Alzueta Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in ZONAMACO, featuring new artworks by Aythamy Armas, Jordi Alcaraz, Manolo Ballesteros, Sune Christiansen, Iván Franco, Gabrielle Graessle, Guim Tió and Richard Zinon.
Our curated booth titled "Hacia la nada: un relato de reducción" (Towards nothingness: a tale of reduction) revolves around the aesthetic perception. The aesthetic perception has two variants: the perception of the object and the evaluation of the experience. At Alzueta Gallery we ask ourselves, what happens when we gradually what happens when we gradually get rid of the object?
The reduction of art is not an unknown subject. Many scholars were alarmed at the birth of abstraction; the murder of the father, specifically because of this simplifying effect to which it tends. However, it has been proven time and again that, on occasion, synthesisation only increases the onlooker's aesthetic possibilities.
This year, with the opportunity to return to Mexico after a two-year hiatus, we have decided to return by telling a story through six artists, the story of a journey towards nothingness.
CHAPTER I: SIMULACRUM
Ivan Franco (Spain, 1979) is a master. The Spanish artist copies reality to such an extent that he questions the identification of what is real and what is not. A narrative on the road to nothingness could not begin in any other way; it is essential that it starts from the whole, and that is what Ivan Franco's work is. A simulation game that questions the importance of what is represented versus how it is represented. A reality so tangible that it questions its own meaning.
CHAPTER II: PROTAGONISTS WHO ARE NOT THERE
The protagonists of Guim Tió (Spain, 1987) do not usually have a face, and if they do, it is not recognisable. A step forward from hyperrealism is to take a step towards the use of suggestion and collective suggestion and the collective imaginary to provoke a recognition that, in reality, is not there. With very few brushstrokes the eternal storyteller has the ability to catch the eye in tiny figures, much more abstract than what our unconscious allows us to recognise.
CHAPTER III: SMASHING FIGURES.
Gabrielle Graessle (Switzerland, 1956) is the perfect reflection of the new figuration; a return to the use of clearly identifiable references to tell something. In her case, she opts for the iconography of the pop culture. Although always extravagant and modern, the first chapter of our story focuses on the predictable beginning: the work has a clear theme, accompanies the spectator by the hand, shows faces, familiar shapes.
It is a safe, risk-free environment.
CHAPTER IV: IT ONLY EXISTS IF YOU LOOK FOR IT
There are figurations and figurations. Figurativism declares itself representational by
definition. Sune Christiansen (Denmark, 1976) is one of Europe's most promising young artists. Sune is a master of colour, with a primary and, at times, almost childlike conception, Sune generates a pictorial atmosphere that dives into the colourist tradition of the 20th century. A step closer to reducing, a step closer to emptiness. He opts for the background, the protagonists are no longer protagonists. He no longer holds out his hand to the visitor, but remains at his side, disguised, dancing between and with the forms of geography, dancing between and with the geometric shapes around them.
CHAPTER V: KEEPING THE LINES.
Aythamy Armas (Canary Islands, 1977) presents the next obvious step towards the reduction of form: the gesture. There are no figures, only strokes. The emptiness is what attracts and invites us to stop in front of the work. Aythamy's work is a space devoid of references, but with a multitude of lines capable of sensitising contemplation. A risky but necessary step, the key, the first step towards an empty surface, but visually full at the same time.
CHAPTER VI: SIMPLIFYING LINES.
A line can seem like a minimum that is difficult to reduce. Simplifying a line seems an impossible task, yet the work of Richard Zinon (England, 1985) achieves just that, mastering the line and containing it in measured oil brushstrokes. These brushstrokes talk to each other, converse, dance and manage to keep themselves in harmony battling on a canvas where the negative space rules.
CHAPTER VII: INTRODUCING THE VOID.
Jordi Alcaraz (Spain, 1963) works with absence, creating works using emptiness as an ally. Jordi Alcaraz wanted to be a writer, so Jordi Alcaraz modifies blank books and tells his own stories. Until now we had respected the pictorial matter. During this journey we have restricted and limited elements but we have kept the painting. Not any more. With the use of methacrylates, black ink and volumes, the artist condenses infinite stories into a few elements.
CHAPTER VIII: THE HOLLOW CAVITY.
In nothingness there is room for everything. The work of Manolo Ballesteros (Spain, 1965) revolves around the use hollowness, to abbreviate to the maximum any notion of art. The figures with which we started with are long forgotten, there is no trace of them anywhere.
The odd folded piece of paper seems to pay homage to the books of the previous chapter, but the synthesis has reached its peak, it has decomposed and recomposed itself in the form of empty boxes, full of air, full of everything that is no longer there.
From presenting protagonists to using the hollow as a material, Alzueta Gallery wants his booth to tell a story, to capture the visitors, we want to contemplate them while they contemplate, to ask ourselves which movement they choose while they question themselves. We want to make them travel through the aesthetic currents of art.