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TIED UP TO THE TABLE’S LEG
31January
News

TIED UP TO THE TABLE’S LEG

Madrid: The Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M) will open on Feb. 1 Tied Up to the Table’s Leg, by Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto, an exhibit commissioned by Ferran Barenblit, the institution’s director.

 

The monographic sample –the first ever dedicated to this artist in a Spanish museum- gathers many of his most recent works, plus a considerable number or works specially made for this project.

 

The press release sent to our news agency reports that the artist will carry out some actions around the title piece, including a helicopter and a table. Everything happens around these two elements during a full hour (on the opening day) while a video of that performance will be shown to the public later on.

 

The press release indicates that the action introduces common elements in many of his works: conceptual solidity, narrative briefness, lack of superfluous elements, insistent references to artistic practice, a delicate sense of humor, two-way semantic games and a poetic that shares persistence and subtleness on an even keel. The exposition creates a narrative of its own through dozens of pieces that stand in contrast with their alleged daily use. They are, though, thoroughly reproduced; some of them are extremely short-lived, like ponds of several liquids. Others, however, defy concept commonly accepted within the contemporary arts and ask a multitude of questions on art itself and its condition as a peculiar human creation.

 

On this exhibit, Barenblit wrote in its catalog: “It’s not easy to write a text for a catalog on Wilfredo Prieto and manage to say something new. In his intense career, those who have written about him have tried to spell out through different words the amazing humbleness of his work. Gerardo Mosquera underscores his text for Art Nexus […] with the following formula ‘net idea + simple work = maximum meaning’. Jacob Fabricius, for his part, compares his way of creating art with the act of breathing –nothing can be more nonmaterial, yet more indispensable. Cuauhtemoc Medina speaks of creation as a ‘self-referential emptiness.’ In a word, each and every one points at conceptual solidity, narrative briefness, lack of superfluous elements, insistent references to artistic practice, a delicate sense of humor, two-way semantic games and a poetic that shares persistence and subtleness on an even keel. As a last resort, it’s all about drawing a straighter line between the original idea and its formalization.”

 

Wilfredo Prieto (Sancti Spiritus, 1978) graduated from the Havana Higher Institute of Art in 2002. He’s exposed at SMAK in Gante; the Kadist Art Foundation in Paris; Castello di Rivoli in Turin and the biennials in Singapore, 2005; Venice, 2007; Jaffa, 2009; São Paulo, 2010).

 

As part of the exhibition, CA2M will organize a meeting with the artist on March 31 and that same day Prieto will start a workshop that will stretch out till April 1. The closing of Tied Up to the Table’s Leg is scheduled for April 24.

 

Source: Press Release

CA2M, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo

Avenida Constitución, 23

Móstoles, Madrid

ca2m@madrid.org

www.ca2m.org