Aitor Lajarin. From Here to Everywhere. Profiling Postcity Lower East Gallery, from 02/10/2010 to 30/01/2011 The project that Aitor Lajarín has created especially for ARTIUM looks at metropolises and the concept of the contemporary city. It is a timely work since it comes at a moment when human life seems to be irrevocably organised around the urban environment. Lajarín analyses the life and space of cities by looking at key aspects related to the processes of urban development and restructuring that have taken place on a global scale in recent decades. These processes are all interrelated and closely connected with the cultural, social and economic transformations that have occurred, and have taken shape in concepts such as neoliberalism,globalisation, postmodernity and the information society. The artist takes as his starting point Los Angeles, where he has spent much of the last two years, and extends his analysis to other places in the manner of a collage using other cities. Based on the ideas of urban theorists such as Mike Davis and Edward Soja, who believe that L.A. is a prime example, containing as it does a vast amalgam of the characteristics attributed to these new urban spaces, Lajarín has created a fictional city, PostCity, which could be identified with Los Angeles but also with the standard model of what a city is.The exhibition is structured around an animated film that deals with issues such as the spatial, economic and social restructuring of cities and, as a follow-on, policies of control, forms of simulation and hyper-reality, as well as movements reacting to these active forces. The film is accompanied by a series of elements used in making it, together with a collection of objects produced in order to emphasise certain ideas and to complete the panorama surrounding these questions. One of the main traits of this concept of the city is formal complexity, since it combines simultaneous processes of abandonment and reoccupation of the territory, in other words, the dismantling of pre-existing urban realities and the recolonisation of the city with other new ones. In processes of abandonment, there is a weakening of the idea of place, of territorially defined social communities; in processes of reoccupation, a new spatial character develops in which the urban is inseparable from the non-urban, the boundaries between interior and e xterior are blurred, and concepts such as ‘'91city’'92, ‘'91suburb’'92, ‘'91countryside’'92 and ‘'91metropolitan area’'92 are difficult to define.The intention is that the spectator will complete this image, projecting onto it his own experience of the urban space, that he will compare and contrast his own ideas with it and so arrive at a more complex vision of the phenomenon, as well as a greater awareness of the urban environment around him. The project is an attempt, in short, to trigger critical thinking of the space by means of a fiction created using some of the media made available by art.
POSTCITY VIEW installation, 1500x500x60cms mixed media and video 2010
POSTCITY VIEW installation, 1500x500x60cms mixed media and video 2010
POSTCITY VIEW installation, 1500x500x60cms mixed media and video 2010
POSTCITY VIEW (details)
POSTCITY VIEW (details)
POSTCITY VIEW (details)
POSTCITY VIEW (details)
POSTCITY VIEW (details)
POSTCITY VIEW (details)
CITY GLOBE 130x60x60cms photo and wood 2010
SPACE OF FLOWS animation video 4.20 min 2010
SPACE OF FLOWS acrylic on canvas and wood 310x300cms 2010
LA TORRE MAS ALTA DEL MUNDO 80x20x20cms acrylic and wood 2010
CONCENTRACION DE FUNCIONES 60x60x60cms acrylic and tape 2010
PIRAMIDE 190x70x70cms acrylic and wood 2010
THE WORLD ON YOUR HANDS acrylic and canvas 60x60 (framed) 2010
EL LABERINTO ASTILLADO acrylic and canvas 50x50 cms (framed) 2010
RESTRUCTURING mixed media and collage 50x70cms each 2010
URBAN BOARD PHOTO PLASTIC AND ANIMATION VIDEO 2010
URBAN BOARD VIDEO STILL