Manu Uranga
04 Jun - 21 Jul 2013
MANU URANGA
Decúbito manual
4 June - 21 July 2013
Sala Rekalde presents the exhibition of Manu Uranga (Zumaia, 1980) as part of the program barriek 2013 that will show the work of a selection of the artists that held Bizkaia Provincial Council Artistic Creation Grants.
Decúbito manual (Manual decubitus) is the third and last part of the project Dos de mayo 25. Bilbao; the title of the project refers to the address of a house in Bilbao, an attic dwelling with a sloping ceiling that was the artist’s home between 2009 and 2011. The work he has recently been developing came into being because he inhabited this singular space for nearly two years. Just as bodies transform the space they occupy, the structure of the material container of the dwelling alludes to and sets off new forms which, projected and inspired by it, evolve and adapt to other places, thereby renewing the way it is perceived.
The two previous parts (Planta y Planos) with the first materials and videos produced around the relation between the body and the architectural space of the dwelling were exhibited at the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos Vasco-Navarro in Bilbao in 2012 and in January of this year in Torre Ariz in Basauri. So the epicentre for the whole project is located in this place, in a 5th floor attic in a building in the old neighbourhood of San Francisco. A structure defined by the steep slope of the continuous ceiling, interrupted only by a series of mansards, windows of a kind that were very common in 19th century buildings and that protrude out of the roof.
Overall, the parts that comprise the project Dos de mayo, 25. Bilbao, are an alteration of physical order through sculptural materialisation and can be seen as constructed sequences. Even so, on going back to these three temporalities, it is hard to recognise within their differences the key operations that bear meaning regarding the actual condition of the place where they act and show themselves.
To define Decúbito manual Manu Uranga talks about “being” and adds that they are “coordinates of being; Forms of being: Supine decubitus, prone...and the one I invent for myself, manual decubitus. Always in physical space, indicating and pointing out a place. In Manual decubitus the extremities of the bodies, arms, hands of the person who handles the dog, its legs..., make us understand our intentions better.”
THE ARTIST
Manu Uranga (Zumaia, Gipuzkoa, 1980) lives and works in Bilbao. Graduated in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU. Has participated in various courses, workshops and residencies including the workshops held in Arteleku (Donostia-San Sebastian): Lupa e Imán, run by Iñaki Imaz; We Rule The School by Peio Agirre and Leire Vergara, both in 2005; Ficciones Plegables (2007), delivered by Jorgen Leth; and the workshop in the Centro Párraga Murcia, Se busca equipo para acción furtiva (2003), given by Jon Mikel Euba.
Has received a number of prizes and creation grants: in 2005 he obtained the Residency Fellowship at the Bilbao Arte Foundation and the First Award for New Artists in Gipuzkoa; the Plastic Arts Scholarship awarded by the Basque Government, in 2006 and 2008, the former being for the project Hera Piadosa while the second was for Riverside, a proposal that unfolded over three months in the city of San Francisco; first prize in the 1. Symposium on Sculpture and Artistic Intervention in Tolosa , 2012; and, lastly, the Visual Arts Grant from the Regional Council of Bizkaia in 2011-2012 for the project Dos de mayo, 25. Bilbao.
He has also taken part in different activities and collective shows, which include: Gure Artea in Sala Rekalde (Bilbao, 2008); the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Komende Fabrikaat, Artis Den Bosch (Holland, 2008); the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany, 2009); El placer como control: del voyeurismo a la vigilancia in Hangar (Barcelona, 2009); the initiative MLDJ (Bilbao, 2011), a public project of artistic production and diffusion together with artists Jon Otamendi, David Martinez Suárez and Lorea Alfaro, and Izena Gero, an exhibition curated by Iskandar Rementeria at the Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao, 2013).
In 2012 Manu published the book MLDJ jointly with fellow artists Jon Otamendi, David Martinez Suárez and Lorea Alfaro. Among his individual shows are Decúbito manual (third and last part of the project Dos de Mayo 25. Bilbao) within the barriek programme, Sala Rekalde (Bilbao, 2013); Planos (second part), at the Ariz Tower (Basauri, 2013); and Planta (first part), COAVN. Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos Vasco-Navarro (Bilbao, 2012).
Decúbito manual
4 June - 21 July 2013
Sala Rekalde presents the exhibition of Manu Uranga (Zumaia, 1980) as part of the program barriek 2013 that will show the work of a selection of the artists that held Bizkaia Provincial Council Artistic Creation Grants.
Decúbito manual (Manual decubitus) is the third and last part of the project Dos de mayo 25. Bilbao; the title of the project refers to the address of a house in Bilbao, an attic dwelling with a sloping ceiling that was the artist’s home between 2009 and 2011. The work he has recently been developing came into being because he inhabited this singular space for nearly two years. Just as bodies transform the space they occupy, the structure of the material container of the dwelling alludes to and sets off new forms which, projected and inspired by it, evolve and adapt to other places, thereby renewing the way it is perceived.
The two previous parts (Planta y Planos) with the first materials and videos produced around the relation between the body and the architectural space of the dwelling were exhibited at the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos Vasco-Navarro in Bilbao in 2012 and in January of this year in Torre Ariz in Basauri. So the epicentre for the whole project is located in this place, in a 5th floor attic in a building in the old neighbourhood of San Francisco. A structure defined by the steep slope of the continuous ceiling, interrupted only by a series of mansards, windows of a kind that were very common in 19th century buildings and that protrude out of the roof.
Overall, the parts that comprise the project Dos de mayo, 25. Bilbao, are an alteration of physical order through sculptural materialisation and can be seen as constructed sequences. Even so, on going back to these three temporalities, it is hard to recognise within their differences the key operations that bear meaning regarding the actual condition of the place where they act and show themselves.
To define Decúbito manual Manu Uranga talks about “being” and adds that they are “coordinates of being; Forms of being: Supine decubitus, prone...and the one I invent for myself, manual decubitus. Always in physical space, indicating and pointing out a place. In Manual decubitus the extremities of the bodies, arms, hands of the person who handles the dog, its legs..., make us understand our intentions better.”
THE ARTIST
Manu Uranga (Zumaia, Gipuzkoa, 1980) lives and works in Bilbao. Graduated in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU. Has participated in various courses, workshops and residencies including the workshops held in Arteleku (Donostia-San Sebastian): Lupa e Imán, run by Iñaki Imaz; We Rule The School by Peio Agirre and Leire Vergara, both in 2005; Ficciones Plegables (2007), delivered by Jorgen Leth; and the workshop in the Centro Párraga Murcia, Se busca equipo para acción furtiva (2003), given by Jon Mikel Euba.
Has received a number of prizes and creation grants: in 2005 he obtained the Residency Fellowship at the Bilbao Arte Foundation and the First Award for New Artists in Gipuzkoa; the Plastic Arts Scholarship awarded by the Basque Government, in 2006 and 2008, the former being for the project Hera Piadosa while the second was for Riverside, a proposal that unfolded over three months in the city of San Francisco; first prize in the 1. Symposium on Sculpture and Artistic Intervention in Tolosa , 2012; and, lastly, the Visual Arts Grant from the Regional Council of Bizkaia in 2011-2012 for the project Dos de mayo, 25. Bilbao.
He has also taken part in different activities and collective shows, which include: Gure Artea in Sala Rekalde (Bilbao, 2008); the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Komende Fabrikaat, Artis Den Bosch (Holland, 2008); the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany, 2009); El placer como control: del voyeurismo a la vigilancia in Hangar (Barcelona, 2009); the initiative MLDJ (Bilbao, 2011), a public project of artistic production and diffusion together with artists Jon Otamendi, David Martinez Suárez and Lorea Alfaro, and Izena Gero, an exhibition curated by Iskandar Rementeria at the Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao, 2013).
In 2012 Manu published the book MLDJ jointly with fellow artists Jon Otamendi, David Martinez Suárez and Lorea Alfaro. Among his individual shows are Decúbito manual (third and last part of the project Dos de Mayo 25. Bilbao) within the barriek programme, Sala Rekalde (Bilbao, 2013); Planos (second part), at the Ariz Tower (Basauri, 2013); and Planta (first part), COAVN. Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos Vasco-Navarro (Bilbao, 2012).