#Unknown Project by Javi Al Cuadrado

Carlos Primo words about the exhibition

Is it possible that someone unknown became a usual presence? Any day, some artist finds the trace of an anonymous young man who shared images of his daily life. The result of such meeting, two years later calls #unknown, a project using drawing to show the story related to a kind of visual obsession during the Instagram era. The works taking part of this series arte digital snippets chosen at random, which turn into a sort of intimate writing questioning itself about the nature of affections, obsessions and identity. So, how we can figure it out images that, as it happens with any autobiography, constitute a fiction practice?  How we can coexist with them?

The origin of the first individual exhibition at the La New Gallery by Javi Al Cuadrado (Madrid, 1978) dates back two 2013. While he was looking for a project based on those self-portraits invading the social networks, the artist realized that there was a more recurrent face in his selections. It was about Instagram by a young Spanish resident in Berlin. The content of his images, as it occurs with so many others, was in the middle of selfie and costumbrismo (a genre related to local customs). Sergio –that was the name that appeared in his profile- took a picture of himself before the mirror, while he was taking a breakfast, smoking, taking a sun bath or just posing in Parks and urban spaces chosen at random. It seemed something casual but it was implicit a concern related to aesthetic and also seduction. So, Javi AL Cadruado set out to provide a replica: as that young man took picture of himself every day, he would draw him also every day and in a continuous manner.  

What it started like a game turned into a systematic artistic practice that it was becoming increasingly complex. How the artist could know by memory the facial features of some unknown person for him, appreciate his daily changes, read his physiognomy and goes beyond the plain feature related images only conceived as surface? The answer is the visual obsession the artist has. The fact of daily making the same gesture (drawing images of a unknown person) turned into something unexpected, that is the awareness of the vulnerably  itself as an spectator.

Any way, it is about an exhibition presented for the first time through a device specifically designed for the rooms at the New Gallery. That is the vulnerability and its relations with nature of affections, obsessions and identity. The Javi Al Cuadrado’s technique, a kind of drawing using many pens to recreate weaves linked to the traditional practices of engraving influence in the same field. It is a constant work and physically demanding, a labor closer to craftsmanship than an impulsive creation. The objective here is not about a great show of intentions or principles but proving that the images, in some occasions, affect the creator more than expected. In that case it is possible to talk before the audience to remind them that the fact of looking is not an innocuous act.

Opening: March 11 at 20:00 pm local time