(DE)SCRIPT(ION) OF THE WORLD APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE
Artistas/ Artists: Andrés Fernández, Waqas Khan, Mareva Mayo, Matt Mullican
Comisariado / Curatorship:
Manuel Olveira
Coordinación / Coordination: Sira Escobar
Fechas / Dates: 28 de septiembre, 2019 – 12 de enero, 2020 September 28, 2019 – January 12, 2020 Salas / Halls: 4-5
Portada / Cover: Matt Mullican. Untitled (Charts 82/83), 2018. ProjectSD, Barcelona.
www.musac.es
Musac. Avda. Reyes Leoneses, 24. 24003, León. T. 987 090 000
(De)script(ion) of the world is a thematic exhibition which takes on the human relationship with its context through language in general, and graphic and writing signs in particular. In human cultural experience, from the beginning of time, writing has been a form of recording, describing or explaining the world we live in and the way we relate to it. It is, then, a way of being in the world and even of “producing the world”, through language, form or writing. In the work of Andrés Fernández (Madrid, Spain, 1973), Waqas Khan (Akhtarabad, Pakistan, 1982), Mareva Mayo (León, Spain, 1986), and Matt Mullican (Santa Mónica, USA, 1951) it is possible to explore a dimension of writing, the symbol, cartography and other forms of representation which negotiate between the inside and the outside, or between the subjectivity of perception and the facticity of the world. In their work they configure, by means of texts and images, a kind of visionary geography presented with a great economy of means, and yet on the contrary, with an iconic and experiential force of such a level that not only is it a (de)script(ion) of the world but also aims to become familiar with it in depth, to build it up and even transform it through new visions and versions. The title of the exhibition uses the neologism (de)script(ion) to define something that does not quite fit in the conventional way of writing the word, or in its meaning, which takes on a renovating polyphony of significations. This something that does not fit in or that something that is more inherent in the new way of writing the word questions the convention of all language, while at the same time it opens it up linguistically to the production of reality. (De)script(ion) is therefore a way of noting down, telling, transmitting, inquiring, but also and above all, of creating the world. In order to bridge this gap, humanity has sought for formulas in profoundly differing fields, traditions, scientific studies, rituals and techniques, beliefs and cultures in different times and places to reflect on the most basic existential matters and the most profound and hermetical aspects of life. From art, very often
incorporating aspects from the above-mentioned fields and traditions, exceedingly varied formulas have been put together to build up particular systems of depicting reality, consisting of images, signs, pictograms, drawings, icons, digits, characters, codes, emblems, allegories and all kinds of symbols. The purpose of all the techniques and systems which negotiate through language(s) is to channel impulses which mediate and manage the relationship between an unknowable outside and an inaccessible inside. From mandalas, tantric images, the automatic writing of surrealism, the flow of conscience and the emergence of the subconscious, different forms of perceiving and depicting what is real are configured, which are often endowed with a kind of poetic touch understood as a means of approaching or penetrating the least apparent, most profound and most secret part of reality. This poetic form, so typical in art and present in each artist’s personal language, is what this exhibition attempts to explore in the work of various creators from diverse places and with differing aesthetical interests, but who share the structure of deeply personal and unconventional subjectivity. Each artist therefore enjoys his/her own space to make the irreducible personality clear in the language used by each one of them, and to reinforce the viewers’ immersion into the world they provide a (de)script(ion) of, and which they broaden or create by means of the art defined by said language. The first thing you see when you come into the exhibition is the book Poemas de carne y aguja by Mareva Mayo, specially published by the MUSAC for (De)script(ion) of the world, and then, in the first room, the different pieces by Matt Mullican making up an installation which explains his personal cosmogeny and the system that represents it; this is followed by the presentation of Andrés Fernández’s almost 30 pieces, placed on the walls around a huge horizontal drawing, 21 metres long, which takes up the central space. Finally, in the third room are the large and small pieces by Waqas Khan, mysterious and hypnotic, in dialogue with the MUSAC’s architecture.
28.09.19 - 12.01.20
SALAS 4-5
(D)ESCRIBIR EL MUNDO APROXIMACIONES A LENGUAJE Y CONOCIMIENTO (DE)SCRIPT(ION) OF THE WORLD APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE