2005 - TRANSNEGATIVE, INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART EXHIBITION

Transnegative

VI Small Format
INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION

Galerie MX Espai 1010 Barcelona
8.Sept - 14. Okt. 2005 Transnegative

Katalog

VI SMALL FORMAT

We kicked off this year's celebration of the small art competition, under the rubric, Transnegative. Taken from Barbara Verzini's text, "IL pensiero de la ferita nello body art", and in keeping with past years, this subject is sure to generate debate at the gallery itself. For the sixth consecutive year and with the small format, this year we are once again drawing near an art form, which, requiring the utmost concentration and in essence exhibited in a small space, inevitably becomes poetry. The more than 60 selected works by artists of hugely diverse backgrounds give us insight into the vast array of concepts and variability that can fit into a minimal space.
MX Espai1010 opted to invite all to contemplate the concept of the "transforming negative" proposed by Barbara Verzini, for which the work of the negative is a fundamental need in our contemporary society. The negative should not be the symbol of evil, nor should it represent irreparable destruction. Rather, the negative is a space that we must include as a part 9f our existence; we need to live with it. And somehow, we cannot help but recall the words of Brazilian writer Nelida Pinon, " ...creation is not an epiphany. There has never been a perfect world, and art emerges from the vision of evil". Indeed, these words confirm the strength of Barbara Verzini's musings.

Barbara Verzini's idea of a transforming negative, in the style of Frida Kahlo, for example, is by no means an easy theme to approach, given our current political and social reality and that of contemporary art. Body art and all of its "wounds" made a major contribution to the art scene of the 70's, and the female artists who performed it paved the road for other wounds.

The legacy of Frida Kahlo, Gina Pane and 0 thers traps us between a past and a future that brings us to the language of commitment. In this exhibition, though practically none of the artists have chosen to depict their own bodies or those of others as the central material of their discourse, we do find pieces that refer us to the concept of the wound. And these wounded elements are a formalised contemplation of the desire to transform the collective imaginary through the art that we produce. We might go so far as to say that the poetic jolts embodied by these works make us feel the emphatic and unyielding tenor of the works that impose their own wound, going still further and creating yet another dimension.

Barbara Verzini has provoked us; she has grazed us with the sharp blade of her discourse and this is the result. Her knowledge of the work of some artists whose raw material consists of weaves and fabrics and the ne yw discourses on genre as generators of artistic maps where the borders themselves become the points of encounter, have given rise to this new gaze. A gaze which, as we said at the last celebration of the event, is the great weaver of images, the link between experience and reality that binds the writing of silence and the light of the image to the texture of the word.

This encounter has gradually shaped an exhibition characterised by the confluence of works created using traditional techniques, where the fabric is the image that reveals the idea, with others in which the artist felt it appropriate to use more recent techniques or technology, thus once again demonstrating that the weft weaves the language, regardless of its ultimate formalisation.

Hence, this year's celebration features artists from other disciplines who offer works under the very vision of our rubric. Artiszts like Josep Asunci6n+Gemma Guash, Pia Remedios, Ester Xargay, Sergio Galan, Nora Ancarola, Carles Hac Mor, Marta Darder, Carlos Pina, Mireia Clotet, Juan Pablo Muino, Ma'is, Claude Clarbous, Marti Ribas, Raija Jokinen, Almira Olmayan, Nicolas Spinosa, Maria Jose Mir, Carlos Martinez, Carmen de la Calzada, William George, David Ymbernon, L'Anonima Femenina, and the young sceptic of traditions, Colectivu Puntes, to name a few. In a word, there is no doubt that this sixth celebration will be new and refreshing.


© Gallery MXESPAI 1010
Nora Ancarola
Marga Ximenez