Javier Pérez. Mutaciones, metamorfosis

21 october, 2004 - 17 january, 2005 /
Palacio de Cristal, Parque del Retiro, Madrid
Exhibition view. Javier Pérez. Mutaciones, metamorfosis, 2004
Exhibition view. Javier Pérez. Mutaciones, metamorfosis, 2004

Artist Javier Pérez (Bilbao, 1968) trains in the Basque Country and in Paris and produces his first works in the early nineties, when he breaks into the art scene with a special twist on the trend from those days: the aesthetics of the body.

In his sculptures as well as in his installations, drawings and videos, the artist refers to concepts such as instability, ambiguity, fragility, transformation or vulnerability. Pérez paints at the point between the spiritual and the carnal, pure and the impure, attraction and repulsion. Through subtle mental and sensory mechanisms, he immerses himself in the ambivalences that support the vital human living space and crashes the unfathomable dark side into the bright side of a vision, which results in a meeting with seductive images and reviews of the world of appearances in the cultural construction of personal universes. Temporality and biological transformation give his work a look that is overwhelmingly anthropocentric. Pérez asks himself about man and his limits, desires, frustrations, ambitions and about the absurdity of their behaviours.

On this occasion the installation exhibited at the Palacio de Cristal del Parque del Retiro in Madrid is composed of a collection of pieces that bloom in space like a living and mutant organism, fed by an ancient olive tree, symbol of peace and life, showing its insides died with bloody sap. With them, the artist appropriates the huge glass dome of the Palacio, integrating it into his project, building under it an unnerving anthropomorphic and mineral planetarium that absorbs and reflects light and makes continuous changes in its perception like a constant metamorphosis. The works move in circular and radial motions, growth movements that are very common in nature, from the centre to the periphery. Thus emerges a concentric universe with a red and metallic presence, like a disturbing planetarium that absorbs and reflects light beams. The artist moves the dilemmas of existence to the very physicality of art, often he subjects the materials to situations of high technical risk, in this way reflecting the instability of a world that strives to create continuous perpetuation projects.

Pérez's work was part of the Spain Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and has already been exhibited in 1998 in Espacio Uno of the Museo, at the exhibition Javier Pérez. Hábitos.

Exhibition´s details

Organized by: 
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Curatorship: 
Teresa Blanch
Artists:
Javier Pérez