Juan López
24 Jan - 14 Mar 2015
JUAN LÓPEZ
Text Y Tura
24 January – 14 March 2015
NoguerasBlanchard is pleased to present a second solo exhibition of Spanish artist Juan López (Alto Maliaño, 1979).
Juan López’s work explores the aesthetic possibilities of the urban environment. Informed by a profound interest in associating language as it evolves on the street with the various artistic codes within the scope of the private and the institutional, his interventions propose a round-trip journey introducing the urban space within the exhibition venue and making a point of contact between the exterior and interior. Fusing together found and invented imagery, his work describes a kind of urban poetry, underlined by its ironic rather than utopian nature.
This exhibition emphasizes the artist’s interest in language. Most of Juan López’s projects involve a linguistic game, incorporating advertising messages, slogans and street signs into his word-play. The work’s titles for instance reveal how fundamental the engagement with the semiotic system of language is to Lopez’s practice. Here, the exhibition’s title refers to the words text andtexture, which when read together convey a whole new meaning (the word tesitura, denotes a specific situation or to be at a particular juncture).
López maintains a close dialogue with architecture. The works featured in TEXT Y TURA are created through the artist’s direct engagement with the gallery space, focusing on specific architectural details. Whereas in previous projects López’s monumental wall drawings using adhesive tape and vinyl have visually and conceptually opened up and manipulated architectural spaces, here his work shifts towards a more direct and sculptural intervention, generating a new perception of reality that responds to his interest in simulation, through distorting volumes or textures. For Juan López, architecture represents a solid, stagnant and immobile structure, which he aims to alter and recompose into new constellations.
The work CONTRA (2015) shows the corrosive effect of a sand-blasting machine against the surface of the gallery wall. Layers of paint have been eroded in an action carried out by the artist, to expose the word that gives the work its title. This type of equipment is used in the removal of paint and graffiti from buildings. In this case the intention is not to clean but rather, to mark the wall in a process of drawing through erasing. The type font is based on the negative of a decorative ornament located on a pipe within the gallery, establishing a relationship between architecture and typographic design.
At the centre of the space, the work OVER (2015) – a pun with the words over and the Spanish word movement – simulates the movement of one of the concrete blocks in the gallery’s supporting column. A captivating game of sculptural perception and visual illusion, this work draws attention to the concept of simulation related to the impossibility of modifying the established. This minimal three-dimensional gesture recalls previous works where the idea of movement causes a feeling of a destabilizing architecture, suggesting demolition. Commenting on the immutable quality of systems, forces and assumptions that structure our society and our experience, López alters, re-invents and ultimately re-constructs, in a form of poetic resistance.
Juan López lives and works in Madrid, Spain.
Solo exhibitions include: Thisorder, Project FRI:rum, Den Frie. Copenhagen, Denmark (2014);Ruinas Graves, ABC Museum, Madrid, Spain (2014); Between Walls. South Florida Art Center, Miami, USA (2013); The Space Invades, OK Centrum. Linz, Austria (2012); A la derriba, Centro de Arte La Panera, Lleida, Spain (2012); Tokyo Story 2010, Aoyama, TWS, Tokyo, Japan (2011);Hoy no aspiro a nada, Espai 13. Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona, Spain (2008). Group exhibitions include: Destinazione Piazza, Sardinia, Italy (2014); Panorama. Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain (2014); Generaciones 2013, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain (2013); Art Situations, A prospective look, Museo Patio Herreriano. Valladolid, Spain (2012); Regeneration: place, landscape and memory, Sofia Arsenal Museum for Contemporary Art, Bulgaria (2011); The 24 Steps and Joan Miró, National Museum of the Republic, Brasilia (2010); Interventions Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile (2010); AUTO. Dream and Matter, LABORAL Center for Art and Industrial Creation, Gijon and CA2M, Madrid, Spain (2009).
Text Y Tura
24 January – 14 March 2015
NoguerasBlanchard is pleased to present a second solo exhibition of Spanish artist Juan López (Alto Maliaño, 1979).
Juan López’s work explores the aesthetic possibilities of the urban environment. Informed by a profound interest in associating language as it evolves on the street with the various artistic codes within the scope of the private and the institutional, his interventions propose a round-trip journey introducing the urban space within the exhibition venue and making a point of contact between the exterior and interior. Fusing together found and invented imagery, his work describes a kind of urban poetry, underlined by its ironic rather than utopian nature.
This exhibition emphasizes the artist’s interest in language. Most of Juan López’s projects involve a linguistic game, incorporating advertising messages, slogans and street signs into his word-play. The work’s titles for instance reveal how fundamental the engagement with the semiotic system of language is to Lopez’s practice. Here, the exhibition’s title refers to the words text andtexture, which when read together convey a whole new meaning (the word tesitura, denotes a specific situation or to be at a particular juncture).
López maintains a close dialogue with architecture. The works featured in TEXT Y TURA are created through the artist’s direct engagement with the gallery space, focusing on specific architectural details. Whereas in previous projects López’s monumental wall drawings using adhesive tape and vinyl have visually and conceptually opened up and manipulated architectural spaces, here his work shifts towards a more direct and sculptural intervention, generating a new perception of reality that responds to his interest in simulation, through distorting volumes or textures. For Juan López, architecture represents a solid, stagnant and immobile structure, which he aims to alter and recompose into new constellations.
The work CONTRA (2015) shows the corrosive effect of a sand-blasting machine against the surface of the gallery wall. Layers of paint have been eroded in an action carried out by the artist, to expose the word that gives the work its title. This type of equipment is used in the removal of paint and graffiti from buildings. In this case the intention is not to clean but rather, to mark the wall in a process of drawing through erasing. The type font is based on the negative of a decorative ornament located on a pipe within the gallery, establishing a relationship between architecture and typographic design.
At the centre of the space, the work OVER (2015) – a pun with the words over and the Spanish word movement – simulates the movement of one of the concrete blocks in the gallery’s supporting column. A captivating game of sculptural perception and visual illusion, this work draws attention to the concept of simulation related to the impossibility of modifying the established. This minimal three-dimensional gesture recalls previous works where the idea of movement causes a feeling of a destabilizing architecture, suggesting demolition. Commenting on the immutable quality of systems, forces and assumptions that structure our society and our experience, López alters, re-invents and ultimately re-constructs, in a form of poetic resistance.
Juan López lives and works in Madrid, Spain.
Solo exhibitions include: Thisorder, Project FRI:rum, Den Frie. Copenhagen, Denmark (2014);Ruinas Graves, ABC Museum, Madrid, Spain (2014); Between Walls. South Florida Art Center, Miami, USA (2013); The Space Invades, OK Centrum. Linz, Austria (2012); A la derriba, Centro de Arte La Panera, Lleida, Spain (2012); Tokyo Story 2010, Aoyama, TWS, Tokyo, Japan (2011);Hoy no aspiro a nada, Espai 13. Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona, Spain (2008). Group exhibitions include: Destinazione Piazza, Sardinia, Italy (2014); Panorama. Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain (2014); Generaciones 2013, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain (2013); Art Situations, A prospective look, Museo Patio Herreriano. Valladolid, Spain (2012); Regeneration: place, landscape and memory, Sofia Arsenal Museum for Contemporary Art, Bulgaria (2011); The 24 Steps and Joan Miró, National Museum of the Republic, Brasilia (2010); Interventions Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile (2010); AUTO. Dream and Matter, LABORAL Center for Art and Industrial Creation, Gijon and CA2M, Madrid, Spain (2009).