Posts filed under 'Miscellaneous'
After his recent participation in the collective show “Tras la pared“, El tono, and now also his artistic companion, Nuria (more about both of them here: www.eltono.com), two of the most international street artist from Madrid, opened yesterday, thursday 12/1/06, their new exhibition “(x, y, z)” at the Vacío9 gallery (General Castaños 5, Madrid).
In this show, the duo has centered on their work in 3D. Nuria, whose work usually revolves around abstractions of a security key, has built a gigantic, almost intimidating, key structure in the middle of the space. El tono, on the other hand, has built 3 smaller tridimensional “tonos” (abstractions of tuning forks).
El Tono, had already constructed “tono” sculptures in the past. The first that we know of was his “Motonorista” installation in Subaquatica. Later he built the “politonos”, cardboard colored sculptures that he installed in the street. A video of that “experiment” is shown at this exhibition.
Photography by: Jorge Domínguez
Photography by: Jorge Domínguez
Decorating the walls of the gallery you can also find the traditional paintings of Nuria and Tono. It’s not very usual to see these paintings indoors since they only create them for their street interventions but the apparent contradiction is solved by making these forms emerge from windows and the chimeny as if they were coming from the outside, curiously taking a peek at their new 3D brothers.
January 13th, 2006 01:39pm
Administrador
An old acquaintance of the house, designer, artist and careful observer of the urban surroundings, Javier Abarca, has recently created a webiste that we strongly recommend that you visit: www.pifostio.org. The site contains a superb collection of pictures, taken over the years, depicting a multitude of bizarre visual elements from the streets of Madrid. Through these pictures Javier Abarca has captured commercial signs, garbage containers, and basic forms of street advertising in which the artistisc aspirations of the anonymous people behind them are visible although most of the time, quite far from what we could call aesthetic correctness. And that’s precisely the point. What’s new in the visual elements that we can find around our cities created by advertising agencies, design studios or creative departments of the big brands, companies and institutions?
My favourite section if definitely the garbage containers one. I find quite amazing the artistic intentions and care of the apartment houses managers, small shop owners or restaurant employees when labeling the containers when this in fact should be a pretty much functional and unimportant task.
Also recommended is another of Javier Abarca latest projects: “No compres”, mixture of urban intervention, photography and Net Art?? that I’d rather not try to explain so I don’t spoil the effect. Simply go there: www.manklared.com/nocompres and follow the order of the pictures.
January 5th, 2006 01:09pm
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Recently opened at the Annta Gallery in Madrid, the collective show “Tras la pared” is one of the first ocassions on which one space from the circuit of the more established and traditional art galleries in Madrid exhibit the work of street artists. In this ocassion the artists that have participated are Sixe, El tono, Nano4814, San and Pilar Soler. Some of them are good friends and frequent collaborators of Subaquatica. If you happen to be in Madrid the exhibition is worth a visit and it clearly shows that this is not the first time these artists, used to display their work on the streets, face the challenge of a indoors exhibit.
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We are certanly familiar with the difficulty, not only practical but also theorical and almost ethical, that implies for this kind of artists to exhibit not simply in a indoors space but also an art gallery where their work intends to be sold. The rebelious and altruistic attitude of an artist that displays his work on the streets is somehow contradictory of the commercial logic of an art gallery. But street artists also have to pay the rent. Their professional development can come in the form of collaborations for brand events looking to jump into the experiential marketing bandwagon, or their work as illustrator, graphic designers or motion graphics artist. But also as artists in the traditional sense of those who sell their work in art galleries. The problem, obviously, comes when the artists has to decide how its outside, non-commercial activities relate and differ from their commercial indors work.
El tono
El tono
In public and non commercial art spaces or museums and with exhibitions such as “Beautiful Losers” or the “Ill Communication” exhibits at the Urbis Museum (Manchester, UK), installations seem to be the way to go but when those pieces of art have to be sold, as is the case with art galleries, the approach apparently has to be of a different kind. Exactly as with video artists or conceptual ones who mostly do installations, there are some kinds of artworks that fail to fit into the traditional idea of the fetish-object canvas that you can hang on a wall. Sometimes the solution is to combine elements that, althought they might be for sale, will rarely be sold with drawings, canvases, etc… This is the case, for instance, of the Nano4814 contribution to the “Tras la pared” exhibit.
Nano4814
Nano4814
In any case, the success or failure of the proposal doesn’t relate only to how this problem is adressed by the artist but also by the consistency of his discourse and (such a slippery concept as) his talent. In that sense, we believe that the “Tras la pared” is not a definitive answer to these issues, that we don’t really expect to see anytime soon (the fun would be over), but a fine sample of the current state of things.
San
By the way, one the artists that participate in this show, Sixeart, will have his first solo exhibition in Madrid at our own Subaquatica space in Madrid starting Feb 2nd 2006.
Sixeart
TRAS LA PARED
Sixeart + Nano4814 + San + Pilar + El tono
15/12/2005 - 4/2/2006
ANNTA Gallery
Altamirano 46, 28008 Madrid. SPAIN
December 24th, 2005 11:32am
Administrador
A couple of weeks ago we had the opening for the joint show of french artists 3TTMAN and REMED. You can find more info about this exhibition and these artists here
If you came by already, we hope you liked it and if not, feel free to drop by and take a look at their work if you are in Madrid before it closes at the end of January.
December 16th, 2005 09:37pm
Administrador
Welcome to Subaquatica’s new website. Here you can find some basic info like Who we are, What we do, Where we are…. Also, for those of you that are already familar with us, there’s big news: This thursday Dec 1st 2005 we’ll be celebrating the opening of our first artist show by french duo 3TTMAN & REMED. Under the “Shows at our gallery” section you can find some more information about this show and in the future about past ones.
However the most dynamic section of this website will be the main page and the entries that, like this one and with a blog format, will keep you updated on our new activities, new products at our Madrid and online shop or simply assorted news and thoughts that we find interesting.
Besides all that and the artists shows every 2 months, one artist or collective will be invited every month to design the header for this site and will also be interviewed here. Our first guest artists are the MENTARY BROTHERS. Often these guest artists will be ones that develop their work partly or totally on the streets and often they won’t be very popular but they will always respond to a high quality standard, according to our own very particular taste, that is.
Thanks for your time already.
P.S: Sometimes posts/entries will give you the possibility to leave a comment. We hope that your POLITE comments will contribute to a more interesting website.
November 30th, 2005 12:57am
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