Chema Alvargonzalez October 27th – November 18th Text of the video installation |
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A woman in traffic
jam... "… Why am I stuck here? I knew it … There are days where it seems as if we are condemned to the worst and still we go to get stuck in this jam… this dashboard is totally dusty. Looked at closely, dust is like velvet and this lightness actually makes it beautiful. The sounds are consistent, like the sound of waves breaking on the shore, when I close my eyes and think of this and let go, I relax, but when I start looking at faces surrounding me, then my hair stands on end. Lack of movement produces hatred, that will be the nationalisms, lack of movement. The fact to be sitting in a capsule with a pane of glass in front of me, that is not as transparent as it seems, is basically a barrier. I want to stretch my legs and can’t, I am reminded of magicians, that folded lay themselves in a box. What fear! …" |
The Spanish artist Chema Alvargonzalez has been living in Berlin since 1989. He especially works with the motive of travel. His works are in their conceptual idea stimulated by maps and the linking of geographical conditions with experiences. Here the travel into the inner of the self as a search of identity is placed next to the factual travel memories. He comprehends this search as an expedition into the uncertain and consequently sees it as an adventure.
He sets all this in the context of video projections or other tools in combination with architectural elements. In the case of this installation a pavilion, that is set in place most effectively by light. Architecture and light are elementary components of his work. Here architecture becomes a synonym for the living circumstances of modern man; and light becomes a metaphor for the inner state.
In the exhibition “Crosslinks + Passages in-between” Chema
Alvargonzalez is presenting an ensemble of a light-pavilion and two video
projections in the gallery. The light-pavilion is an open, self illuminated
space. Inside, the travel descriptions of five people can be heard on
headphones.
These people are presented in one of the two videos. They were recorded
while they were mentally re-experiencing these inner journeys. The viewer
can follow the inner reflections and their emotional effects in their
facial expressions. The verbal description via headphones and the video
projection
are shown simultaneously.
The second video projection was shot at night. In a constant search for light the camera, supposedly adjusting itself, travels through a large, illuminated harbour area.
With these two different video projections the artist consciously stages a classic Differenzverhältnis (differentiating relationship). Through this contraposition he deconstructs the personal travel experiences of the interviewed people with the classic harbour motive as the final destination of a long journey. In this specific opposition the harbour gains the additional meaning of a place of the personal search for light and thus the search for the presence of the individual person. The pavilion leads the viewer into this contraposition, focusing him on the difference between the inner and external travel description set against the harbour as a motive of yearning. The light becomes the elementary link between the different elements of the ensemble.