Exhibition "Un puente es un hombre cruzando un puente", at Galerie Christinger De Mayo, Zürich. June 10 - July 14, 2012 (view invitation image)
“Un puente es un hombre cruzando un Puente"1, Felipe Mujica
For my first exhibition at Christinger De Mayo I have decided to produce a new group of “wall curtains”. These pieces are works that reorganize space and its contents by affecting the viewers’ perception and circulation through it. They are also graphic elements of their own.
The designs of the “wall curtains” can be simple color and form encounters, or appropriations of drawings made by other artists. In both cases the works directly refer to modernism (and specifically to the history of painting and its expansion into architecture as a socially aware act) yet with some important distinctions: in the first case as I design the curtains working with basic formal and color elements, and together with the material and technique used (fabric and sewing), the pieces end up becoming almost decorative elements; in the second case where I appropriate other artists work, mostly playing with its original scale and therefore its impact on the viewer, the curtains allow me to incorporate an historical revision element, producing a piece that on top of the decorative aspect also becomes a research platform, both for me and for the viewer.
The “wall curtains” are flexible in their use. They can work on their own, reorganizing space in search of a new density and circulation; and they can work in relation to other works, both mine from other artists, in which case they become an exhibition design tool that opens up the work to be used by other artists or curators. Importantly they can function simultaneously in several layers: as fragile and temporary architecture, as exhibition design, as modernism references, as research platforms and also as decorative objects. This ambiguity has to do with the belief of producing a not so defined situation, an in between moment, of use, of collaboration, of perception, of intentions.
For Christinger De Mayo I will produce 5 new curtains made with basic color and formal elements, which placed in space, should create a dialogue between each panel and between each panel and its spatial location. A new aspect in this exhibition will be the intentional placement of each curtain. They will be placed in the limit areas of space, near or covering a window (becoming a real curtain) or near a door or passage area through 2 spaces (becoming a sort of fabric-divider door). One might even be placed over a table (becoming a table cloth). My idea behind this is to create an installation with elements that almost, just almost, leave the realm of art to become almost functional objects. It is sort of doing a reversed ready made. Or a reversed ready made that is constantly zooming in and out, like a psychedelic pattern, like a bridge with man (or a woman) crossing it over and over and over again…