Francisco Ruiz de Infante
19 Sep - 19 Nov 2009
FRANCISCO RUIZ DE INFANTE
"Díptico Animal / Laboratorio de Sincronizaciones"
September 19 - November 19, 2009
The Elba Benítez Gallery is pleased to launch the new season with an exhibition of Díptico Animal, an installation created by Francisco Ruiz de Infante.
Díptico Animal takes as its point of departure the theme of enclosure, emblemized by the recurring motif of the cage. Cages appear literally and metaphorically throughout the complex installation, ranging from physical constructions of wood and steel-mesh to disturbing video images of caged dogs to omnipresent perceptual suggestions of obstruction and limitation. These multiplying spaces, real and implied, serve to blur the difference between interior and exterior within the fixed space of the gallery, inducing in the spectator a visceral yet ambiguous sensorial experience. At the same time, Díptico Animal insistently posits questions of access, limits, continuity and connectivity, ultimately leading to a critical examination of how all meaning involves some form of enclosure.
For Díptico Animal the gallery has been divided into two distinct spaces –a laboratory-like ‘production zone’ and a screening-room-like ‘broadcast zone’– connected via a hole roughly broken in the wall that divides them. Upon entering the gallery the visitor encounters in the ‘broadcast zone’ a video-projection of a crowded kennel of hunting-dogs barking as they wait to be fed. Confined to their pens, the well-trained, carefully-bred and almost clone-like creatures exist in an uneasy condition of borderline violence and stasis that is further underscored by Ruiz de Infante’s manipulation of the video itself, whose flow is relentlessly interrupted and obstructed.
In contrast to the openness of the ‘broadcast zone’, the adjoining ‘production zone’ –from which the video is projected– is cluttered with audio-visual equipment, functional furniture, cables, lights, videos and live and pre-recorded sound sources, all presented in Ruiz de Infante’s signature aesthetic of “emergency bricolage” that embeds advanced technology within unassuming store-bought objects. Despite the initial appearance of arbitrary or random placement, in fact all the elements are tightly interwoven and interconnected into an intricate and seamless whole, to the point where they form a network that simultaneously bars the spectator from full access while paradoxically demanding that same spectator’s presence for completion and genuine ‘closure.’ This inter-connectedness, which extends to the entirely of Díptico Animal, is indeed the driving principal within all Ruiz de Infante’s work.
Díptico Animal forms part of Ruiz de Infante’s ongoing project Blue Sky of Death, (2008 - present) and displays the artist’s characteristic working method of contrasting opposed dualities –process versus product, advanced technology versus bricolage, control versus improvisation, information versus suggestion– while transforming the spectator from passive viewer to active participant. Above all, Díptico Animal displays Ruiz de Infante’s ability to infuse a rigorous analytic framework with an assured and highly developed poetic sensibility.
Francisco Ruiz de Infante (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1966), a leading video and installation artist of his generation, has exhibited at the Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, La Panera (Lleida), ZKM (Karlsruhe), the Guggenheim-Bilbao Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and many other venues internationally. His work forms part of permanent collections at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée d ́Art Contemporain of Montreal, the Musée de Arte Contemporain of Zurich, Musac (León) and elsewhere. Ruiz de Infante lives in Auberive, France and is teaches at the École Supérieure Des Arts Décoratifs of Strasbourg (ESAC).
Ruiz de Infante’s installation Puzzle is currently on view in the exhibition “Máquinas de Mirar” at CAAC in Sevilla.
George Stolz
"Díptico Animal / Laboratorio de Sincronizaciones"
September 19 - November 19, 2009
The Elba Benítez Gallery is pleased to launch the new season with an exhibition of Díptico Animal, an installation created by Francisco Ruiz de Infante.
Díptico Animal takes as its point of departure the theme of enclosure, emblemized by the recurring motif of the cage. Cages appear literally and metaphorically throughout the complex installation, ranging from physical constructions of wood and steel-mesh to disturbing video images of caged dogs to omnipresent perceptual suggestions of obstruction and limitation. These multiplying spaces, real and implied, serve to blur the difference between interior and exterior within the fixed space of the gallery, inducing in the spectator a visceral yet ambiguous sensorial experience. At the same time, Díptico Animal insistently posits questions of access, limits, continuity and connectivity, ultimately leading to a critical examination of how all meaning involves some form of enclosure.
For Díptico Animal the gallery has been divided into two distinct spaces –a laboratory-like ‘production zone’ and a screening-room-like ‘broadcast zone’– connected via a hole roughly broken in the wall that divides them. Upon entering the gallery the visitor encounters in the ‘broadcast zone’ a video-projection of a crowded kennel of hunting-dogs barking as they wait to be fed. Confined to their pens, the well-trained, carefully-bred and almost clone-like creatures exist in an uneasy condition of borderline violence and stasis that is further underscored by Ruiz de Infante’s manipulation of the video itself, whose flow is relentlessly interrupted and obstructed.
In contrast to the openness of the ‘broadcast zone’, the adjoining ‘production zone’ –from which the video is projected– is cluttered with audio-visual equipment, functional furniture, cables, lights, videos and live and pre-recorded sound sources, all presented in Ruiz de Infante’s signature aesthetic of “emergency bricolage” that embeds advanced technology within unassuming store-bought objects. Despite the initial appearance of arbitrary or random placement, in fact all the elements are tightly interwoven and interconnected into an intricate and seamless whole, to the point where they form a network that simultaneously bars the spectator from full access while paradoxically demanding that same spectator’s presence for completion and genuine ‘closure.’ This inter-connectedness, which extends to the entirely of Díptico Animal, is indeed the driving principal within all Ruiz de Infante’s work.
Díptico Animal forms part of Ruiz de Infante’s ongoing project Blue Sky of Death, (2008 - present) and displays the artist’s characteristic working method of contrasting opposed dualities –process versus product, advanced technology versus bricolage, control versus improvisation, information versus suggestion– while transforming the spectator from passive viewer to active participant. Above all, Díptico Animal displays Ruiz de Infante’s ability to infuse a rigorous analytic framework with an assured and highly developed poetic sensibility.
Francisco Ruiz de Infante (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1966), a leading video and installation artist of his generation, has exhibited at the Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, La Panera (Lleida), ZKM (Karlsruhe), the Guggenheim-Bilbao Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and many other venues internationally. His work forms part of permanent collections at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée d ́Art Contemporain of Montreal, the Musée de Arte Contemporain of Zurich, Musac (León) and elsewhere. Ruiz de Infante lives in Auberive, France and is teaches at the École Supérieure Des Arts Décoratifs of Strasbourg (ESAC).
Ruiz de Infante’s installation Puzzle is currently on view in the exhibition “Máquinas de Mirar” at CAAC in Sevilla.
George Stolz