Eleonora Battiston, curator, art critic and creator of this project has made the 60 square meters of his office available to the Valencian artist Keke Vilabelda. There, Vilabelda has spread 800 kilos of Torrevieja salt all over the floor of the Esound offices, in a pictorial and sound installation complete with half a dozen paintings and background music.
Eleonora Battiston explains to Levante-EMV that this project arises because «the idea of being locked in empty spaces during confinement was even sadder and the opportunities to enjoy art were few, only through the screen and art on a screen is a contradiction ». Furthermore, this Italian living in Valencia regrets that “the opportunity for artists to exhibit their work has been greatly reduced. In this way, we also reach a different audience because relationships can be created with other spaces and artists ”.
At such an “uncertain” moment, the idea of an art gallery seemed hardly viable for the agency, due to the reduction in capacity and the restrictions derived from the pandemic, so Battiston wanted to “experiment with this new format” and invite to an artist with an already consolidated career to mount an intervention in Esound’s office and “demonstrate that art can and should inhabit everyday spaces, adding value to our lives, banishing the prejudice that works should be confined to museums and galleries and that collecting is not a practice that has to be limited to a select few.
For this reason, Battiston’s intention is not to have a program like that of a gallery, but to have “three or four projects a year”, “as an alternative to the artist’s studio.” Meanwhile, Vilabelda’s works are already on sale and will remain on display for two months.
Surrounding environment
Keke Vilabelda himself explains to this newspaper the project he has developed for Esound. Under the title “Common Ground”, Vilabelda has spilled 800 kilos of salt in the space and decorated it with half a dozen paintings and two audiovisuals, while music and sounds from his own studio are playing in the environment, all It is illuminated with pinkish lights, in keeping with the tones of the salt flats in the paintings. The origin of this specific work for the Valencia office is an installation that he already exhibited in 2019 at the Grau Projekt in Melbourne (Australia) and at the Lambert Collection in Avignon (France).
The artist, he explains, was interested in these times of pandemic and confinement “the idea of traveling without leaving home, but not with the screens, which is something more guided.” “This is a more relaxed trip,” he says.
This project, in his words, connects “different landscapes through common characteristics and the singularities of these salt flats. They are abstract starting paintings and to which the viewer, when he finds the clues, is giving shape and content. Salt is an element that works as a connector, so that the viewer gets fully into the space. For this reason, the office had to be completely transformed, not just decorating and hanging pictures, but completely changing the atmosphere and feeling. Hence the use of light, sounds, textures ».
Vilabelda points out that “I work with the idea of the transformation of the landscape. These paintings are created in a very organized way. I am not imitating what I have seen but recreating it. Salt has many connotations: mystical, cultural, political or social, to purify or destroy.
Regarding emotions, he points out that «in all jobs you have the feeling of seeing something unknown. The starting point was something ambiguous, something that seemed unreal, futuristic or science fiction to later discover that it is a reality and that these textures correspond to real landscapes ».
In fact, the videos that are part of the installation are recorded with a drone in the Salt Lake of Torrevieja and Lake Tyrell (Australia). “These far-away places have similarities and differences,” says the artist, who argues that “this exhibition and art in general have that part of real contact that we are losing with the pandemic. People want to feel the material live, see, smell and touch. Painting is matter and you have to see it live », concludes the artist.
The exhibition can be visited until the end of March by appointment.
– .
