festivities 11,30 - 14,30 h.

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