Miriam Isasi
Lanzamiento De Moneda
12 Jan - 06 Mar 2016
MIRIAM ISASI
Lanzamiento De Moneda
12 January - 6 March 2016
In the Abstract Cabinet, Sala Rekalde presents the exhibition by Miriam Isasi (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1981) included in the barriek 2016 programme, whose purpose is to display work by artists who have been awarded Grants for Artistic Creation by the Regional Council of Bizkaia.
Triad of instincts, rational chance and transitory blindness.
Chance randomness.
Triangle, three sides, three vertices, three points associated with the same plane. Pyramid, points interrelated on a different plane, hierarchy, gravity exercises pressure around the foundations, the apex oppresses all the points that support it. Social hierarchy, pressure upon the base. The pedestal, an object so questioned in art in the 1960s and 70s, perhaps in reference to interest in this social change, or perhaps this is a later personal reading...
Temporary blindness makes the predator relax. Peace lies latent behind the blindness; the curtain that conceals instinct. Human reason against animal intuition.
Due to the nictitating membrane or third eyelid, a falcon can fly at great speed with no need to open its eyes and, consequently, without noticing any discomfort. The hood blocks vision so that it paralyzes the bird. Humans, thereby, exercise their hierarchical or, rather, rational intellectual power over the predatory bird. The falcon when free is on constant alert, it does not rest. Its dry glance enables it to see all the time.
‘In’ Aristotle’s ‘De Anima (421b), he distinguishes between man and those animals that have hard dry eyes (tôn sklerophtalmôn), the animals lacking eyelids (ta blephara), the sort of sheath or tegumental membrane (phragma) which serves to protect the eye and permits it, at regular intervals, to close itself off in the darkness of inward thought or sleep. What is terrifying about an animal with hard eyes and a dry glance is that it always sees'. Jacques Derrida (Translation of Derrida taken from 'Jacques Derrida. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. University of Chicago Press, 1998)
The peregrine falcon is the most rapid bird, the dove can do nothing; only its skill or dexterity, or perhaps an error committed by the predator, can cause its life to be saved.
Hor, more commonly known by his Hellenized name Horus, the deity who gave birth to the Egyptian civilization, and was known as ‘The High’, was directly connected. Or, which amounts to the same thing, the Pharaoh is its earthly representation.
The dove, as the Bible tells us, returned to Noah’s hands with an olive leaf in its beak to make him see that the land was becoming inhabitable again after the deluge.
The use of homing pigeons was the most trustworthy and fool-proof method of carrying at various points in history. These birds proved indispensable as a means of communication from the era of Julius Caesar down to the Second World War, where they constituted the analogue method that did not fail when faced with radio failures. That was when the Nazis had the idea of sending up falcons, which allowed them to intercept information and, in some cases, either put an end to that communication line or manipulate it.
As Isasi puts it, this work seeks ‘to define the concept of predation as an assimilated social structure’. Something beyond mere survival because the concept of preying or predation involves an act of violent plunder that causes destruction, or economic abuse consisting of the misappropriation of public funds, whose direct consequence is the impoverishment of the population. In response to this action, we have the class struggle.
‘The class struggle is the motor of history’ Karl Marx
A direct relation with Marxism, via the famous phrase, which is at one and the same time the motor bike’s headlamp and an obstacle to its lighting. Showing us that society is being built through social struggles. Through (not necessarily violent) confrontations between opposites, rights are achieved. Marx divided them into bourgeoisie and proletariat, Isasi into falcon and dove. According to Marx, the end of class warfare will be produced at the point when classes cease to exist, but, by this same rule of thumb, if class struggle disappears, will society too?
A game of chance gives its name to the work, in allusion to the equitable opportunity that one or the other option might win. In Mexico this expression has its equivalent in ‘eagle or sun?. Beginning and end; a Mexican peso with the image of eagle and sun against the light at the instant when the coin is tossed into the air.
The destruction of funeral urns, under the title ‘Blood is thicker than water’, takes place at the hands of a female with a falcon’s hood, which takes us to that fight against predation, struggle against death, putting an end to the hierarchical act of taking the life of a human being. The expression is employed a great deal in the USA to refer to blood ties, which are not unbreakable but certainly as resistant as nylon.
Like most artistic works, this one emerged from an extreme episode experienced by the artist. We are confronted with a struggle against mourning, an audio-visual catharsis against blindness, impotence and fear. A strong universal feeling that pursues us.
‘One should not develop a taste for mourning, and yet mourn we must. We must, but we must not like it—mourning, that is, mourning itself, if such a thing exists: not to like or love through one's own tear but only through the other, and every tear is from the other, the friend, the living, as long as we ourselves are living, reminding us, in holding life, to hold on to it' Jacques Derrida
Leyre Goikoetxea Martínez
Lanzamiento De Moneda
12 January - 6 March 2016
In the Abstract Cabinet, Sala Rekalde presents the exhibition by Miriam Isasi (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1981) included in the barriek 2016 programme, whose purpose is to display work by artists who have been awarded Grants for Artistic Creation by the Regional Council of Bizkaia.
Triad of instincts, rational chance and transitory blindness.
Chance randomness.
Triangle, three sides, three vertices, three points associated with the same plane. Pyramid, points interrelated on a different plane, hierarchy, gravity exercises pressure around the foundations, the apex oppresses all the points that support it. Social hierarchy, pressure upon the base. The pedestal, an object so questioned in art in the 1960s and 70s, perhaps in reference to interest in this social change, or perhaps this is a later personal reading...
Temporary blindness makes the predator relax. Peace lies latent behind the blindness; the curtain that conceals instinct. Human reason against animal intuition.
Due to the nictitating membrane or third eyelid, a falcon can fly at great speed with no need to open its eyes and, consequently, without noticing any discomfort. The hood blocks vision so that it paralyzes the bird. Humans, thereby, exercise their hierarchical or, rather, rational intellectual power over the predatory bird. The falcon when free is on constant alert, it does not rest. Its dry glance enables it to see all the time.
‘In’ Aristotle’s ‘De Anima (421b), he distinguishes between man and those animals that have hard dry eyes (tôn sklerophtalmôn), the animals lacking eyelids (ta blephara), the sort of sheath or tegumental membrane (phragma) which serves to protect the eye and permits it, at regular intervals, to close itself off in the darkness of inward thought or sleep. What is terrifying about an animal with hard eyes and a dry glance is that it always sees'. Jacques Derrida (Translation of Derrida taken from 'Jacques Derrida. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. University of Chicago Press, 1998)
The peregrine falcon is the most rapid bird, the dove can do nothing; only its skill or dexterity, or perhaps an error committed by the predator, can cause its life to be saved.
Hor, more commonly known by his Hellenized name Horus, the deity who gave birth to the Egyptian civilization, and was known as ‘The High’, was directly connected. Or, which amounts to the same thing, the Pharaoh is its earthly representation.
The dove, as the Bible tells us, returned to Noah’s hands with an olive leaf in its beak to make him see that the land was becoming inhabitable again after the deluge.
The use of homing pigeons was the most trustworthy and fool-proof method of carrying at various points in history. These birds proved indispensable as a means of communication from the era of Julius Caesar down to the Second World War, where they constituted the analogue method that did not fail when faced with radio failures. That was when the Nazis had the idea of sending up falcons, which allowed them to intercept information and, in some cases, either put an end to that communication line or manipulate it.
As Isasi puts it, this work seeks ‘to define the concept of predation as an assimilated social structure’. Something beyond mere survival because the concept of preying or predation involves an act of violent plunder that causes destruction, or economic abuse consisting of the misappropriation of public funds, whose direct consequence is the impoverishment of the population. In response to this action, we have the class struggle.
‘The class struggle is the motor of history’ Karl Marx
A direct relation with Marxism, via the famous phrase, which is at one and the same time the motor bike’s headlamp and an obstacle to its lighting. Showing us that society is being built through social struggles. Through (not necessarily violent) confrontations between opposites, rights are achieved. Marx divided them into bourgeoisie and proletariat, Isasi into falcon and dove. According to Marx, the end of class warfare will be produced at the point when classes cease to exist, but, by this same rule of thumb, if class struggle disappears, will society too?
A game of chance gives its name to the work, in allusion to the equitable opportunity that one or the other option might win. In Mexico this expression has its equivalent in ‘eagle or sun?. Beginning and end; a Mexican peso with the image of eagle and sun against the light at the instant when the coin is tossed into the air.
The destruction of funeral urns, under the title ‘Blood is thicker than water’, takes place at the hands of a female with a falcon’s hood, which takes us to that fight against predation, struggle against death, putting an end to the hierarchical act of taking the life of a human being. The expression is employed a great deal in the USA to refer to blood ties, which are not unbreakable but certainly as resistant as nylon.
Like most artistic works, this one emerged from an extreme episode experienced by the artist. We are confronted with a struggle against mourning, an audio-visual catharsis against blindness, impotence and fear. A strong universal feeling that pursues us.
‘One should not develop a taste for mourning, and yet mourn we must. We must, but we must not like it—mourning, that is, mourning itself, if such a thing exists: not to like or love through one's own tear but only through the other, and every tear is from the other, the friend, the living, as long as we ourselves are living, reminding us, in holding life, to hold on to it' Jacques Derrida
Leyre Goikoetxea Martínez