Art Madrid'23 – BENE BERGADO AND THE PERSON

BENE BERGADO. Detail of Garbage Eggs, 2015

 

 

Bene Bergado, Salamanca 1965. She is a “salmantina” artist, who began her career in the nineties. Her work, almost exclusively dedicated to delving into the behaviors of the human condition, helps us to understand the strange mutations between truth and suspicion. Her sculptures, created by complex techniques and difficult to guess, accentuate the mystery of the inspiration to which he submits. These tensions, to which the human being is subjected, are shaped by personal metaphors and external conventions.

 

 

View of the exhibition

 

 

The pressures between the individual and the group, are externalized in this sample treated in an unconventional way. His curator, Manuel Olveira, has not followed an order based on chronological test, since most of the work has been created specifically for the exhibition at MUSAC. The exhibition, presented as a great installation dedicated to the human, places the viewer in micro contexts (home, family, unusual and shocking) that help us to understand the dependencies and interactions in their most primary dimensions.

 

 

BENE BERGADO. Homo capitalensis, 2010

 

 

The series, refer to the measurement of dependence we have on certain objects, such as "junk eggs", which shows us the amount of garbage we generate in a short period of time. The waste, are part of the day to day of the human being, and this artist makes us reflect on it. Environmental and economic concerns are a topical issue, but we seldom stop to assimilate those concerns.

 

 

BENE BERGADO. Leaves of Gaia, 2016. From the series MAPAS, 2015

 

 

The collective way in which we relate contrasts with our innermost being. Each individual is different, but at the same time we all behave in a very similar way. The cultural and the social, condition us when it comes to knowing and behaving. Other facilities, such as "Family plot" created with personal objects of people close to the artist, make us reflect on all of the above. You can enjoy this exhibition until 8 January. If you are in the area, do not hesitate to visit it.

 

 

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.