Nakedness, fragility, vulnerability, should cause us sadness, sorrow or at least compassion. Specialy when talking not about bodies; but about the nakedness of thought. The most intimate we have, what really makes us individuals. The belly In the center of this bag of wishes and dreams that we are, where we digest, where we engender, we all have a scar. Silver gelatine on cotton paper. 65 x 170 cm. La Por (Fear) My nephew Lucas, me and my uncle Luiz Simoes. Platinum on cotton paper. 70 x 160 cm. Three self-portraits for my concrete head Self-portraits in silver gelatin on concrete sculptures with my glasses from the last decades and acrylic on wood. 40 x 90 x 25 cm. Three pairs of chairs One silver gelatine on coton paper and two Silver gelatine on transparent acrylic overlapped. 50 x 55 x 5 cm. Nudes and Vunerable Silver gelatin on glasses of mini TVs over acrylic on wood. 60 x 20 x 8 cm. Sense cap ni peus (without rhyme or reason) Pigmented inkjet and acrylic varnish on canvas. 135 x 170 cm. No body Silver gelatine on cotton paper in a bath. 70 x 170 x 13 cm. Clothes Silver gelatine on cotton paper, oxidised iron framed. 105 x 180 cm. De un polvo vienes y al polvo volverás (From a fuck you come and to dust you shall return) Terracotta, metal dust, pigmented inkjet and varnish on canvas. Oxidised iron framed. 102 x 197 cm. Work in progress Paradigm Three vintage slide projectors, digital control unit, software, sound, and nine black and white slides. Home

VERTIDOS VERTER: From the Latin vertěre - To spill, to throw VESTIR: From the Latin vestīre - To cover, protect or adorn the body I remember when I was at university in Rio, a graffiti on a wall said: There's no point in fighting, the Sun will burn out in 6 billion years. On the same wall someone painted: What a relief! I thought it would be in 6 million. In nature, everything has always happened on a non-human timescale. It's true that one day the sun will stop shining, that life on our planet has an expiration date, but we are accelerating it, making it a visible process. In the last hundred years, we have burned more natural reserves than in four billion years of organic activity on the planet. Can we let history continue to move slowly? Luiz Simoes, 2004 The Vertidos aluminum, cardboard, plastic, tetra pak and glass. 2004/2005 Everything has cycles. The stories we imagine have cycles; we have cycles, and within our cycles, we imagine and create in different ways. In 2004, when the idea for VERTIDOS came to me, my thoughts were dominated by the vision of how beautiful we are, capable of creating beauty even in situations of hardship and scarcity. At the same time, I also wanted to reflect on our destructive capacity, so contrasting and inconsistent with our intellectual capacity. In the following years, different cycles led me to other visions. A second series of photographs emerged, in which exhausted and soiled bodies, adorned with our creations, lie on the earth. Years later I created a series of object-based paintings with those same dresses, in which the bodies are no longer present, and only the remnants of our creations remain. Today, twenty years later, in my current cycle, I'm starting a new series of five works using the dust from those same five materials, aluminum, , cardboard, plastic, Tetra Pak and glass , and the question I asked myself in 1988, during my solitary crossing of the Sahara, returns to my mind: One hundred thousand? One million? How long would it take for everything we've built to collapse and for the earth and weeds to cover everything, forever erasing every trace of our fleeting presence on the planet? And my question today remains the same: Can we allow history to continue to drag on? Luiz Simoes, 2024 aluminum, cardboard, plastic, tetra pak and glass , 2007 Aluminium Vertido Acrylic, iron pigments, polyurethane and aluminium Vertido on canvas in display case 100x130x10 cm Plastic Vertido Acrylic, iron pigments, polyurethane and plastic Vertido on canvas in display case 100x130x10 cm Tetra pak Vertido Acrylic, iron pigments, polyurethane and tetra pak Vertido on canvas in display case 100x130x10 cm Glass Vertido Acrylic, iron pigments, polyurethane and glass Vertido on canvas in display case 100x130x10 cm Cardboard Vertido Acrylic, iron pigments, polyurethane and cardboard Vertido on canvas in display case 100x130x10 cm The objects In the poem "Adventure," the main character is a pot that the poet Manoel de Barros finds lying upside down and empty in a remote place. In this state of abandonment, the pot contained nothing but emptiness. Not long ago, this vessel must have been the center of attention, attracting the desire of those who wanted it close because of what was inside. Perhaps it received admiring glances because it contained something that awakened immediate pleasure. I imagine that this pot, now empty and abandoned in the forest, may once have been a container of sweets or ice cream. Occupying the center of the table, it received eager looks. When desired, the pot may have been mistaken in imagining that it was wanted for what it was and not for what it temporarily contained. Immense will be its sorrow now, abandoned. Rejected by humans and their fickle desires, only nature wants it. Nature never despises; rather, it receives, regenerates, and fills voids. Spinoza already knew this. Useless, the can was no longer of any use, except for metamorphosis, for that is what nature produces in everything that, receiving its care, undergoes a kind of contagion, a communion. "After dissolving in nature, cans can even enchant butterflies," the poet foresaw. Some time later, the writer had to return to the same remote place. He remembered the empty, abandoned can and prepared to see that sad sight again. However, during the intervening time, without the poet's knowledge, a little bird flew, by chance, over the can and left a seed in its empty womb. There was already sand and dust inside, deposited by nature. The rains and the winds gave the vessel's pregnancy the strength to give birth, and where there had been emptiness before, a living poem emerged. From that womb, a rosebush bloomed... "If we don't give our love, it rots inside us," the poet said, thanking the can for this lesson he received in the form of roses. Because the vessel was now filled with the beauty that nature offers us without asking anything in return. Elton Luiz Leite de Souza Philosopher. Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro A TV Pigment ink print and acrylic varnish on canvas. 100 x 130 cm A couple of chairs Pigment ink print and acrylic varnish on canvas. 100 x 130 cm The stroller Pigment ink print and acrylic varnish on canvas. 100 x 130 cm Coat Impresión de tinta pigmentada y barniz acrílico sobre tela. 100 x 130 cm The motorcycle Impresión de tinta pigmentada y barniz acrílico sobre tela. 100 x 130 cm Earth Acrylic on canvas. 130x400cm Darkness Acrylic on canvas. 130x400cm Expansion Acrylic, pigments and metallic powder on linen. 130 x 200 cm Void Acrylic on canvas. 130x200cm Absence Acrylic on canvas. 130x200cm Requiem for 2 Basuróphonos The work is inspired by the idea that, in a decadent and exhausted future, where the only resources are remnants of richer times, a character who has never seen a musical instrument would build, by intuition and with scarce resources, two instruments similar to a cello and a double bass, with which to musically express his lament with the dire situation in which he finds himself. The music is inspired by the continuous noise of the garbage truck accelerating its engine. Reproducing the sounds with my voice, I recorded several fragments and editing the takes in a time line, I created the whole sequence. It was the way I found to write my music without being a musician. The sequence, in its original form, was later performed by the cellist Ivan Lorenzana using the instruments built of rubbish, “basura” in Spanish, hence their names “basuróphonos”. “Requiem for two Basuróphonos”, is a lament, a dialogue between the two instruments, that turns around itself in a piece that brings to mind what we are doing… accelerating. Requiem for 2 Basuróphonos Audiovisual installation for three slide projectors digitally controlled Interview Requiem for 2 Basuróphonos - video 4 minutes Musitekton - Barcelona, March 24, 2012 Iván Lorenzana - Basuróphono mezzo Ernesto Vargas - Basuróphono basso Making of Vertidos, Plastic and Aluminum - 4 minute video Making of Absence - 4-minute video Brasilea Foundation. Basel, 2006 Galería Blanca Berlin. Madrid, 2008 Centro Cultural Puertas de Castilla. Murcia, 2009 Gassmann Zürich, 2011 Home

Luiz Simoes contemporary artist and to dust you shall return Oxide What are you doing the rest of your life PROST Music for 18 things ViolaMe VERTIDOS Things Tempo 10 Tríptics Frozen SymmetroS Silent escape

Luiz Simoes contemporary artist Born in Brazil and a naturalized Spanish, Luiz lives and works in Barcelona since 1986 and currently divides his time among his studios in Brazil and Spain. By Pepe Font de Mora - Fundación Colectania, Barcelona I have many things in common with Luiz Simoes and I admire him for just as many, but what fascinates me most about his character and his work is the ability to surprise and make people reflect. Luiz is obsessed with several themes, which he expresses through many tecnics. The magnificent compositions in his Silent Escape series are breathtaking, conveying silence and solitude from a subtle perspective; he is never too far nor too close, in the complex balancing between technique and expression. 10 Triptychs, in which he reflects on the nakedness of thought, is a series in the traditional sense: self-contained, powerful, and brilliant. Like the best short stories, he knows how to measure what to say, neither more nor less, and finds a surprising and devastating ending. His commitment to understanding the world, perhaps due to his scientific background and extensive travels, is evident in the series “Tempo” and “Oxide,” where his reflection on oxidation as a metaphor for the beginning of life connects us with our fragility and irreversibility. “Vertidos,” “Things,” “Music for 18 Things,” and “Prost” are his most symphonic works. They incorporate performance, sound, music, and audiovisual installation. He needs the exhibition space to reflect on the nature of the universe we inhabit. I invite you to let yourselves be enveloped and seduced by the work of an artist who grows more complex and evocative with each passing day. Selection of exhibitions and installations 2024 - ÓXIDO. Museo Internacional del Barroco, Puebla - Mexico 2023 - What are you doing the rest of your life? Galeria Ybakatu, Curitiba - Brazil 2023 - Què faràs? Instalación permanente - Cidade da Música, Curitiba - Brazil 2019 - Música para 18 cosas. Fundación Miró Barcelona - Spain 2015 - PROST. Fundación Miró, Barcelona - Spain 2014 - Emptiness - Artphilein Collection on display. Artphilein Foundation Lugano - Switzerland 2012 - PROST. Kunsthalle - Museumsquartier, Viena - Austria 2011 - Selected Works. Gassmann Zürich - Switzerland 2011 - Música para 18 cosas y Requiem para 2 Basuróphonos. Artium Museo, Vitoria - Spain 2010 - Viola-Me y Música para 18 cosas. Artista invitado, Il Corpo Violato, Turín - Italy 2009 - Artista invitado, Hot Art Basel 09. Basel - Switzerland 2009 - Artista invitado, Las Cosas. 10ª Bienal de La Habana - Cuba 2009 - VERTIDOS. Centro Cultural Puertas de Castilla, Murcia - Spain 2008 - VERTIDOS. Galería Blanca Berlín, Madrid - Spain 2008 - Arco 08, Mi propuesta. Colectiva Galería Joan Gaspar, Madrid - Spain 2007 - Silent Escape. Galería H2O, Barcelona - Spain 2006 - VERTIDOS. Brasilea Foundation, Basel - Switzerland 2006 - SymmetroS. Brasilea Foundation, Basel - Switzerland 1998 - Around the Himalayas. Museu da República, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil 1998 - Around the Himalayas. Museu da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo - Brazil 1996 - Voices. Instalación audiovisual en el metro de Barcelona. Año Europeo contra el racismo - Spain 1992 - SymmetroS. Galeria Fotoptica, São Paulo - Brazil 1992 - SymmetroS. Fundação CSN, Volta Redonda, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil 1991 - 13 Fotógrafos 13 fotos. Colectiva, Galeria 110, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil 1990 - Landscape for a future earth. Galeria Collectors, São Paulo - Brazil 1989 - Abstract Landscape. Galería Railowsky, Valencia - Spain 1988 Glaciares Alucinógenos. Galería Tartessos, Barcelona - Spain Home

OXIDE It is a beautiful yet simple reflection that a tree grows in two directions. The crown is beautiful, and the roots invisible. What we see, often comes from what is deep, dark, and hidden. The metaphor of oxidation as starting point might seem absurd. We usually associate it with aging, wear and tear, the passage of time. But oxidation should lead us to reflect on what is needed for something to oxidize, and the answer is obvious: oxygen. However, there was a long period in which our atmosphere was toxic and inhospitable to life, until the first living beings began to transform that primitive Precambrian atmosphere, filling it with oxygen through photosynthesis. Therefore, for something to oxidize, it was necessary that something to be born, to exist, in the deepest sense that the word existence can have. A rock, or even the universe as we know it, will cease to exist one day, but being aware of this finitude transforms us into restless reflective beings, full of unanswerable questions, filled with a thirst for knowledge. Óxido is a second interpretation of my most fundamental reflection, which is present throughout my work: existence. It is an extension of my previous project, “Tempo,” begun in 2006 and still unfinished. While “Tempo” is photography and deals with irreversibility, through the idea of photographing with cameras built for a specific situation and which have only a single plate of film, where there is no second chance; “Óxido” is painting, changeable throughout the entire process, from the first to the last line, brushstroke, or shape. It is the desire to believe that yes, we can and must intervene, create destiny, and make our brief existence the moment and place to be and to give our best. Everything has a beginning, everything has an end. To create is to minimize the anguish of knowing this. Perhaps it is a way of not suffering because of it, through reflection, in processes that are like dark and underground roots, invisible to others, but that nourish and shape what we make visible through our thoughts. El Bardo - Iron oxide and hydroxide, acrylic and Double Bass Strings on canvas on wood. 300 x 180 cm Paradise, heaven, hell, purgatory, bardo, these are concepts present in various cultures. The search for meaning, for destiny, a place for eternity. El Bardo is my reflection on the idea that this place is right here, in our simple and limited existence; where our dreams, our ideals, our dramas and conflicts, our questions and our lack of answers, our frustrations and achievements, our effort to be the best we can be, all reside. El Bardo is perhaps the best I've painted to date, possibly the closest result to what I'm aiming for, perhaps one of my works that best represents this moment in my life, so full of true love for what I do and for people who inhabit my life. Over it floats the feeling that much remains to be done; the eternal "And what's yet to come!" while we're here. Empathy - Iron oxide and hydroxide and iron shavings on canvas on wood with magnets. 88 x 100 cm Óxido Nº. 1 - Iron oxide and hydroxide, acrylic and oxidized iron on canvas on wood. 70 x 70 cm Óxido Nº. 2 - Iron oxide and hydroxide and oxidized wire on canvas on wood. 110 x 70 cm Óxido Nº. 3 - Iron oxide and hydroxide, bass string and oxidized iron on canvas on wood. 110 x 70 cm Popocatépetl - Volcanic ash and iron oxide on canvas on wood. 120 x 35 cm Espectróxido - Iron plates, iron oxide and hydroxide, and piano strings on canvas on wood. 150 x 97 cm Espectróxido invertido - Iron oxide and hydroxide and piano strings on canvas on wood. 150 x 97 cm The Tightrope - Iron oxide, broken abrasive disc on canvas and piano string on iron grid. 64 x 43 cm The Box - Iron oxide and hydroxide and piano strings in an iron box. Sound/sensory installation 230 x 150 x 180 cm Museo Internacional del Barroco, Puebla - México. October / November 2024 Guided tour of the OXIDE exhibition, November 2024 Supported by Home

What are you doing the rest of your life? Talking about my project "What are you doing the rest of your life?" requires going back to 2006, when I present in Switzerland my audiovisual installation "Requiem for 2 Basuróphonos", where I reflect on the exhaustion of resources. Imagining myself in a hypothetical decadent future, I built two musical instruments, based on my intuition and with no other resources than the remains of richer times; "basura", trash, hence the name of the instruments This was my first approach to sound art, which years later led me to create the project Music for 18 Things, in which, without being a musician or luthier, I built instruments for an orchestra and composed a musical piece, questioning what we expect from people, what we do with our own lives, or why, when we meet someone, the first thing we ask is what they do for a living. A long time ago, a friend accidentally played a piano key, and I asked her to repeat it. After playing it, she asked me why, and I told her it was the first note Bill Evans plays in the song "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" Then she asked me: "And you, what are you doing the rest of your life, since you always say you're going to start studying music and you never do?" I decided then that this note and the next two would be the question, the raison of being of "Music for 18 Things," surely my most difficult and audacious work, full of questions, hesitation and a need to learn. After months of development, rehearsing every Saturday and Sunday with 14 musicians in my studio in Barcelona, dealing with my personal limitations and questions, both technical and conceptual, and after the premiere in Italy, then in the Basque Country and Barcelona, I decided to reformulate that same question, to repeat those same notes: Do – Si – Mi. "¿Qué - ha - rás?" What will you do? In a much simpler work, alone in my studio, using techniques and materials I know. And in a moment of needing isolation, "Què Faràs?" was born, full of references from important people and circumstances in my life, which attracted or repelled me, but which influenced me enormously, long before the word "influencer" existed with its current meaning. "Què Faràs?" was born as a piece, but remained latent for years, as a starting point for a new series of works in which I would repeat the same question, in different circumstances of life. As in other works of mine, iron oxide and hydroxide, and even the oxidation process itself, merge in gestures of expressionism and abstraction that allude to life and to the most fundamental of all questions: existence. Adapting the work into a large-scale mural format for Music Street in Jaime Lerner Park in Curitiba, Brazil, was definitely the catalyst that propelled the project, which had been waiting for over a decade for other projects, or perhaps waiting for a circumstance that would led me again to ask myself: What will you do for the rest of your life? And my heart beats… once more, and at the same time one less… I don't know, I have more and more questions each second. Què faràs? - Iron oxide and hydroxide, acrylic and piano strings on canvas. 108 x 193 cm Que farás? - Iron oxide and hydroxide, acrylic iron sheets and piano strings. 7 x 15 m. Making of Que farás? Curitiba - video 2 min. What will you do separated? Iron oxide and hydroxide and piano strings on canvas on wood. 113 x 138 cm What will you polarized? Iron oxide and hydroxide and piano string on wood. 88 x 80 x 8 cm What will you do by screaming? Iron oxide and hydroxide and piano strings on canvas on wood. 140 x 73 cm What will you do drowned? Iron oxide and hydroxide and piano strings on river wood. 110 x 20 cm What will you do, influencer? Iron powder, glass, magnet and iron oxide. 40 cm x variable height What will you do without books? Wood, paper, fabric, piano strings, iron oxide and hydroxide. 23 x 31 cm What will you do muted? Iron oxide and hydroxide, string and piano dampers on canvas on wood. 120 x 80 cm Making of What will you do, muted? - video 7 min. Making of What will you do, screaming? - video 6 min. Ybakatu Gallery, Curitiba, Brazil - video 1 min. Making of Què farás? - video 1 hour

Things We have accumulated knowledge, formulated theories, and found possible explanations for some of the fundamental questions. We have even created gods in our own image and likeness, but we still think and act homocentrically, believing that the entire universe, with its billions of galaxies made up of their billions or trillions of stars, circles around us. As if everything belonged to us, as if we could do anything with everything, as if we were the greatest thing. But... above all, many things or few things is not a big deal. Something strange is that anything or something has something to do with an other thing. There’s nothing else to think, that’s life... kid’s stuff, grown-up stuff, and if not, well, on to something else. But, would you believe it! In something like a minute ago, I had never seen anything like this. Everything in its place; home things, the public thing, things we share... everything or few things. As if nothing happened, what a pointless thing... Don’t we have anything more important to do? It's a matter of patience, but that's a different thing. Craze thing! Oh, isn't that something! What a thing! What? What a weird idea! Well... that's my business. What thing? By Diana Gort - 10th Havana Biennial Every story is contained within language*1 , within the word; that which constructs for us an entire symbolic imaginary in which we exist: we do not create language, language creates us*2 . We exist to the extent that we are named, to the extent that we construct, more fully and effectively, the space of narrative: time. Babylon, with its brick buildings and temples that rose like unfinished pyramids *3 , saw in a single language a first step toward world domination. One of its legends says that there the gods were frightened by the arrogance of men, who threatened them even in their celestial homes. And indeed, our relationship with the world has always been bipolar. Good-bad, ugly-beautiful, subject and object, us and the other, us and things. Things . This is the title of the exhibition that Luiz Simoes presents at the 10th Havana Biennial. Born in Brazil and a naturalized Spanish, he abandoned his biology studies to pursue photography. He currently uses diverse techniques and works on conceptual projects that take years to conceive and realize, ultimately resulting in tangible objects. Everything I do is a reflection on existence, on how fragile and irreversible everything is. This is my primary question and is present throughout my work *4 . Things, moreover, is the fruit of the artist's years of travel and his commitment to understanding the world holistically, perhaps due to his scientific background*5 . In this series of four pieces, Plasticosa, Electronicosa, Eve, Adam and Things, and What Thing? , the artist questions our relevance in the universe: we are so arrogant and anthropocentric that we create God in our own image and likeness*6 . Things is a bird's-eye view, but one that includes himself, where Simoes sees us as small components of a great machine, as in the work Electronicosa . It is a narrative told through language, from a concept developed over years, of the history of humankind, which not only refers us to Babel as a metaphor for homocentrism but also to the Know thyself that the Oracle of Delphi told Aristotle or Gauguin's Who are we, where do we come from, and where are we going? Things questions humanity, the human who is also a thing. From the moment we name ourselves, from the moment we ask ourselves who we are, where we come from, and where we are going, we are also an object, another thing among things. The human being, what thing? 1 - Alberto Abreu Arcia. The Games of Writing or the (Re)writing of History. Casa de las Américas Prize 2007, artistic-literary essay. Casa Publisher, Havana, 2007. 2 - Martin Heidegger. Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry. Digital Library of Artistic Culture Theory. Compiled by Carlos Eddy Simón Forcade. Faculty of Letters, University of Havana, 2007. 3 - Introduction to Exodus. Latin American Bible. 4 - Luiz Simoes. Dossier Tempo. www.luizsimoes.com 5 - Pepe Font de Mora. About Luiz Simoes. www.luizsimoes.com 6. Luiz Simoes. Interview with the artist. Installation for the 10th Havana Biennial, 2009. For English Para Español Para português Per l'Italiano Für Deutsch En français 日本語で聞く場合は、 ¿Qué cosa? (What?) 36 telephones that belonged to a police station, 36 images stolen with a phone mounted on plexiglass, acrylic paint, voices and electronic circuits in a oxidizsed iron box. 14x95x185cm Electronicosa Duratrans on Plexiglas over electronic circuit boards in light box. 21 x 120 x 234 cm Plasticosa Duratrans on plexiglass over my plastic waste from a year and acrylic paint in a light box. 13 x 90 x 234 cm Eve, Adam and Things Video of a choreographed dance with music for Basuróphonos, female vocals, a handsaw, and percussion, on a 32-inch screen with a oxidizaed iron frame. 10 minutes on a loop. 13 x 90 x 120 cm Making of Eva Adán y las cosas - video 2 min. Things are just things and there are things in life that aren't just things, things I wouldn't trade for anything. Front: Silver gelatin print on canvas / Back: Polyurethane, iron pigments, and broken bicycle frame. 90 x 146 cm Kid's stuff Toy guns, polyurethane, iron oxide and hydroxide on canvas. 90 x 146 x 10 cm Banana gelatin on plate urine toned Silver gelatin on paper gold toned. 49 x 59 cm Tenth Havana Biennial, 2009 Blanca Berlin Gallery. Madrid, 2008 Making of Las cosas - video 2 min. Home

Music for 18 things In 2006 I presented in Switzerland my audiovisual installation Requiem for 2 Basuróphonos, for which I had built two string instruments similar to a cello and a double bass and I had also composed the music, which surprised some people, since I am neither a musician nor a luthier. But ultimately the final result was a visual work, something I had always done. Years later, I decided to work on a piece that didn't have image as the final result. Something people would not expect from me. Something I knew I was not prepared to do. I decide then to compose a piece of music to be performed by an orchestra with instruments I built myself, questioning what we do with our lives, what we expect from others, or why the first thing we ask when we meet someone is what they do for a living, establishing filters for our social circles. I built the instruments in an unexpected way, questioning also the way we expect things to be, not only the people. I choose to be inspired by the masterpiece of someone I consider to be one of the greatest contemporary composers, Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich. In fact I dedicate the work to him, but the work is not the music, nor the instruments, but the fact that I do something I’m not expected to do. As in Reich’s composition, pulse and breathing allude to time and life. The concert begins with a stethoscope with a built in microphone in my chest and my heart beats sounding live, making metronome in the initial part of the work, which is divided into eight sections: pulse, breathing, growth, torment, chaos, harmony, breathing and pulse; drawing an endless circle across being alive, growing and the torment caused by the feeling that growth generates even more questions. Music for 18 things is full of significant elements in my life along the last decades. My expectations, my frustrations and achievements on what I have been doing, what I do and what I still want to do; questioning what we are, with more and more questions each second. Transcript of the conference to which Luiz Simoes was invited by the Artphilein Foundation in February 2010 in Italy to present the projects Music for 18 things and ViolaMe, to the artists and philosophers participating in the event Il Corpo Violato. Miró Foundation. Barcelona, 2019 Interview, 8 minute video Complete work, video 24 minutes Basuróphonos Basso, Mezzo and da Gamba 00:00 / 00:30 Basso and Baritone Tubophonos 00:00 / 00:38 The Crappycordio 00:00 / 00:27 The Hammer 00:00 / 00:08 Maracalata 00:00 / 00:36 Violoca Vidriáphono 00:00 / 00:08 The voice El Tormentophone 00:00 / 00:16 The Wheel 00:00 / 00:19 My heart 00:00 / 00:22 Recording session. La Fontana Auditorium. Barcelona, June 2011 Premiere at the Espace Theater. Italy, 2010 International Museum Day. ARTIUM Museum, Vitoria 2011 Excerpts from essays and the presentation at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, on November 16, 2019, in the context of the exhibition Sound Art? - Video 6 minutes Supported by Home

Muy pronto Em breve Coming soon

...and to dust you shall return. En proceso - Coming soon - Em breve …and to dust you shall return is a recently started project in which I am using, as pigments for a series of paintings, earths, sands and crushed stones that I have been collecting for decades in places I have traveled throughout my life. Although it is quite advanced conceptually and formally, it is still in the initial phase of production. BPS - Sahara sand, graphite and titanium dioxide on linen. 130 x 81 cm. Wandering through this immense desert, day after day I camp wherever I am when the magical hour of twilight approaches. The deep blues give way to reds, lilacs, grays, and black. In the most profound solitude I have ever known, I prepare my dinner, listen to my music, write, and contemplate the most majestic and bewildering of all skies, which crushes me down on Earth and fills me with a deep sense of insignificance. Like every grain of sand in this vast desert, how tiny and insignificant we are in the Cosmos. Algeria, December 1988 ETHER - audiovisual installation for 4 slide projectors, light and smoke, projected onto the painting "My plans". 5.2 x 1.95 m. ETHER From Latin æthēr and Greek aithēr: sky, firmament, the pure and bright air above. In Sanskrit "akasha", the fifth element, the space in which everything exists, which does not have the firmness of the earth, the freshness of water, the heat of fire, nor the movement of air... The Luminiferous Ether, which the ancients believed to fill the entire dark cosmos and allow light to travel. The very essence of void. Void, in which I find myself, and leads me to the unanswerable question... “the primordial nothingness”, prior to matter, to energy and to everything we have understood or invented. “The nothingness” that redeems me, that places me in my condition of dust, into which everything shall return. That shows me the nonsense of the whole and the whole sense of my brief existence, at peace with our smallness, with our irrelevance, our finitude and free from the search for eternity. Khumbu, December 2024 Work in process Home

Frozen Hoy, cuando la fotografía deja de tener una de sus funciones históricas, la de preservar el pasado y se convierte en herramienta social para enseñar el presente, Frozen (congelado), propone una reflexión sobre lo que hemos tenido, lo que hemos soñado, lo que ya no tenemos y lo que podemos conservar o rescatar de nuestros ideales y nuestras relaciones humanas. A principios de los años ochenta, recibí de Kodak muestras de una nueva película, desarrollada específicamente para fines técnicos y científicos. Realicé varios experimentos y la definición de imagen era la mejor que había visto jamás, pero el contraste era exagerado y por mucho que utilizara procesos ultra compensadores, no conseguí la riqueza tonal que buscaba. Años más tarde, Kodak desarrolló un revelador específico para aplicaciones pictóricas con esta película. Probarlo puso un fin a mis experimentos químicos. Todo lo que yo había buscado siempre en nitidez y riqueza tonal estaba allí. Muy probablemente los científicos de Kodak habían desarrollado su revelador dentro de las mismas bases que yo había estado probando. Fenidona como único agente revelador y sulfito de sodio como antioxidante, pero añadiendo una pequeña cantidad de Benzotriazol como agente anti‐fog, y sus resultados fueron mejores que los míos. Aquello fue un marco en mi relación con la fotografía. Me hizo repensar que buscaba en ella, como medio de expresión, más allá de la técnica y la ciencia. Se acababan los experimentos científicos y aquella se convertiría en mi única película, con pocas variaciones en su revelado, que me permitieran adecuar el contraste a lo que yo quisiera expresar. Cuando Kodak dejó de fabricar esta película, compré todo el estoque disponible en las tiendas de Barcelona. Sabiendo que a veinte grados bajo cero se paraliza el envejecimiento de las emulsiones fotográficas blanco y negro, las guardé en mi congelador, como una reliquia, esperando una ocasión especial. Una década había pasado cuando mi amigo, Manoel Morgado y yo decidimos vivir el antiguo sueño de realizar una travesía invernal en el Himalaya, caminando sobre el río Zanzkar congelado. Durante el mes de enero, el lecho de este río se congela, convirtiéndolo en la ruta invernal utilizada por los Zanzkaris desde hace siglos. Era hora de descongelar película, descongelar el viejo sueño y casi congelarnos a treinta grados bajo cero dentro de un estrecho y sombrío cañón del Himalaya. La película estaba intacta, el sueño seguía vigente, la amistad viva. Pero en realidad, la primera ocasión en la que saqué mi reliquia del congelador fue cuando decidimos Pepe Font de Mora y yo, hacer juntos una travesía en bicicleta por el Sáhara. Era el año 2008, Pepe y yo nos reencontrábamos, después de más de una década sin vernos, sin embargo nuestra amistad seguía intacta y el sueño más vivo que nunca, pero la única fotografía que llegué hacer en aquel viaje discursó sobre el fracaso de un sueño. No del nuestro, sino de otros… desconocidos. Un pequeño punto claro en la llanura desértica nos llamó la atención y nos desviamos de la línea recta que trazábamos a brújula, para averiguar de qué se trataba. Un cuerpo humano en estado parcial de putrefacción yacía eternamente en medio a tanto vacío. Alrededor suyo no había una mochila, un bolso, una simple botella con agua... apenas un par de zapatos dejados unos metros atrás. Lo último de lo que se había despojado. Pensé inmediatamente en aquellos que abandonan sus tierras, sus culturas, sus familias en búsqueda de una vida más digna. Y esta vez fue mi corazón el que se congeló, avasallado por un profundo sentimiento de pena y tristeza, al pensar en aquellos que se quedarán para siempre sin noticias, sin saber si fueron olvidados o si perdieron a un ser querido. Afortunados somos, al poder rescatar sueños, amistades y otras cosas paralizadas en el tiempo. Pero que pequeños somos, al ser conscientes de que la vida no se congela. Quizá, por ello algunos pretendan tanto “congelar el momento”, como se suele decir en fotografía. Yo, no he tenido jamás esta pretensión. Muy pronto - Em breve - Coming soon Home

SymmetroS Muy pronto - Em breve - Coming soon Home