Species Of Spaces: A Collective Reflection On What To Think About This World
Species of Spaces is a text published by George Perec in 1974. Talking about space and time is a recurrent theme in artistic discourses and, nevertheless, also an excuse to avoid talking about other topics that today are undoubtedly more present in artistic production, such as the body, identity or nature. In the past, when space was named, it was usually a place, an institutional place, a place to show or from which the artistic work was created. Today, space is a species, that is, a living being. Space has gone from being geometric to being a state of mind, anxiety; or a necessary mood, empathy; or even, the space from which to imagine how bees see the world or how machines exert their influence and impose their voice. Who hasn't already asked chatGPT for a favour? Like the oracles of yesteryear, poor chatGPT also has its place. The expanding memory has at least its "cloud", a place symbolically recognisable by all, but chatGPT does not yet seem to have a throne, a stone, a pedestal or a home...
Yes. To imagine space is to imagine the possibility of establishing relationships with physical elements, abstract elements, virtual elements and programmed elements. Yes, we have evolved. It seems that we are adding dimensions to the real world century after century. Adding strangeness that also needs its space.... As anxiety grows, conflicts multiply, difficulties become evident and our space diminishes. It also diminishes our capacity to be foolishly happy, without needing to have reasons for it. With the loss of space, we also lose the feeling of lightness we had when we were young, and we become heavy, even boring. The best description of this state can be found in the wonderful short story "Don't You Blame Anyone" (1956) by Julio Cort谩zar. The plot is our present: A gentleman is in a hurry because he is supposed to meet his wife to buy a wedding present. He starts to put on his blue jumper and can't find the sleeves. Nerves turn to anguish and the scene ends tragically when, after struggling with the jumper and his hands, he gets tangled in his sleeves so badly that he falls from the 12th floor.
Do you still want to question what art is for? I would say, without hesitation, that art helps us put on millions of "blue jumpers" without jumping into the void. Indeed, if there is one thing that all the artists proposed here have in common, it is their capacity to generate spaces, spaces that expand our capacity to interpret the immediate space so that we at least have the impression that our capacity to be in the world is actually real and positive. Being in the world is an expression that indicates that we occupy a place that is not only the place of the function we have in society, a space that goes beyond our role at work, in our family, in our circle of friends. Our ways of living often don't allow us to know who we really are apart from those roles or the way others see us. The paradoxical forms of art (which seem to make no reference to what really worries us) are designed to make us discover what actually worries us. The works that we are displaying here do not ask you for your approval or your taste. They ask for your friendship, for you to spend time with them (because an exhibition should be seen more than once) so that you learn something about yourself through the particular examination of each work.
Recommended for you
Species of Spaces is a text published by George Perec in 1974. Talking about space and time is a recurrent theme in artistic discourses and, nevertheless, also an excuse to avoid talking about other topics that today are undoubtedly more present in artistic production, such as the body, identity or nature. In the past, when space was named, it was usually a place, an institutional place, a place to show or from which the artistic work was created. Today, space is a species, that is, a living being. Space has gone from being geometric to being a state of mind, anxiety; or a necessary mood, empathy; or even, the space from which to imagine how bees see the world or how machines exert their influence and impose their voice. Who hasn't already asked chatGPT for a favour? Like the oracles of yesteryear, poor chatGPT also has its place. The expanding memory has at least its "cloud", a place symbolically recognisable by all, but chatGPT does not yet seem to have a throne, a stone, a pedestal or a home...
Yes. To imagine space is to imagine the possibility of establishing relationships with physical elements, abstract elements, virtual elements and programmed elements. Yes, we have evolved. It seems that we are adding dimensions to the real world century after century. Adding strangeness that also needs its space.... As anxiety grows, conflicts multiply, difficulties become evident and our space diminishes. It also diminishes our capacity to be foolishly happy, without needing to have reasons for it. With the loss of space, we also lose the feeling of lightness we had when we were young, and we become heavy, even boring. The best description of this state can be found in the wonderful short story "Don't You Blame Anyone" (1956) by Julio Cort谩zar. The plot is our present: A gentleman is in a hurry because he is supposed to meet his wife to buy a wedding present. He starts to put on his blue jumper and can't find the sleeves. Nerves turn to anguish and the scene ends tragically when, after struggling with the jumper and his hands, he gets tangled in his sleeves so badly that he falls from the 12th floor.
Do you still want to question what art is for? I would say, without hesitation, that art helps us put on millions of "blue jumpers" without jumping into the void. Indeed, if there is one thing that all the artists proposed here have in common, it is their capacity to generate spaces, spaces that expand our capacity to interpret the immediate space so that we at least have the impression that our capacity to be in the world is actually real and positive. Being in the world is an expression that indicates that we occupy a place that is not only the place of the function we have in society, a space that goes beyond our role at work, in our family, in our circle of friends. Our ways of living often don't allow us to know who we really are apart from those roles or the way others see us. The paradoxical forms of art (which seem to make no reference to what really worries us) are designed to make us discover what actually worries us. The works that we are displaying here do not ask you for your approval or your taste. They ask for your friendship, for you to spend time with them (because an exhibition should be seen more than once) so that you learn something about yourself through the particular examination of each work.
What's on nearby
