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Chema Alvargonzalez’s
profile places light at the centre of his search, both natural
and artificial light. In his photographic images, as well as in
the suggestive
installations which he achieves, light shapes space, at the same
time revealing its value which is full of meaning. His favourite
themes are architectural and landscape visions, both urban and
those of nature. In some cases, they are people, captured in moments
of
spontaneity. Whet is important is the underlying conceptual meaning,
a meaning which generally inspires the artist to choose the image
to represent.
1960 Born in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. Works and lives in Berlin
and Barcelona.
Education: 1989-93 Masters degree in Multimedia, Hochschule der
Künste,
Berlin. 1985-88 Contemporary image process (multimedia) and studies
in painting, Escola Massana, Barcelona.
Conversation between Chema Alvargonzalez and Stefano Gualdi
German ¦ Spanish
Way of working
Stefano Gualdi A good way of understanding
an artist’s work
is to watch the artist at close hand while he or she is working,
or in other words when he or she is translating his or her ideas
and intuitions from one language to another. During this phase, theoretical
concepts and formal solutions are formulated in sufficient quantities
to reveal the artist’s intentions. For example, in your case,
I have seen that while you have been preparing the solo exhibition
in Berlin at Artinprogress, you have visibly modified the initial
project, creating new solutions that appear as a function of the
space and the use of new materials. Could you talk about your way
of working?
Chema Alvargonzalez I use intuition as
my starting point; intuition as a light that illuminates pathways
that were previously dark. With
intuition comes an idea that makes me react to a specific situation.
This is the most important stage, in that it is linked to the unknown
that lies within me, allowing all the images that I can possibly
imagine to flow spontaneously. Various elements come together in
these images : sound, movement, concrete forms that have a life
of their own, expressing their rhythms through the changes of light.
On the other hand, reason plays its part in selecting the highlights
suggested through intuition, and in making them concrete in the
form
of a piece. In this second part of the process the influence of
literature, architecture, philosophy and cinema also appear. They
are reflected
in the way in which I order the concept and the specific way in
which I reflect on the world in which I live.
Meaning of the journey
S.G. From the beginning, your work has
often taken up the theme of travel, which is evoked in various
ways by means of clouds, motorways,
suitcases and airports. What does travel mean to you? Is it fleeing
from a peaceful, but flat reality to venture along a road towards
internal knowledge, as in the films of Wenders and Salvatores?
Or alternatively, would you see adventure and the unknown with
a more
literary significance.
C.A. The suitcase, the journey and the
plane are all elements that refer to continual human transformation,
to the nomadic nature of
ideas and the deconstruction of the frontiers of philosophy.
The idea of the circle
S.G. In many of your collages, and finally
also in your digital photography, you edge parts of the image using
circular forms, which create surprising
symbolical relationships between the different objects and the
different parts of the same photograph.
C.A. The use of the circle does not have
significance as content, it is purely formal. It is a way of delineating
and dividing spaces
within the image. It is a way of transporting worlds and relating
them to one another.
Your relationship with sound
S.G. In various installations, you have
used a soundtrack, which in many cases you yourself create in relation
to the image. What
are you more interested in, the reaction of the viewer or the possibility
of creating pieces in different media?
C.A. My relationship with sound comes
from cinema. Ever since I was a child, getting to know the world
by means of cinematic and audio-visual
images has meant that I imagine the forms which I see in my mind’s
eye accompanied by a specific sound. For me, all images have a
soundtrack, even if it is a silent one. I am continuously looking
for and finding
music that I transform and apply to my works. Even my work in public
spaces has a soundtrack, the soundtrack of what surrounds them.
I like walking around them and watching how they change throughout
the day, as time passes.
The significance of ruins
S.G. Nowadays, industrial archaeology
and outlying neighbourhoods in so many cities offer you, and other
artists, an impulse to reflect
on the theme of the ruin, which was widely explored in the past
by the artists of Romanticism. What are your thoughts about this
theme?
C.A. My work on the theme of ruins is
not related to the idea of romantic ruins, but rather relates to
the idea that something has
been destroyed and has the possibility of being transformed, converting
it in this way into a generator of creative energy.
The influence of Berlin
S.G. At the end of the Eighties, you
left Spain to complete your studies in Berlin, where you have found
a lively and stimulating
artistic environment, and where you have witnessed at first hand
historic events such as the fall of the wall and the reconstruction
of the East of the city. On an artistic level, has this experience
influenced you?
C.A. The idea of change, of breaking
with the past, is one of the themes that has most attracted me
to this city. From before the wall
fell right up to the present, I have lived through a process of
constant change, of adaptation, in parallel with the transformation
happening
to the city itself, where history, politics and the actual development
of the contemporary world have become mixed. Experiencing this
process so closely has influenced my work by opening it up towards
a constant
evolution, a continual search that has strengthened my own artistic
language.
Alexanderplatz
S.G. Continuing with the theme of Berlin,
working to put together this book, we have looked at around four
thousand images from your
photographic archive, and I have noticed there are a lot of images
of the Alexanderplatz tower (Fernsehturm am Alexanderplatz) seen
from different perspectives, and in differing climatic and light
conditions.
C.A. I have been working on the idea
of the Alexanderplatz for a long time now, because I find its architecture
and the presence of
the tower in the square very seductive, with the tower as a presence
that unifies the image of the whole city, even when it was divided
by the wall.
Your relationship with architecture
S.G. Architecture is present in your
work in different ways, as historical fragment, as cultural model,
as a source of inspiration or as a mysterious
world that is still to be discovered or has not been fully explored
in terms of its infinite possibilities of expression.
C.A. I understand architecture as a phenomenon
that is related very closely to people. It is a construction which
confers scale for human
aspirations, making them either bigger or smaller. It is like a
mirror, or a reflection of the collective state of mankind, in
which constructions
represent different individuals within the great collective of
the city.
Architecture is like a great tissue that spreads like a second
form of Nature, with its own rules which give it order by marking
their
different rhythms, their different aspirations. This tissue has
two moments that are very important: day and night. The vision
of this
tissue at night is very contemporary, and this amalgamation of
lights in movement is like a metaphor for the era of communication
in which
we live. The lights of the city make it appear like the inner workings
of a large computer, where the flow of energy moves from one side
to another.
Public art projects
S.G. In addition to producing works designed
for traditional exhibition spaces, you have always carried out
a different type of research,
which is expressed in your installations for public spaces.
C.A. I work principally in a dialogue
between light, language (words), forms and urban elements. I try
to arrange the forms in such a way
that they create a dialogue with the architecture that surrounds
them, and at the same time a dialogue with the viewer who is looking
at them. When language is present, it is related to a specific
situation, it is a key that refers to the space that it occupies
and that has
an ephemeral life, but which stays in the memory by means of photographic
images. It is like a film, a transparency, which transforms the
reality that encircles it for a while and then disappears. Language,
as well
as belonging to a collective action, has its own life which provokes
in each viewer a personal and diverse association of ideas.
The power of language
S.G. I find what you are saying very
interesting. Could you clarify this concept better?
C.A. Language interests me not only because
of its meaning but also its physical form as an element that generates
different connections
in the reading of a piece.
Your relationship with light
S.G. Light, especially artificial light,
takes a central place in your work. Are you interested more in
its psychological or its aesthetic
implications?
C.A. I am interested in light as an element
of energy, as a source of illunination which allows me to make
an intervention, to say things
on an urban level, acting through my work in such a way that it
changes the form of perception between day and night. The rhythms
of the
light mark the time. Artificial light and its reflection in the
space is very important in my work.
I work a great deal in urban spaces and I use light to highlight
certain aspects of the architecture such as a window or a perimeter
fence, the hollows of a building, to establish actions in an ephemeral
way. These are commentaries on a specific situation of the architecture
itself. After a while, they disappear and remain in the memory
or as a photographic image.
The significance of colour
S.G.“No more light” but “More coloured light” the
visionary Berlin writer Paul Scheerbart affirmed in 1914. He shared
with you the passion for reflections produced by coloured glass.
Can you explain your passion?
C.A. I use colours related to their traditional
symbolic significance. Blue for spirituality, red for impulse,
attention, passion, yellow
for light and understanding. And I combine them as a function of
the internal meanings of the piece and its relationship with its
surroundings and its architecture.
Photographing your work
S.G. From the documentation of your work
with installations, often new photographic pieces are created.
I wonder if during these photographic
sessions you manage to achieve a certain distance from the initial
work?
C.A. When I’m photographing my
own pieces, I manage to distance myself from my work so that I
can see it in another way, which allows
me to construct images of it from a creative perspective rather
than a documentary one.
Forthcoming projects
S.G. Could you talk about your project
for the Swiss embassy in Berlin, on which you are working?
C.A. At the moment I am creating an installation
for the facade of the Swiss embassy in Berlin, an emblematic building
that stands between
the Reichstag and the BundesKanceramt. It is an intervention that
will last for two months. The project is based on an association
created between the works Mehr Licht (More Light) and the interplay
of blue LEDs that will illuminate the West facade of the embassy.
The words Mehr Licht (the last words attributed to Goethe before
he died) are linked with the location of the building, beside the
seat of government and other important state organisations, establishing
a dialogue with the surroundings that invites a political reflection
on the one hand, and a personal reading on the other. The current
darkness of the facade will be replaced by illumination, in the
sense both literal as well as poetic that both light and language
offer.
Translation by Jonathan Bennett
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