Max Estrella

Bernardí Roig

19 May - 23 Jul 2011

© Bernardí Roig
Oficiales Polacos En El Claro Del Bosque, 2011
Installation
425 x 184 x 28 cm.
BERNARDÍ ROIG
19 May - 23 July, 2011

Max Estrella Gallery presents Bernardí Roig ́s exhibition Der Italianer, his first solo show in Madrid after 6 years.
The exhibition includes a number of new works (sculptures, texts, drawings and videos), all dated in 2010, where the artist reflects, through his particular image warehouse, about the representation, the disagreement, the amputation of memory, the excess of light, the lack of communication, the untranslatable, and the anxiety caused by the influences.
The narrative start of this project is the short story Der Italiener, written by Thomas Bernhard in 1963, after which he made a film in 1971, along with Ferry Radax.
This little known experimental film is a condensed mix of Bernhard ́s literary universe of moving images, where repetition, isolation, excess and exaggeration are surrounded by a terrifying coldness that bring us from the common grave to the butcher ́s, and from this to the library, and to a walk through the wood, to make us stop, finally, in a forest clearing where there are buried two dozen of Polish officers, with Bartok's string quartets as disturbing background music.
All the work developed by Bernardi Roig in recent years has occurred in the shadow of two issues: how to manage the shaker of inherited fragments, and how to create, still, a persistent image in a world full of images.
His work, heavily influenced by film and literature, has followed a route marked by a narrative and theatrical will of the space.
In this exhibition, among other works, the artist has intervened the german film Der Italiener, reducing it to half its length. He has subtitled it into Spanish (without understanding a word of German) with sentences and fragments taken literally, from his book Binissalem, published by Bonn Kunstmuseum due to his exhibition The Light-exercises series in 2006.
Binissalem collected notes in his workbooks in the form of a conversation. Two elderly characters sitting at a large window are at the epicenter of their existential boredom. This text, heavily influenced by the narrative of Bernhard, comes back now in the form of subtitles on the screen and reflects on the issues of authorship and translation, but not from a language to another, not from one medium to another, but from one head to another. Confirming that in our heads there is nothing that belongs to us anymore; maybe only the physical packaging of this cavity that is our resemblance.
In its circular development, in this case visual, the influence and the flow of contents from one head to another remain temporarily suspended and frozen in the exhibition space.

Bernardí Roig (Palma de Mallorca, 1965) has been awarded with the XXXVII Contemporary Art Prize, Princess Grace Foundation; Monte Carlo, Monaco (2003);
the Biennial of Alexandria Official Prize, Egypt (2002); the Premio Especial Pilar Juncosa y Sotheby's, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca (1997) and the Official Prize of the XXI International Biennal of Graphic Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia (1995), among others.

His solo show "The Light-Exercises Series" brought him to prestigious institutions: Salamanca Da2, Spain; Bonn Kunstmuseum, Germany; Kampa Museum, Prague, Czech Republic; PMMK (Musee d ́art Moderne de Oostende), Belgium; and Museo Carlo Bilotti, Villaborghese, Rome, Italy.

After his successful show Shadows Must Dance at the Ca'Pesaro Galleria Internazionale d'Art Moderna in Venice, coinciding with the last Biennale, Bernardí Roig has produced a new entry, Glasstress, at the Palazzo Franchetti, and TRA, the second part of In-finitum, in the Palazzo Fortuny both included on the programme of the 54th Biennale.
Foremost among his one-man shows over the last year were: Notae ad Paenitentiuam, ExChiessa di San Matteo, Lucca, Italy; El cuchillo en el ojo, Artiscope, Brussels, Belgium; Blow Up (surt de s'amagatall), Fondation Européene pour la Sculpture, ParcTournay Solvay, Brussels, Belgium; and An illuminated head for Blinky P., Galerie Brnd Kluser, Munich.
Also in 2010 his works could be seen in group shows such as Nouvi Perimetrii, Residenza Porta Nuova, Milano, Italy; Fiat LUX, MACUF, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Unión Fenosa, A Coruña, Spain; El Ángel Exterminador, BOZAR, Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels, Belgium; L.I.F. Libertad, Igualdad, Fraternidad, CAAM, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; Arte Español en la colección del IVAM, Shanghai Urban Exhibition Center, Expo 2010, Spanish Pavillon, Shanghai, China; España Contemporánea, Castell dell'Ovo, Naples; Look Up! Natural Porto Art Show, Porto.

He also participated in La Colecçao Berardo at the Centro Cultural do Belem in Lisbon and in the Zettelstraum show at Von DerHeydt-Museum in Wuppertal (both in February and March). At present the Fundación Luis Seoane and the MACUF of La Coruña are setting up two personal shows of his work for the upcoming autumn season.


His work has been exhibited in many museums and institutions in Europe and America, as CCCB in Barcelona, Museo Jacobo Borges in Caracas, MDAC in San Jose de Costa Rica, Milan Triennale, Cairo Museum, GAM in Bolonia, Palazzo Forti in Verona, The Salvador Dalí Museum in San Petersburgo, Florida, Frissiras Museum in Athens, Centre d'Art Tecla Sala in Barcelona, Zhu Qizham Museum in Shanghai, CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, The Alburquerque Museum of Art in New Mexico, The Science Museum in London, Palais des Nations ONU, Geneva, Centro Cultural La Recoleta in Buenos Aires, CDAN-Fundación Beulas in Huesca, Bergen Kunstmuseum, Sakaide Museum of Art in Kagawa, MJCL in Ljubljana, Fundación Ludwig in Havana, MACUF in A Coruña, Centre d'art Santa Monica, Barcelona, l'Espace d'Art Contemporain in Rouille Poitiers, The Teheran Museum of Contemporary Art, Ludwigsburg Kunstverein, Museum Residenzgalerie in Salzburg, MEIAC, Badajoz, CAC in Málaga, MARCO in Vigo, Galleria d'arte Moderna in Turin, CAAM in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Es Baluard in Palma de Mallorca, Kópavogur Art Museum, Kópavogur, Iceland, Monaco National Museum in Montecarlo, CAAC in Seville, Burgos Cathedral, La Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna di Venezia, Fundación Telefonica in Madrid, Palazzo Isimbardi in Milán... among others.
 

Tags: Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Bernardí Roig