Miel de abeja exhibition by Nono Bandera

Miel de abeja is the last title of the 7^th individual exhibition by NONO BANDERA at the Espacio Mínimo Gallery, which presents 14 works recently created from its series Love Letters, started in 2013 and that it has continued increasing since then. Formally, this series comes from previous works. The Patchworks, painted in oils, that the artist took up again mixing love letters and old manuscripts, in which he displays his particular universe full of irony. In this kind of work with old pieces of papers and pieces of used canvas, the presence of opposite concepts flows as a plot. In it, the artist faced the sacred with the profane thing and he questions the division between low and high culture.

As Susana Cendán wrote in the text of the catalogue of her exhibition titled "500 m2 de lienzo y 300 kilos de pintura”, Nono uses paintings and drawings that already exist to work with them and provide new readings about them. I do not think that his attitude has to do with nihilistic tiredness for something already done. Actually, Nono selects, choose and combines but with an interest in enjoy the creative act and he got surprised for his capacity to change things and turn them into new and mysterious realities.

The NONO BANDERA work is enriched by vital circumstances and experiences that have marked his life, so his photographic sources and also those increasing his emotional part, are varied. These works show in some cases the popular art that are sold in furniture stores, the old illustrations of scientific treatments, the black novel and the science fiction, the double sense games and the history of art understood like an effect of continuous rewriting like in the case of the work with the same title of the exhibition, in which the members of a family who are kneed on a Teresa Lanceta’s carpet say some phrases from the Fluxus movement.

According to the artist, in a text of the same catalogue aforementioned, throughout the history id art, there have always been three recurrent themes: life, love, and death, as three unfathomable mysteries. Certainly, when telling something interesting about these tree issues, you need to know what others have said in order to try do not repeat the same. Anyway, we should ask ourselves whether the art is only composed of great deal of love, life and death. Does the art is –according to Machel Duchamp- like a game among the men in all times, by any chance?

NONO BANDERA (Málaga, 1958) studied in Madrid and Mexico D.F and he is a permanent professor for the Faculty of BBAA in Pontevedra. He often exhibits in private galleries, as well as foreign and Spanish public institutions, and has participated in different international art fairs such as ARCO in Madrid, FRIEZE ART FAIR in London, ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH in Miami, ZonaMACO in Mexico DF, ARTISSIMA in Turin, CIGE in Beijing, SH Contemporary in Shanghai. His work is represented in important public and private collections like MNCARS (Centro de Arte Reina Sofía of Madrid National Museum); Zabludowicz Art Collection (Londres); CAC (Center of Contemporary Art of Málaga); Deutsche Bank Collection (Fráncfort, Germany); Benetton Foundation (Ponzano Veneto, Italy); Musuem of the Academy of San Carlos (México DF).