'Un gesto que permanece', a Group Show at Salón, Madrid

This exhibition is porous and flexible. It is an ornament that articulates through the materialities that define objects, a multilayer body that is not codified and which gathers the imagination of the artefact’s memory. 

The permanence of the object is related to our ability to understand that objects still exist without having to be heard, seen or touched. The shape of objects is, to a certain extent, conditioned by its materiality and the purpose for which they were ultimately conceived. There is a correlation of factors that define the object as something specific that has been created with a particular end. 

In the works of Isabella Benshimol, Marina Guerreiro, Monica Mays and Cristina Spinelli, we can find a collection of artwork that refers to common, every-day objects to engage with the memory of the audience. But there is a disobedient design in the way they are assembled, transformed and thought out, a design where the ornament acquires a leading role to articulate a discourse in which matter gains agency. 

When materiality is abstract and ambiguous, it loses its clarifying role and, then, it stops codifying. The porous, fluid and viscous materials that conform these works of art transcend beauty and logic to settle in an experiential register. Through the alteration, substitution and pollution of materials and their functionalities, the object itself acquires an expressive ability that goes beyond the norm and the code that usually rule the lives of objects. Finally, they are given a liberating gesture. A gesture that remains. 

Salón is a run artist space based in the house of the artists Ángela Cuadra and Daisuke Kato. Is an exhibition platform for emergent curators with special emphasis on encouraging them to realize new projects on location. Salón works like a meeting point for artistic agents in the city of Madrid. The events are an appointment to talk together, have a drink and meet each other in a relaxed environment. The house acts like a balm, erasing class differences between critics, curators, directors of museum, artists and the public. They are all mixed together without the hierarchical roles imposed by an art gallery or an institution. The idea is generate new autonomous ways of knowledge and production of sense in contemporary art.