Month: September 2021
11.09.21 –
13.11.21
Gold at its Core
Pradiauto is pleased to present the group exhibition "De Oro en su Núcleo". The project starts from the city of London and the Royal College of Art as the beginning of diverse links between Esther Merinero, Lina Lapelytė, Alejandro Villa Durán and Frederik Nystrup-Larsen. The exhibition is activated as a zone of convergence of ideas and artistic intuitions. An encounter that had already begun in time and is now materialising in space.
"De Oro en su Núcleo" collects, through flow, fluidity and narrative, a series of gestures and interactions with history, nature, the magical and the contemporary subject that materialise in very different ways, but which share and meet in a fragile perception of the rhythms of today's society. The works in the exhibition place us in uncertain and disturbing places —in the middle of a torrent, a portal, a jungle or a dream— places where only fiction, fable and magic can guide us.
Curated together with Vera Martín Zelich
"De Oro en su Núcleo" collects, through flow, fluidity and narrative, a series of gestures and interactions with history, nature, the magical and the contemporary subject that materialise in very different ways, but which share and meet in a fragile perception of the rhythms of today's society. The works in the exhibition place us in uncertain and disturbing places —in the middle of a torrent, a portal, a jungle or a dream— places where only fiction, fable and magic can guide us.
Curated together with Vera Martín Zelich
Esther Merinero
(1994, Madrid). She studied her BA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts and recently graduated from an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art with the support of Fundació “La Caixa”, awarding her a a fellowship for postgraduate studies. Her work has been included in international exhibitions at Dada Post (Berlin), Centre del Carme (Valencia), Space2B (Madrid), Charsoo Honar (Tehran) or Saartchi Gallery (London), amongst others. Now represented by Pradiauto (Madrid).
Esther has also given lectures and workshops internationally in institutions such as University of the Arts (London), University for the Creative Arts (Farnham) or in Espositivo Academy (Madrid), and has curated exhibitions such as Archipiélago at the former British Embassy in Madrid, or Baldea.
Esther has also given lectures and workshops internationally in institutions such as University of the Arts (London), University for the Creative Arts (Farnham) or in Espositivo Academy (Madrid), and has curated exhibitions such as Archipiélago at the former British Embassy in Madrid, or Baldea.
Lina Lapelytė
(Kaunas, 1984) bases her performance practice on music and flirts with pop culture, gender stereotypes and nostalgia. Her works involve both trained and untrained performers, often through singing across a wide range of genres such as pop music and opera. The singing takes the form of a collective and affective event that questions vulnerability and silencing. In 2019 her collaborative performance work Sun & Sea (Marina) received the Golden Lion award at the Venice Art Biennale. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Cartier Foundation, Paris; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; RIBOCA2 - Riga Biennale; Tai Kwun, Hong Kong; Glasgow International; Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels; Kaunas Biennale, Lithuania; Pompeii Commitment and Castello di Rivoli, Italy.
Alejandro Villa-Durán
(Jalisco, 1993) is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London. He previously studied Textile Design at Central Saint Martins London.
The starting point of his pictorial and sculptural work is “intuitive choreography”, a term that condenses a methodological repetition: going out, moving about in order to return, and then tracing the route. In general, these trips outside the city seek for the body to become the means for an attentive presence in its surroundings. The wager is not on an interpretation of the natural, but rather on a singular relation that allows the general body a differential when affected by the encounter: that is, by the unpredictable. The sensation opens up and the perception responds not by precipitating the signs, but by establishing a line of interpretation, a position–with a view to being shared–about what is experienced.
Upon returning, the second part of the process begins. Thinking of production as a kind of transit, Alejandro usually works in series that allow me to explore what has been lived and experienced, while this is affected by each medium’s materials and conditions.
In painting, the limit is the color palette itself, which I select before starting. More than a representation, painting is for me a choreography that begins and ends with the body: the hand traces, but the body moves on the canvas. This emits a temporality linked to the trance between painting and memory; painting is the presence in front of the picture, while memory (of the journey that precedes the practice) is the counterpoint that builds the rhythm of the composition. In it, the overlapping of marks and blotches is as relevant as the void that sustains both the experience and the image.
The starting point of his pictorial and sculptural work is “intuitive choreography”, a term that condenses a methodological repetition: going out, moving about in order to return, and then tracing the route. In general, these trips outside the city seek for the body to become the means for an attentive presence in its surroundings. The wager is not on an interpretation of the natural, but rather on a singular relation that allows the general body a differential when affected by the encounter: that is, by the unpredictable. The sensation opens up and the perception responds not by precipitating the signs, but by establishing a line of interpretation, a position–with a view to being shared–about what is experienced.
Upon returning, the second part of the process begins. Thinking of production as a kind of transit, Alejandro usually works in series that allow me to explore what has been lived and experienced, while this is affected by each medium’s materials and conditions.
In painting, the limit is the color palette itself, which I select before starting. More than a representation, painting is for me a choreography that begins and ends with the body: the hand traces, but the body moves on the canvas. This emits a temporality linked to the trance between painting and memory; painting is the presence in front of the picture, while memory (of the journey that precedes the practice) is the counterpoint that builds the rhythm of the composition. In it, the overlapping of marks and blotches is as relevant as the void that sustains both the experience and the image.
Frederik Nystrup-Larsen
(Copenhagen, 1992) graduated from the MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 2020. His final exhibition was shown at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her practice is focused on an object-oriented discussion of function and aesthetics. Her conceptually informed sculptural practice always includes an underlying love for the universal rules of beauty that transcends all form and composition. Her work is marked by a transversal aesthetic approach, evident in both her sculptures and written pieces, which addresses and questions the functions of translation in relation to poetry.