en horas bajas an exhibition by Juan Antonio Cerezuela
curated by Alterdúo – Arianna Esposito and Marco Tondello
Espronceda Institute of Art & Culture
Inauguration: November 24, 2021 at 7:00 p.m.
Guided tour by books: December 4, 2021 at 5:30 p.m.
From November 24th to December 10th, 2021
C/ d’Espronceda, 326, Nave 4 y 5, 08027 Barcelona
www.espronceda.net | info@espronceda.net
Opening hours Tuesday to Saturday: 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Other hours available by appointment
Espronceda Institute of Art & Culture presents en horas bajas, a solo exhibition by artist Juan Antonio Cerezuela (Cartagena, 1982), curated by Alterdúo, a collective formed by Arianna Esposito (Rome, 1993) and Marco Tondello (Padua, 1989), winners of the Residency Programme for Art Curators 2021 organised by the same centre.
en horas bajas approaches language and history as transformable matter, susceptible to aggression, catastrophes, being reduced to ruins, and their subsequent redemption. The project draws on theoretical references including Walter Benjamin and Karl Kraus.
The title derives from the expression “to be in low hours”, used by fishermen and sailors when low tide prevents them from setting sail or fishing. In more colloquial language, the phrase also indicates that something is not at its best — in other words, that it is in decline.
The exhibition, on view at Espronceda from November 24th to December 10th, 2021, brings together the artist’s most emblematic works alongside newly created pieces and large-scale installations, as well as subtle interventions throughout the space. All artistic production refers to burned texts; writings used during dictatorial regimes to justify book burnings; flammable materials transformed into ash, charcoal, or waste appearing in their dormant state. en horas bajas concludes with an action conceived by the artist and Alterdúo entitled Guided Tour by Books which, through the interpretation of different quotations and texts, will offer a new reading of the exhibition project.
All discourse is born, dies, and resurfaces. Sometimes it tends to be incendiary; other times it ends in ruins. In any case, it never fully disappears.
There is a dichotomy, debated by many authors, between the vision of language as an act of creation and, at the same time, as an agent of catastrophe. In its broadest sense, we can consider language as a place full of aggressions and wounds — sometimes oppressive, sometimes oppressed — giving rise to both the most creative beauty and the most destructive force.
en horas bajas is an exhibition that presents, in the half-light, reflections gathering the legacy of our past to bring it into the present, prompting us to question what future we will build upon its ruins.
Language sets fire. Language is ruin. Language is hope.
Juan Antonio Cerezuela (Cartagena, 1982), visual artist and researcher, currently resident at La Escocesa, holds a PhD in Visual and Intermedial Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Valencia (2014) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Granada (2005). The discourse of his work is consistently analytical, addressing language as structure and sign system, and exploring questions of narrative and fiction, the ways in which stories reach us, and how hegemonic and power discourses are articulated.
Recent exhibitions include: Blanco y Ceniza at 13ESPACIOarte (Seville, 2021), Subversió! Manifestacions perifèriques per a una història reversible (Born CCM, 2020), Paisatges desitjats (Arts Santa Mònica, 2020), ESC-OUT: Deviations of artistic practices in the public sphere (Fabra i Coats, 2019), The Fireproof Memory (Gabarrón Foundation, Murcia, 2019), Full Blanks (CEART, Madrid, 2019). He was a finalist for the Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize Awards (London, 2019), received the 1st prize for Emerging Art of Sabadell (2017) and the 1st prize at the XXXI La Rioja Young Art Show (2015), among others. In 2020 he received the Grant for Production in Plastic and Visual Arts from the ICA of the Region of Murcia and the Grant for Research and Artistic Experimentation from La Escocesa.
Alterdúo is a curatorial collective conceived by Arianna Esposito (Rome, 1993) and Marco Tondello (Padua, 1989). Their projects and research stem from a questioning of current realities, with particular attention to emerging and marginal practices, in order to build networks and spaces of intersubjectivity between culture and community.
Both share an interest in contemporary and digital artistic practices, grounding their work around two main axes: dialogue and process. Dialogue as a device of care and a drive towards non-hegemonic collaborative experiences, and process as a constant action in which other possible beginnings can emerge.
As a duo, they curated the exhibition #internetflags by Irma Marco at Espai Souvenir gallery (2020), collaborated with L’Estruch de Sabadell on Dissonants, cicle de performance i tecnologia (2021), and presented Entrañas: Carne de mi carne by María Alcaide in the 1+1+1… programme of Loop Festival 2021.
