jaume plensa, zhang huan, clare langan, juan medina
On Saturday 26th August the last summer exhibition “Abismos del cuerpo y de la mente” (Abysses of the body and the mind) opens at the Galería Cadaqués dos with works by Jaume Plensa, Zhang Huan, Clare Langan and Juan Medina.
With this exhibition of four, which follows the usual seasonal proposal by the Galeria Cadaqués Dos (“Jaar + Nauman + Perejaume + Tàpies” (2004) and “Architecture, landscape and object: Colomer, Collins, Hamilton, Pazos” (2005)), Huc Malla, its director, proposes, this year, “Abysses of the body and the mind”.
Jaume Plensa (Barcelona, 1955) presents a selection of four sculptures, among which “Semen blood/Semen i sangre”, two hands pressing a deserect phallus and “S. Freud”, an erect penis caressed by a foot. Also on display are a selection of works on paper from the “Family” series, and a light sculpture with text, words, and a frost made of resin, where he explores his particular intermediation between the solid and the fluid, the static and the dynamic, language and silence.
Zhang Huan (He Nan, Xina, 1965) presents the photographs of the actions “To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain”, five naked bodies piled up adding 1 metre to an unnamed mountain; “1/2”, self-portrait dressed in his own calligraphy and sheltered by the still bleeding rib bones of a calf; the series “Foam”, self-portraits of his face covered with foam and with images of his life in his mouth; and “Wind and Water in New York”, one of the best known actions, where the author lies naked on an ice mattress in a NY park surrounded by dogs guarding him.
Clare Langan (Dublin, 1967) presents her video art trilogy “Forty Below”/Below 40 degrees”, “Too Dark for Night/ Demasiado oscuro para la noche” and “Glass hour/Reloj de arena”, presented at MOMA in NY and recently at the Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. In this post-apocalyptic realisation, we pass through visions of the future, where the forces of nature appear with desperate force, and where we doubt the verisimilitude of whether it is real or fiction. Each film details the consequences of different types of catastrophes: freezing, the desertification of human presence and vulcanisation.
Juan Medina (Barcelona, 1965) presents the series “We create an animal and it eats us”, three light boxes and a selection of original lewd images, taken from pornographic websites, made with chienese ink and bleach. The author delves into the feelings and emotions of the human being from a Freudian point of view and explores the frustration of the animal within us. The author only uses the image of women because it is she who engenders the human being. Instead of apologizing for the voyeur, he opens the images to psychological aspects diluted in our fantasies.
The careful selection of the presented works and authors aims to show us how art deals with the representation of the human body within the prychic limits of isolated beings in art, language, the city and nature.
