ARTIUM presents the exhibition This Is Not The End, by Ignasi Aballí

Exhibition
This Is Not The End. Ignasi Aballí
Inauguration: Friday, May 4, 8 PM
Lower East Gallery, from May 5 to September 2, 2012
Curator: François Piron
Catalogue with texts by François Piron, Dora García, Louis Luthi
Exhibition produced by ARTIUM (Vitoria-Gasteiz)
With the sponsorship of Euskaltel, the Institut Ramón Llull and the Provincial Council of Alava
Saturday May 5 and Sunday, May 6 (inaugural weekend), entry with "You decide" ticket.
More information    Press release (pdf)

ARTIUM, Basque Centre-Museum of Contemporary Art presents the exhibition This Is Not The End, by Ignasi Aballí (Lower East Gallery, from May 5 to September 2, 2012). The exhibition consists of a set of newly produced works with pieces created by the artist over the last 10 years, the majority belonging to some of his extensive series. However, as the title suggests, this is not meant to be a retrospective exhibition. In these pieces, Aballí manifests his interest in concepts such as time, the invisible, colour, cinema, literature and the relationship between image and language. The exhibition includes a catalogue with texts by François Piron, Dora García and Louis Luthi. Curated by Piron, This Is Not The End is produced by ARTIUM (Vitoria-Gasteiz), with the sponsorship of Euskaltel, the Instituto Ramón Llull and the Provincial Council of Alava.

The work of Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958) represents a permanent reflection on the relationship between artistic creation and everyday life, especially those elements that are not perceived but form part of our daily lives. This Is Not The End, his new exhibition at ARTIUM, presents some 30 works belonging to a number of different series, in a gallery designed in the form of a silent labyrinth, closed and apparently detached from the exterior but in which the conditions referred to in many of his works are also present. The exhibition proposes that visitors look beyond appearances, read between the lines, search beyond the visible world. Aballí is one of our best-known artists both at a national and international level. Linked to the realm of conceptual creation, he has presented one-man shows in Madrid, Barcelona, Oporto, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, Birmingham and Los Angeles.

In the first space, the visitor also finds two of Aballí's works that have never seen before. On the one hand, the ephemeral Personas features the reiterated impression, superimposed on the gallery wall of footsteps impregnated with dust extracted from the air conditioning and section systems of ARTIUM and the Montehermoso Cultural Centre, among other places. This element has a permanent presence in our daily lives and only on specific occasions is it visible to the human eye. The artist also calls our attention to the fact that domestic dust consists mainly of dead human skin cells. The second piece is the one that provides the exhibition with its title, a video projection which, in spite of its apparent invariability, seeks the expectation of person who sees it. Here the artist expresses his interest in the cinema, image and language.

The Tomar medidas series is present at all times, from the entrance to the exhibition itself and in the different areas in which it is distributed. A number of different electronic measuring devices presented in glass cases allude to the idea of the invisible – those things that the human eye cannot see but which nonetheless the body is aware of: The wind, time, sound, radiation, composition, temperature and air humidity, atmospheric pressure, and so on. In the transition to the second space, one finds Prólogo/Epílogo, a piece that, like others by Aballí, makes the absent present.

The invisible is also the essential feature in Niebla, a series of landscape photographs hidden by this atmospheric phenomenon, as well as Entre líneas, pieces in which he photographs the space between printed lines. In the same space one can find a work from the series Objects in Mirror (Smaller), as well as a new video film entitled Words Without Pictures.

The next space in the labyrinth is the largest in the exhibition. In it, the large glass cases that Aballí has worked on over recent years can be found. Next to Vitrina (Glass Architecture), in which one can see the printed pages from a book on the use of glass in architecture, Vitrina (Verde) and Vitrinas CMYK can be found. These are works in which the artist focuses his interest in colour. The last of these, for example, consists of four glass cases featuring the colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black, the combination of which is known as the four-colour printing process and from which it is possible to obtain any other colour. This same space also contains eight pieces from the series Papel moneda, which Aballí creates with shredded euro notes, which also hint at multiple readings: every day life, what is imperceptible at first sight, colour, and so on. A large size glass case contains Polvo (Gris), once again a work created with particles extracted from the air conditioning systems of ARTIUM and Montehermoso.

Next, visitors can find two video productions, Pictures Without Words, of a similar nature to the two previous works, and Reflexion (Passion), with which Aballí explores both the language of cinema and his interest in reflection as a creative instrument. Just in front of the latter piece, there is, precisely, a second work from the series Objects in Mirror (Further). At the end of the exhibition, the artist presents one of these latest works, the video entitled Film Projector, together with a series Index (páginas), linked to Prólogo/Epílogo, which is found at the beginning of the exhibition.
 

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