June 2020
by Carlota Grau Bagès

BLAH. BLAH. BLAH*. A FRAGMENTED ROUTE

The blessed visit by appointment

My first destination is Chiquita Room gallery.

I arrive. Protocol Blah. Blah. Blah. *

The space features a set of tables with books on top. A selection of artist publications based on the accumulation of images. A compilation of compilations. In this horizontal proposal, Rosa Lleó and Pedro Torres invite us to put our body, not just our eyes.

Alone in the space, I am guided by intuition. I give myself freedom (FREEDOM!) to move from one book to another, depending on my appetite. I enjoy watching, reading and touching the books. Images as objects. The image that can be touched, that is alive and that can age. Experience from touch. This sense that right now is under the realm of censorship. Skin censorship. Of physical contact. I remember a few words: when deciding whether to prioritize eye vision or body experience, always prioritize the body, because touch is an older sense than sight, and experience is more essential. In addition, in today’s audio-visual civilization, the eye is remarkably tired and corrupt. The experience of the body is more authentic, it is not yet marked by aestheticization. (Decalogue by Jan Svankmajer).

Mise en Images is an opportunity to enjoy the image as an object, or the object as an image, which allows the visitor to create their own narrative. An exhibition of images where the experience lies in the body of the spectator; in its location, its displacements, its pauses … and its own association of images. A delight of installation where time flies.

I’m not used to stay away from home for so long. I go back.

Days after.

We move to phase 1.

Other spaces get encouraged to open their doors.

The second stop of this fragmented route is the exhibition Interrogantes Suspendidos or Déjà vu? by Carlos Pazos at ADN Gallery.

Not by appointment. But yes, Blah. Blah. Blah. *

Alone in the gallery’s exhibition space. Surrounded by artifacts constructed by and through the composition of objects. Materialization of the subconscious. From memory. From his memory. The one of the artist. Optical illusion. Dalí. Surrealism. Di vino el artista como esponja. Dadá. Found objects. Old ones. Life. Used. Untitled. Popular culture. Mickey Mouse without a head. A light bulb. Y yo… qué coño pinto? A stack of books from the “Great Masters of Painting” collection. Cézanne, the first. Goya, in an old closet. Jackson Pollock stands out from the stack of books. Next to it, a fruit bowl with three oranges. Still life. Still life. Y yo… qué coño pinto? Kitsch aesthetics. Very kitsch. An insect on a toy record-player. Blue Smurf. The insect, which looks like a giant beetle, rolls on the disk. Children’s music. Under the needle, the beetle disappears. The album continues to roll with the body of the crumbled beetle. Title: To the artist what he deserves!

Back home: I discovered that there is nothing so terrible as having to face the pertinence of a dead man. Objects are inert and have meaning only according to the life that uses them. When that life ends, things change, even if they remain the same. (…) By themselves, things mean nothing, like the kitchen utensils of an Ancient civilization; but nevertheless they tell us something, they remain there not as simple objects, but as vestiges of thoughts, of conscience; emblems of the loneliness in which a man makes decisions about his own life: dye his hair, wear one shirt or another, live or die. And once death comes, everything is absolutely useless. (A life in words. Conversations with I.B. Siegumfeldt by Paul Auster)

The next day I visit Bombon Projects.

Blah. Blah. Blah. *

ORIÉNTAMENELINTERIOR presents an emotional journey through a comic strip that alternates with pictorial compositions on paper.

The comic as an object. Comics as a work of art. The fragmented object. Torn. Poetic artefact. Aldo Urbano proposes us to accompany the descent of a monkey painter to the inner seas of the earth.

The calm sea. An explosion. Bodies. Dreams. Sense of humour. Exaggeration. It’s starting to rain. Ecstasy. Tibetan pictorial elements? The pain. A wave. A mix of emotions. Guide me inwards. Violence. The violence experienced by the artist. To be an artist? Self-fiction? Wounds. Psychedelic? Climax. Earth. Repetitions. Destruction. Forms. Water. Lots of water. Black. A monkey. A mantra. Guide me inwards. Start over. A text full of irony and poetry. At the end of the tour, without being part of it, I find another comic. A Forest whose fire has been extinguished. An earlier work by Aldo Urbano. I read it. I write in my notebook: I discovered that hallucinations need a key. This key is a subtle and often absurd detail that triggers visions. The reflection of the sun on the scales of a fish.

It’s still raining. I’m in no hurry to get home. I think I was dazzled by the reflection of the sun on the scales of a fish.

* Bla. Blah. Bla = Hydro-alcoholic solution. Mask. Gloves or paper handkerchiefs.

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Text by Carlota Grau Bagès, as a resident of la Visiva, for GRAF. Carlota is a performing and audio-visual artist.