The career of artist Abraham Lacalle (Almería, 1962) begins at the end of the Eighties, and to date he has had numerous collective and individual exhibitions, mainly in Madrid and New York. In his work constant - ironic and sarcastic - references to the most important art and literary movements that emerge throughout the 20th century can be strongly discerned.
For the artist, the title of the exhibition, Un lugar donde nunca sucede nada (A Place Where Nothing Happens), refers to the “self”, a person's place of consciousness in keeping with the French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's idea that the “self” is the illness of the West. Therefore, the “self” is a room that is in constant failure, full of mechanisms for overcoming fear.
The theme linked to the “self” is a metaphor for the reality seen from the archaeology of the intimate, and represents the backbone of Lacalle's work and his bizarre creative spaces, for instance the cells and airports that work in his pictorial compositions. Through literary genres, another disciplines he nurtures, the same kind of references are developed.
The project Lacalle devises for Espacio Uno involves the creation of an al fresco painting on one of the walls of the exhibition spaces. For this piece, which lasts for a total of three weeks, he relies upon the collaboration of students from the School of Arts and Crafts in La Palma.
The artist highlights that the fresco painting technique is considered the most appropriate for the space given that it is characterised and distinguished because it is attached to the wall and is only produced by being incorporated into the space and architecture. This pictorial technique, traditionally associated with permanence, ironically clashes with the ephemeral nature of the work since the final destination of the project is destruction once the exhibition comes to a close.
Lacalle's work, which fills a large 5 x 10 metre wall, is composed by an iconographic sequence divided into six pieces, or scenes, in a non-liner narration. Symbols and geometric and figurative elements appear through various chromatic ranges of colour, resulting in a spirited piece full of irony that has its own code of meanings formed by the integration of multiple references.
Exhibition´s details
Museo Reina Sofía Publications
