THE UNDECIDED LANDSCAPES
05.10.2018 – 12.01.2019
Exhibition by Judit Bou - Patricia Dauder - Mònica Planes - Jorge Yeregui
Curated by David Armengol
Opening, Friday 5th October at 7 pm
> Workshop PRACTICE OF RECONAISSANCE related to the exhibition [+ info about the workshop]
[view leaflet]
If we stop looking at landscape as if it were an industry, we may suddenly discover a large quantity of undecided spaces, dispossessed of their function, to which it might be complicated to put a name. This set belongs neither to the realm of shadow nor of light. It is situated on the margins.
Gilles Clement
The undecided landscapes is a collective exhibition which seeks to intensify, through performative actions, the connection with physical territory. Whether natural or urban environments or spaces suspended between one and the other, to challenge their habitual functions involves, from the field of the visual arts, a critical approach which prioritises unplanned temporary activation over its contemplative condition. In this sense, the show distils an implicit, latent performativity, asserting indecision and instability as possible systems of significance of a specific territory.
Based upon these premises, the exhibition brings together the artistic practice of four artists who make use of complementary procedural approaches to physical territorial space. Despite the specificities that define the works of Judit Bou, Patricia Dauder, Mònica Planes and Jorge Yeregui, they all share a coherent strand of resemblance; reading the landscape through an immersive and extensive working process, in which personal experience and the course of time play a determining role.
Jorge Yeregui's (Santander, 1973) photographic and videographic work focuses on the comprehensive recognition of the landscape resulting from abandoned urban projects; marginal and unused land, where nature has begun a progressive biological recovery process. Montones. Arena and Montones. Grava (2016) is a large-format photographic diptych in which we see two small deposits of land where grasses and other wild plants have begun to grow, released from any human control; a minimal detail but one which, on the other hand, synthesises the whole process of natural reconquest of the landscape. Lindes (2016) exhibits a complete map of barren territory. Taking as his reference the provisional enclosures of space for urban development, Yeregui travels through this impromptu boundary, following the same methodology; frontally photographing all the palings which delimit the terrain. The significance of the perimeter lends emphasis to the landscape which lies outside its limits. Líneas maestras is a series of four videos which record a simple action; following pavements laid up until the point where they were abandoned; a pointless challenge which not only impacts upon space, but also upon the time of suspension of the urban planning process.
Patricia Dauder (Barcelona, 1973) incorporates into her work methodologies of procedural labour which provoke a performative intensity beyond the workshop space. Along with formalisations of archaeological heritage, Groundworks (2015-2017) puts in play an expanded temporality, in which the artist decides to bury and dig up materials created or reused by her in the grounds of the Trias i Godó textile factory in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. From this solitary action, invisible to the viewer, different series and pieces related to sculpture, photography and drawing arise. Groundworks (Notebook #1) (2015) is a series of drawings extracted directly from the artist's notebook; a series of minimum notes that set the pace of the project from subtle references to previous and subsequent moments. Next to the visual documentation of land art, Groundworks (Phase #1) (2015) is a black and white photographic sequence in which we see fragments in the process of burial and disintegration of materials. Closing the series, Chambers (2015) exhibits a buried cloth that shows the layer of memory from its passage through the subsoil attached to it.
The work of Mònica Planes (Barcelona, 1992) opens up a critical reflection upon playgrounds designed for children. Through a long process of research on the playgrounds of the city of Barcelona - as well as on the physical and imaginative possibilities which the spaces allow - the artist offers a sculptural translation, based on her personal experience. In this sense, her art installations are committed to a freedom of action that, evoked by means of balances and suggested movements, interrogates the park's fun experience and the aesthetic conception of sculpture. Moviment i forces apreses (al playground) (2018) is an installation that synthesises her formal and vivid research. Halfway between urban gym and minimalist sculpture, the piece invites us to an action more imaginary than physical, more subjective than real.
Judit Bou (Tona, 1996) has long visited the same hill near her hometown, Tona. By means of the progressive accumulation of photographic documentation of the same landscape without apparent relevance, the artist insistently looks for substantial changes in its condition as a place. In this sense, Un turó (2018) displays a psycho-geographic will in which the emotional and affective charge of the landscape of the Osona region, as well as the repetition of the same non-productive time (being on the hill for no other reason than being on the hill), generates an approximation in constant state of suspense; a liberating suspense that supports slowness at the expense of the frenetic acceleration of our vital rhythms. Despite exhibiting a small selection of photographs, the project now consists of more than 200 images of the hill.
In conclusion, The undecided landscapes encourages the discursive and formal connection of a whole series of artistic proposals focused on re-viewing landscape through a careful time of dedication and experience of place. Precisely, this represents an attempt to move this unique and non-transferrable experience to the space of the exhibition hall – which is static by definition.
