Los Carpinteros: Handwork - Constructing the World | October 15, 2011 - January 22, 2012 |Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Palma
Past
Handwork - Constructing the World
Los Carpinteros (Dagoberto Rodríguez and Marco Castillo) have garnered international attention and acclaim for their watercolors, sculptures and installations by both reflecting the political reality and closed cultural context in which the work is conceived and made, while additionally addressing universal themes of the nature of art itself. They take inspiration from the physical world, particularly architecture and urban structures, furniture and design objects, tools and construction materials in order to craft works that express a visual syntax dwelling on the contradictions between object and functionality, art and the everyday, practicality and uselessness.
Despite their pseudonym Los Carpinteros (“The Carpenters”), the most prolific medium in the collective’s artistic practice are large-scale watercolor drawings meticulous studies of morphing objects, melting matters, exploding walls, all captured in seemingly timeless moments. These watercolors are in many cases blueprints to be realized as sculptures or installations. The show at Es Baluard presents watercolor drawings as well as four sculptures and installations: Cama (2007), a bed intertwined in the shape of a pretzel or resembling a highway feeder evokes the psycho-space of sleep and dream. Portaaviones(2005), a miniaturized pool, takes the shape of an aircraft carrier, complicating expectations of functionality and usability, leisure and warfare. Frío Estudio del Desastre(2005), a precise reconstruction of a wall penetrated by a missile, is freezing time at the moment of explosion and produces an uncanny stage for the visitor. Espejos de Agua(2001) consists of multiple old fashioned drawing tables covered with water that reflect the electric light of desktop lamps, creating a precarious moment where paper and materiality morphs into liquefaction and ephemeral mirrorings.
All the twisting operations at work in these installations can also be found in different variations in the watercolor studies, thus rendering visible Los Carpinteros’ poetics of a fictional reality, pending between the utopia of the imaginary and the pragmatic beauty of material construction.
Los Carpinteros (Dagoberto Rodríguez and Marco Castillo) have garnered international attention and acclaim for their watercolors, sculptures and installations by both reflecting the political reality and closed cultural context in which the work is conceived and made, while additionally addressing universal themes of the nature of art itself. They take inspiration from the physical world, particularly architecture and urban structures, furniture and design objects, tools and construction materials in order to craft works that express a visual syntax dwelling on the contradictions between object and functionality, art and the everyday, practicality and uselessness.
Despite their pseudonym Los Carpinteros (“The Carpenters”), the most prolific medium in the collective’s artistic practice are large-scale watercolor drawings meticulous studies of morphing objects, melting matters, exploding walls, all captured in seemingly timeless moments. These watercolors are in many cases blueprints to be realized as sculptures or installations. The show at Es Baluard presents watercolor drawings as well as four sculptures and installations: Cama (2007), a bed intertwined in the shape of a pretzel or resembling a highway feeder evokes the psycho-space of sleep and dream. Portaaviones(2005), a miniaturized pool, takes the shape of an aircraft carrier, complicating expectations of functionality and usability, leisure and warfare. Frío Estudio del Desastre(2005), a precise reconstruction of a wall penetrated by a missile, is freezing time at the moment of explosion and produces an uncanny stage for the visitor. Espejos de Agua(2001) consists of multiple old fashioned drawing tables covered with water that reflect the electric light of desktop lamps, creating a precarious moment where paper and materiality morphs into liquefaction and ephemeral mirrorings.
All the twisting operations at work in these installations can also be found in different variations in the watercolor studies, thus rendering visible Los Carpinteros’ poetics of a fictional reality, pending between the utopia of the imaginary and the pragmatic beauty of material construction.