25 l 10 l 2011

CURATORS ANDRÉS MENGS AND VIRGINIA TORRENTE

ORGANIZED BY CA2M CENTRO DE ARTE DOS DE MAYO AND LABORAL CENTRO DE ARTE Y CREACIÓN INDUSTRIAL

ARTISTS Julio Adán; Guillem Bayo; Alberto Baraya; Luis Bisbe; Ingrid Buchwald; Carlos Bunga; Caleb Charland; David Clarkson; Björn Dahlem; Guillermo Faivovich y Nicolás Goldberg; Karlos Gil; João Maria Gusmão y Pedro Paiva; Lyn Hagan; Ilana Halperin; Kiluanji Kia Henda; Alistair McClymont; Esther Mañas y Arash Moori; Milton Marques; Rivane Neuenchswander y Cao Guimarães; O Grivo; Jorge Peris; Paloma Polo; Rubén Ramos Balsa; Ariel Schlesinger; Conrad Shawcross; Alberto Tadiello; Jan Tichy; Ben Woodeson; Raphaël Zarka

Experimental station is an exhibition that present works originated by an irrepressible urge which connect the artists to the purest part of scientific research. Departing from contemporary art pre-established guidelines, these creators share a certain fascination for extra-artistic themes, for what happens in the field of reality but also in the hereafter.

Formal research, pseudo-science, science fiction and paranormal events are the experimental domains in which they are focused and through which they materialize their work. These authors do not give up on their capacity to investigate which can outgrow the limits of artistic creation in its contemporary meaning. This research in parallel areas that embraces from reality to lie is extremely interesting and is circumscribed to a marginal circle because of its own difficult location. An artist interested in cutting-edge technology applying it to its work for an aesthetic outcome is not the same as another one involved in a research where experiment is the piece per se and thanks to this research, the artist’s study becomes a lab and a trial, error and results field.  

Both artistic and scientific device take us to places of change and discoveries whether it is with  a real purpose or an imaginary one. We’re talking about creation as an experimentation location, and in this respect, science and art have a common aspiration: to conduct experiments that question our current knowledge, to look for a new frontier.

Science and art also share a common poetry: where do they meet and where do you separate from each other? Ethics and aesthetics are concepts that divide and unite them—a convergence point that invite both the artist and the scientist to think and reflect. The latter works in a wonderful space of observation, supported by knowledge and thorough procedures in order to get and gather data. The artists get into this restricted area by a parallel way.

Throughout history, a large source of ideas investigated have lead to breakthroughs and to nothing. Utopias and failures, a commonplace in art and science.