Reflejo | Reflexión. A look at the reflected image

On the occasion of the opening of a new edition of Madrid Gallery, the Elvira González gallery opens, on September 8, an interesting proposal in which it will bring together the work of four artists under a common theme.

The exhibition Reflejo | Reflection, proposes an interesting game and reflection with the work of art, bringing together the pieces of four artists: Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor, Juan Muñoz and Michelangelo Pistoletto, who on numerous occasions have used the reflected image through different instruments and objects, such as support to reflect on the reflected image.

Juan Muñoz. Chino looking at himself in a round mirror, 1999. Figure: 142 x 48 x 43 cm | 56 x 19 x 17 in. Mirror: 90 cm | 35 ½ in diameter. Mirror and polyester resin.

One of the recurring themes in art is the ability of the work to catch the viewer and make him part of it, make the viewer be part of the narrative discourse of the work, to feel involved in its narration, or how the reflection of oneself modifies the experience of looking, being transported to a vision in which his image is part of the work that transforms the space to turn it into a place.

Each of the works that will be part of this exhibition incorporates the use of the mirror from different paradigms, covering formal and functional planes, but also philosophical or psychological, thus showing a way of thinking about otherness. This element expands the space, showing the viewer not only his own place but also a reflection in which to observe himself and project his unique gaze with a variety of lights and angles.

Olafur Eliasson (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1967)

Eliasson's artistic interest focuses mainly on three aspects: his concern for nature, his research on geometry and his study of human perception. Eliasson often uses mirrors to expand spaces and create a sense of spatial confusion, which stimulates awareness of our body and the perception of ourselves and space.

Anish Kapoor (Mumbai, India, 1954)

Kapoor explores space through geometric shapes, frequently reflected and created with different materials, in which the mirror stands out. For many years, Kapoor has worked with concave and convex mirror shapes of all kinds. The concavity induces or invites interiority and the convex expands, deforms and transforms. At the same time he deforms and transforms the space where he places the works.

Juan Muñoz (Madrid, 1953 - Ibiza, 2000)

Muñoz's works create an encounter that constantly alternates the recognition of oneself and the reflection of the other. They offer a space in which the Self and the Other can meet in the unspoken territory of meaning. Juan Muñoz's practice consisted of constructing a materiality that spoke of another materiality, loaded with confrontations and visual games.

Michelangelo Pistoletto (Biella, Italy, 1933)

For Pistoletto, the true protagonist of the work is the dimension of time in relation to the moment that is created between the viewer, his own reflection and the figure painted in the work, in an ever-present movement that concentrates the past and the figure. In herself. The ultimate goal of his works is to make the viewer doubt his own existence.

Anish Kapoor. Horizon (Red), 2016. 185 x 185 x 22 cm | 72 ⅞ x 72 ⅞ x 8 ⅝ in. Stainless steel and varnish.

Michelangelo Pistoletto. La Giuria, 2007 250 x 875 cm | 98 ⅜ x 344 ½ in. Silkscreen on polished stainless steel.

Michelangelo Pistoletto. Smartphone - ragazze with borsa e zaino, 2018 250 x 150 cm | 98 ½ x 59 in. Silkscreen on polished stainless steel.

Olafur Eliasson. Mirror door (participant), 2008. Mirror: 220 x 90 cm | 86 ⅝ x 35 ⅜ in. Tripod and spotlight: 203 x 95 x 95 cm | 80 x 37 ⅜ x 37 ⅜ in. Spotlight, tripod and mirror.

Olafur Eliasson. Mirror door (performer), 2008. Mirror: 220 x 90 cm | 86 ⅝ x 35 ⅜ in. Type of and spotlight: 189 x 71 x 71 cm | 74 ⅜ x 28 x 28 in. Spotlight, tripod, mirror.

452 / 5000 Resultados de traducción Olafur Eliasson. Eight circle rotation, 2008 316 x 77 x 38.8 cm | 124 ⅜ x 30 ⅜ x 15 ¼ in. 8 mirrors, aluminum and rubber.

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More information

Label

Venue / Localitation

Text

Galería Elvira González. Hermanos Álvarez Quintero, 1. 28004 Madrid. Spain.

Label

Dates

Text

08.09/13.11.2021.

Juan Muñoz

Juan Muñoz was born in Madrid in June 17th,1953, and died in Ibiza, August 28th, 2001. He was tutored by art critic Santiago Amón, who played a major role in his education. In 1970, he moved to London where he studied at the Central School of Art and Design and the Croydon School of Art. In 1981 he received a Fulbright fellowship, allowing him to study at the Pratt Graphic Center and take a position as artist in residence at the PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York.

After his stay in the United States, he moved to Madrid. In 1983, after curating two exhibitions, he abandoned curating to focus on sculpting, but he continued writing texts and collaborating with other disciplines. He held his first exhibition in 1984 and, during the decades that followed, created one of the most exceptional art careers of the last third of the 20th century.

Juan Muñoz explored the relationship between the human figure and the exhibition space. He explored new ways to distort space, using daring perspectives and variations of scale, not only to commit the spectator at the perceptual and sensory level, but also, and especially, to create psychological tension in individuals interacting with his work. Juan Muñoz is best known for his sculptural works in which the human figure is placed within elaborate or complex architectural environments, alienating settings, and fictitious worlds inhabited by a variety of characters, giving rise to endless possible narratives.

He created a new paradigm for artistic discourse. As the critic and historian Jan Avgikos has stated, he created a paradigm of expression without being expressionist, “blurring the lines between the past and the present”. In addition to his sculptural work, he also drew, created installations and sound pieces, and collaborated with actors, musicians and filmmakers, thus taking on the role of an authentic contemporary humanist.

As stated by Manuel Borja Villel, director of the Reina Sofía Museum, “in every one of these productions, we find points of connection within a coherent but runaway universe which, frequently operating from a standpoint of absence, always allude to something beyond their own disciplinary or referential formulation”.

“Encontrar un sujeto en la figura humana que guíe la atención del espectador hacia el sentido de ‘lo otro’ implícito en la figura en sí misma.” Juan Muñoz.

Olafur ELIASSON

Olafur Eliasson (Copenhagen, 1967) studied at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Copenhagen between 1989 and 1995. He represented Denmark in the 2003 Venice Biennale and has exhibited his work at numerous international museums. His work is part of private and public collections such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles and Tate Modern in London, where his seminal work The weather project was exhibited. Eliasson lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen.

Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The weather project at Tate Modern, London. Take your time: Olafur Eliasson, a survey exhibition organised by SFMOMA in 2007, travelled until 2010 to various venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

As professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin, Eliasson founded the Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute of Space Experiments) in 2009, an innovative model of arts education. In 2012, he launched Little Sun, a solar-powered lamp developed together with the engineer Frederik Ottesen to improve the lives of the approximately 1.6 billion people worldwide without access to electricity. Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre, for which he created the façade in collaboration with Henning Larsen Architects, was awarded the Mies van der Rohe Award 2013.

Verklighetsmaskiner (Reality machines) at t he Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 2015, became the museum’s most visited show by a living artist. In 2016 Eliasson created a series of interventions for the palace and gardens of Versailles, including an enormous artificial waterfall that cascaded into the Grand Canal.

His other projects include Studio Other Spaces, an international office for art and architecture which he founded in Berlin in 2014 with architect Sebastian Behmann; and Little Sun, a social business and global project providing clean, affordable light and encouraging sustainable development, with engineer Frederik Ottesen.

ANISH KAPOOR

Sir Anish Kapoor, CBE RA (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor. Born in Bombay, Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design.

He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice Biennale in 1990, when he was awarded the Premio Duemila Prize. In 1991 he received the Turner Prize and in 2002 received the Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. Notable public sculptures include Cloud Gate (colloquially known as “the Bean”) in Chicago’s Millennium Park; Sky Mirror, exhibited at the Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2006 and Kensington Gardens in London in 2010; Temenos, at Middlehaven, Middlesbrough; Leviathan, at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2011; and ArcelorMittal Orbit, commissioned as a permanent artwork for London’s Olympic Park and completed in 2012.

Michelangelo Pistoletto

Michelangelo Pistoletto (born Biella, Italia, June 23th,1933) is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist. Pistoletto is acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera. His work mainly deals with the subject matter of reflection and the unification of art and everyday life in terms of a Gesamtkunstwerk.

Pistoletto studied art while apprenticing at his father’s restoration workshop, and in 1960, mounted his first solo show of figurative paintings and portraits at the Galleria Galatea in Turin. He rose to international prominence with his sculpture series Minus Objects (1966), which includes a set of columns and a two-dimensional table and chairs. The work, along with a series of mirror paintings, was awarded first prize in the São Paulo Biennale. Growing increasingly reclusive over time, Pistoletto withdrew his work from the Venice Biennale in 1968 due to the student riots. He has had solo exhibitions in institutions around the world, notably including the Tate Modern in London and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He lives in Turin, Italy.

Published on: September 4, 2021

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