언어의그늘_스페인현대미술특별전 리뷰

Spanish collection marks relations with Korea

 

Spain has much more than just its incredible World Cup-winning soccer players. Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, better known as MACBA, is another of Spain’s sources of pride.

Established in 1995, MACBA has a rather short history compared to other prestigious national art museums around the world. But thanks to MACBA founder and director Bartomeu Mari’s foresight, MACBA soon became one of the world’s most acclaimed museums specializing in conceptual art.

“The Shadow of Speech” exhibition, currently underway at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, is offering visitors the chance to see 138 brilliant conceptual art pieces by 68 European artists, straight from the MACBA collection. The exhibition is celebrating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Spain and Korea.

“Speech signifies that one is alive. But before it is spoken, language cannot make shadows by itself because it cannot be seen, like air. It can only make shadows when it is spoken,” said Mari at the opening ceremony of the exhibition.

The exhibition implies that language can be spoken not only through speech but also through artworks, movies and more. Most exhibits have little twists that either make visitors laugh or deepen the intended message.

Divided into eight divisions ― “It Starts In Poetry,” “Towards Writing,” “Towards Another Geometry,” “Towards Actionism,” “The Political Action,” “Media And Power,” “The Future Of Cinema”and “Theatre And Play” ― the exhibition invites visitors to see an array of paintings, installations and media art. These can all be considered results and shadows of speech ― in a unique European way of thinking, the organizers said.

“Construction of the Matrix” by Francesc Torres                                                                    MACBA

The first three divisions showcase works that are literally about language and speech. Marcel Broodthaers, a Belgian artist and poet, visualized poetry by coloring the words in poems black and merged old fashion 16mm film in another work to criticize poetry.

Tapies Antoni, a renowned Spanish informalism artist, expressed a profound message about the components of words through his metaphorical work “Cross and R” in which most of its materials ― sand, fabric, stones, paint and pencil traces ― are in their original state and visible on the canvas.

It is in the “Towards Actionism” section that the exhibition starts to get extra philosophical. Some Spanish artists seem to be still affected by the trauma of the dictatorial Franco regime which took place in Spain from 1938 to 1978.

“Vassels: Worship of the Mother” by Eulalia Valldosera                                                                                            MACBA

Francesc Torres’ work “Construction of the Matrix,” which was first shown at the 1976 Venice Biennale, is a good example of the influence of the regime.

Torres built a small hill made of sand, rocks and empty bullet shells to symbolize the regime. A bible, which the regime was established upon, and the Communist Manifesto, which the regime was strongly opposed to, each lay open under lamps on opposing slopes. The most astonishing part of the work is the faint silhouette of a fetus projected on the hill, just below a pair of dangling scissors.

“The time was when the Franco regime was about to collapse and new things were about to begin. The fetus, which symbolizes the future of the nation, was to be born as soon as its umbilical cord was cut off, but no one was sure what it would be like,” said Kang Soo-jung, curator of the exhibition.

Another Spanish artist Reimundo Patino resisted the dictatorship by painting a cartoon titled “The Man whoSpoke Vegliota” using the Galician language which was forbidden in Spain at the time. The painting, of course, could not be shown in public back then.

“You can see that, in a way, Spain and Korea have a very similar history,” said Kang.

A less serious but also a meaningful piece is “Vassels: Worship of the Mother” by Eulalia Valldosera in the “Theatre And Play” section.

Valldosera created shadows that appear like female silhouettes by placing detergents in front of beam projectors. Her whimsical way of lining up different sized bottles to express a mother getting fatter as she ages and weakens through time makes visitors realize that the very items women use when doing housework resembles their figures.

The exhibition runs through Oct. 3 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province. Tickets range from 2,500 won to 5,000 won. For more information, call (02) 2188-6114 or visit www.moca.go.kr.

By Park Min-young  (claire@heraldm.com)