GUILLERMO MORA by SCAN-ARTE

Guillermo Mora portfolio

Una, otra y otra vez a la vez 2014 Site-specific for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tabacalera. Espacio para el Arteâ&#x20AC;? Pieces of wood hold in between two pillars and covered with florescent pigments Variable dimensions

No consigo 2014 150 meters of stretchers assembled with metal hinges / Mixed media on wood Height: 350 cm. / Width and depth: variable

Hacia blanco 2013 300 meters of wood divided into pieces and assembled with metal hinges Variable dimensions

Tres casi seis 2013 80 kilos of acrylic painting tyed by rubber bands 58 x 43 x 57 cm.

Mitad tĂş, mitad yo (Pablo) 2013 Layers of acrylic painting piled on an easel 155 x 40 x 36 cm.

Desde aquĂ te veo mejor 2013 Estucco, acrylic painting and leather belts 27 x 42 x 32 cm.

View of the show El año que no crecí, 2014, Formato Comodo Gallery, Madrid

Now more is less Isabel Tejeda Martín

From macro to micro. In this project Guillermo Mora practises a kind of painting which, in theory, has much grander ambitions. This Madrid-based painter prepares large surfaces of around 20 kilos of paint—for the final work discussed here a total of 250 kilos was used—and, once dried, folds them up like sheets until they are compressed and the paint is conquered, reduced to its minimal material expression. The containment process, during which Mora physically wrestles with the material, is supposedly finished once the rubber bands that help constrain the package are in place, bonds that facilitate his efforts to keep the bulky mass in that folded-up state and prevent it from bouncing back to its original shape. The painting, visibly transformed into volume, thus dispenses with the stretcher as its traditional container and with the canvas or panel as its support. The only support is the paint itself. These pieces are malleable, seemingly fragile and shortlived, but we must not forget that they are plastic. They would be able to survive potential cataclysms by inhabiting dystopian settings. This support-less painting is therefore transmuted into sculpture... but a sculpture that adopts the form of a bundle. The jumble we see comes from the imagery typically associated with bales. “Our forms of storage force the object to submit to a logical, practical system,” but Guillermo Mora wonders, “What would happen if these systems were applied to the pictorial object?” In this stacking process, the pieces reject the logical structure that has proven so effective with the parallelepiped brick shape, creating tensions with the space that have nothing to do with the author’s decisions. They respond only to the passage of time and the variations in temperature and humidity levels, causing the preventive conservation devices— impertinent in this case—to burst at the seams. Apparently, museums and art centres did not learn the lesson of the 1970s; clinging to inertia, they still believe that what enters their doors is a finished work of art rather than a project whose production process includes its transformations and perhaps even its death. It seems that there is no room for chance in these conservation protocols, which attempt to minimise its potential action or, better yet, thwart it altogether. As with Robert Morris’s felt pieces, the material

must adapt to the space... but in this case time also comes into play. This experience with artwork that is intrinsically alive and changing may have begun at Guillermo Mora’s solo show at El Campello, with Tú la llevas [You’ve Got It] (2009), where small, apparently minimalising pieces featured massive amounts of wet oil paint protected by a thin layer of transparent plastic. The oils were still runny and in motion, and they would still be moving today if the work hadn’t cracked and dried out. At Matadero, the precarious structure made out of discarded studio elements, Subir para bajar [Going up to Come Down] (2011), succumbed to the law of gravity, collapsing in a fall that Mora did not see as a failure but as an intrinsic part of the work. These errors in calculation or accidents seem to open up new paths: “I’m not interested in the piece as such but in its organic process,” the artist freely admits. In fact, he often recycles his pieces even after they have been exhibited, using parts of old works to assemble new ones as if his mission was to create a never-ending Frankenstein. The formulas of presentation of these works also offer themselves as a counterstrategy against conventional ways of consuming art, particularly against the custom of displaying paintings frontally and almost always hung at mid-height. When placed in a corner on the floor, they look like abandoned objects and may even pass unnoticed. For example, when a version of this work was exhibited in Rome, each of these bundles was huddled like a bit of spatial detritus opposite an immense wall. “No one sees them, and I like that,” commented Guillermo Mora. They aren’t put on pedestals or given artistic labels, although the context itself serves to identify them. There is something secretive about these bales, which lurk at the heart of every painting: built up in layers, each coat of paint covers the ones beneath, and this— to use a famous example—ultimately betrays the presence of typical Velazquezian pentimenti. But the secret that Guillermo Mora’s works guard so solidly is far less mysterious: paint, and nothing but paint.

“Now more is less”, text for the exhibition Generación 2013, Madrid, january 2013.

Penta Pack 2012 250 kilos of acrylic painting tyed with rubber bands 102 x 53 x 65 cm.

Entre tĂş y yo 2012 200 meters of stretchers assembled with metal hinges / Mixed media on wood (variable dimensions / mobile piece)

NO FIXED FORM Teresa Macrì

View of the show Quizás mañana haya desaparecido, 2011, Extraspazio, Rome

Minimal. Silent. Anxious. Precarious. Fluid. Outcast. Fragile. Disturbed. Attractive. Plasmatic. Tempting. Post-pop. Guillermo Mora’s sculptures seem to seize the liquid condition of the subject in the critical and global pivot of topicality. In their materic multiplicity and in their formless and unstable consistency they transit as discrete presences in an objectual universe where – still inopportunely, tediously and inadequately – a spectacular and perfectly manipulated aesthetic drags on, vacuous legacy of a post-eighties objectual opulence and symbolic emblem of technocratic post-capitalistic fetishism. But these little no fixed form sculptures which are manipulated by means of a post-existentialist pictorial process that crosses the state of solidification, or which reify themselves as such after having been robbed of their anonymous randomness as objects found in the street (hence homeless materials), or which assemble together through empathy, or which appear to have been masticated like syrupy chewing gum, catapult us into the stage of uncertainty. At the same time they plunge us back into that aesthetic of precariousness which countertrend artists like Jason Rhoades, David Hammons, Gabriel Orozco, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Bojan Šarčević, Dieter Roth (and many others and in many ways) have employed as a criticism of the late-

capitalist system, galvanised and structured as a universe of objectual vacuity, hyper-sensationalistic, which now appears in all its vexation and pathetic nature. Mora’s sculptures actually have the most intimate and almost playful will to recline on their own Self and inquire into their own sense of inadequacy, of unease and suspicion which, reluctantly, coagulates with the state of global indeterminateness. What appears in them is a glimmer of criticism of the real and the embarrassment of perfectionism (illusory and fairytale-like), the objectual and systemic perfectionism of a universe which is cloned, mendacious, improvident and far from realistic, in which we have sailed on the surface and are now drowning. Quizás mañana haya desaparecido is almost an aphorism by the artist, his mocking awareness of the liquidity of the real, of the Ego, of matter, of the object, of thought. Quizás mañana haya desaparecido does not pose the apocalyptic question of the world’s existence but rather triggers doubt about the habitus in which a dialogical Self (and its whole spectral universe) might be relocated. “NO FIXED FORM”, curatorial text for the solo show Quizás mañana haya desaparecido, Extraspazio, Rome, Octuber 2011.

Suspenso 2011 Mixed media 158 x 12 x 17 cm.

P=A=R=T=I=D=A 2011 Acrílico, gesso acrílico y témpera sobre papel, acero zincado 16 x 68,5 x 14 cm.

De puntillas 2011 Pieces of used strechers assembled with metal hinges Variable dimensions / mobile piece

LOT (Nยบ4) 2010 Trials and leftovers of several painting and strechers assembled 162 x 13 x 18 cm.

Monta単a doble 2009 Oil painting, acrylic painting, canvas and stretchers 120 x 42 x 25 cm.

View of the show Un paseo entre el dibujo, la pintura y un mรกs allรก, 2009, Centro de Arte Joven, Madrid

Ordenando el cielo con Donald 2008 Oil painting, stretchers,canvas and wax painting Variable dimensions

Signo 2007 oil painting, resin, wood and canvas 103 x 5 x 23 cm.

Guillermo Mora

Born in Alcalá de Henares (Spain) in 1980 Lives and works in Madrid

Education 2011/14 FPU Scholarship for PhD studies at the Painting Department of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Ministry of Education of Spain. 2008/09 MFA in Contemporary Art, Universidad Europea de Madrid. 2006/07 BFA studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA. 1999/07 BFA, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. First National Award to the best Academic Record, Ministry of Education of Spain. Solo shows 2014 Never rarely often always, Zona Base, Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca (Curated by Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta). El año que no crecí, FORMATOCOMODO Gallery, Madrid. 2013 No A Trio A, a project by Guillermo Mora & Pía Camil, La Casa Encendida, Madrid. (Curated by Luisa Fuentes Guaza). 2012 A menudo siempre, VOLTA8 (solo-project), FORMATOCOMODO Gallery, Basel. 2011 Viaje largo con un extraño. CASA TRIÂNGULO Gallery, Sao Paulo. Quizás mañana haya desaparecido. Extraspazio Gallery, Rome. (Curated by Teresa Macrì) Dos episodios y un estadio. LAB, Injuve. Murcia. (Curated by Pablo Lag). 2010 Una pregunta diaria. FORMATOCOMODO Gallery, Madrid. 2009 De un soplo, Casa de la Entrevista, Alcalá de Henares. Un paseo entre el dibujo, la pintura y un más allá, Centro de Arte Joven de la Comunidad de Madrid. (Curated by Virginia Torrente). Group shows 2014 BIACI. Bienal Internacional de Arte de Cartagena de Indias, Colombia (Curated by Berta Sichel). Casa Triangulo no Pivò, Pivò, Copan Building, São Paulo. Ocho cuestiones espacialmente extraordinarias, Tabacalera. Espacio para el arte, Madrid (Curated by Virginia Torrente). ARCO’14, FORMATOCOMODO and CASA TRIÂNGULO Galleries, Audemars Piguet Booth, Madrid. Trace 14, Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istambul.

2013 2014 / Before leaving. Ideas about painting. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Gas Natural Fenosa MAC, A Coruña (Curated by David Barro). artBO 2013, FORMATOCOMODO Gallery, Bogotá, Colombia. LIMBER: spatial painting practices, Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury & Grandes Galleries de L’Erba, Rouen. (Curated by Jost Münster & Cherry Smith). Elgiz 13, Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul. SP-ARTE, CASA TRIÂNGULO Gallery, Sao Paulo. Andratx on paper, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain. (Curated by Patricia Asbaek). ON PAINTING [prácticas pictóricas actuales... más allá de la Pintura o más acá]. CAAM, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria y CEART, Fuenlabrada, (Curated by Omar-Pascual Castillo). GENERACIÓN 2013, Proyectos de Arte Caja Madrid. La Casa Encendida, Madrid. (Curated by Ignacio Cabrero). ARCO’13, FORMATOCOMODO and CASA TRIÂNGULO Galleries, Madrid. 2012 Ensayos autónomos, OTR espacio de arte, Madrid. (Curated by Bruno Leitão). This dialogue is fine but a decision is always an alone act. Concepts are never perfect, complete or exhausted. I want to make that fleeting moment permanent somehow. “Your errors are your key”. She made me believe in not linear projects, in parallel or secondary structures, in error and failure as a starting point. Sorry I’ve just realized I’m thinking about a different work. Noestudio, Madrid (Curated by Tiago de Abreu pinto). 12 International Show of Art Gas Natural Fenosa, MACUF, A Coruña. Hacer el fracaso. Inéditos 2012, La Casa Encendida, Madrid. (Curated by Daniel Cerrejón). Zona MACO. FORMATOCOMODO Gallery. México D.F. ARCO’12, CASA TRIÂNGULO and FORMATOCOMODO Galleries (highligthed artist), Madrid. 2011 El Ranchito. Matadero, Madrid. (Site-specific project curated by Luisa Fuentes Guaza). Nomadismi. Royal Spanish Academy in Rome. VOLTA 7. FORMATOCOMODO Gallery. Basel. Zona MACO. FORMATOCOMODO Gallery. Mexico DF. ARCO’11. FORMATOCOMODO Gallery, Madrid. 2010 FRIEZE Art Fair. CASA TRIÂNGULO Gallery. London. XII International Award for Young Artists. Luís Adelantado Gallery, Valencia. VOLTA 6. FORMATOCOMODO Gallery. Basel. Zona MACO. FORMATOCOMODO Gallery. Mexico DF. Explum 2010, International Contemporary Art Award, Puerto Lumbreras. Periféricos, Sala Puertanueva, Diputación de Córdoba. ARCO’10, Stand ABC. Madrid. 2009 XX CIRCUITOS, Comunidad de Madrid, (Curated by Javier Díaz Guardiola). Un nuevo comienzo, Sala Puertanueva, Diputación de Córdoba.

2008 X International Show “Union FENOSA”, MACUF, La Coruña Visual Arts Award for Young Creators UCM, Museo de América, Madrid. IX UNICAJA Biennial of Visual Arts, Palacio Episcopal, Málaga. 2007 GENERACIÓN 2007, Caja Madrid Grants and Awards, La Casa Encendida (Madrid), La Capella (Barcelona), Museo de la Pasión and Iglesia de las Francesas (Valladolid), Atarazanas (Valencia), Santa Inés (Sevilla). Y si no han muerto, todavía están vivos, Museo Municipal de Coimbra, Portugal. Big Sky, LG Space, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA. Grants and awards 2014 II Audemars Piguet Award, ARCO’14, Madrid. “Artista revelación 2013” Award, RAC Prizes, IAJ. 2013 GENERACIÓN 2013 Award, Caja Madrid Art Projects. 2012 Grant for the promotion of the Spanish Contemporary Art, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain. 2011 Grant for the promotion of the Spanish Contemporary Art, Ministry of Culture of Spain. 2010/11 Grant for Art Studies at the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome. Ministry of International Affairs, Spain. 2010 Grant for the production in Fine Arts. Comunidad de Madrid. Grant for the promotion of the Spanish Contemporary Art, Ministry of Culture of Spain. Honor Mention XI Premio ABC. Acquisition Prize Explum 2010. International Contemporary Art Award, Puerto Lumbreras, Murcia. 2009 Grant for the promotion of the Spanish art and the support to the new tendencies in arts, Ministry of Culture of Spain. Grant XI International landscape workshop. Blanca, Murcia (Directed by Gonzalo Puch). D-Mencia 09, Doña Mencía, Córdoba. 2008 Grant for Postgraduate studies, Fundación La Caixa. Acquisition-Prize X Visual Arts Award CEC, Cádiz. 2007 Grant for International Studies in USA, BANCAJA. First Prize XXXVIII Painting Award “Ciudad de Alcalá”, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid. 2005 Grant for Visual Arts, Fundación de Artes Plásticas Rafael Botí, Córdoba.

Residences 2013 Artist in Residence, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain. 2010 / 2011 Spanish Academy in Rome. Ministry of International Affairs, Spain. 2005 “Pour L´Instant”, Residence for young european photographers, Niort, France. Residence for sculptors “Alfonso Ariza”, La Rambla, Cordoba. 2003 Rodríguez-Acosta Foundation, Granada. Congress y seminars 2012/13 Horizontes del Arte en España. Platform about the Spanish Contemporary Art and its international projection (Group “La movilidad del artista y su visibilidad en el exterior”). MNCARS. 2012 Warburg, Benjamin and Kulturwissenschaft. Warburg Institute, London. Workshops director 2014 “Mood board”: workshop with Guillermo Mora. Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca. 2013 Holding the line. Meeting with Guillermo Mora and Pía Camil, La Casa Encendida, Madrid. 2012 Failing, building. Experiment, error and accident in the art process. MATADERO. Centro de Creación Contemporánea, Madrid. Collections National Library of Spain Caja Madrid CCA Andratx DKV Explum collection OTR Collection Elgiz Museum, Istambul Rafael Botí Foundation for the fine Arts Royal Talens SA. Valparaíso Foundation Instituto Andaluz de la Juventud Joan Flasch Artists Book Collection, Chicago The Margulies Collection, Miami Ministry of International Affairs of Spain Spanish Academy in Rome