- Exhibition program
- The 24 Steps
- Artist
- Juan López
- Dates
- —
- Curated by
- Jorge Díez
Juan López (Alto Maliaño, 1979) constructs his works for exhibitions and public spaces with signs, images and messages. In both cases he alters the space by superimposing on it the same resources as those used in the advertisements that inundate our cities: appropriations, images, texts, photographs, posters and graffiti. He works with a number of artistic tools, such as drawing, form, colour, composition and collage. They are resources that are today shared by advertising and the visual arts, but in López's work they have a very different purpose, which is to take us by surprise and shake us out of our complacent attitude to consumerism and advertising. For his exhibition in the Espai 13, Juan López is presenting two pieces: Numerosis and Today I aspire to nothing.
Numerosis consists of a video documentary of the inverse reflection that the luminous clock outside the pharmacy below the artist's flat produces on the window throughout the twenty-four hours of the day. Like the occult messages in rock'n'roll discos, the sign reveals its satanic connotations. In Today I aspire to nothing, the artist takes as his starting point Miró's interest in working with new techniques and materials, in an installation that is a collage of video images and drawings done with insulating tape. The principal motif of the installation are the traceurs, which is the name given to practitioners of parkour, a sport that consists in moving through the urban or rural environment and overcoming the obstacles encountered on the way (walls, fences, empty space, etc.) as quickly and efficiently as possible and using solely the resources of the human body. The finished work shows a series of obstacles drawn on the walls, while the figures of the traceurs are projected round the room on to these wall drawings.
This video-installation opens the programme for 2008-09 in the Espai 13 - titled The 24 Steps - which is curated by Jorge Díez and is a tribute to the life and work of Joan Miró.
