Art Madrid'26 – BRUCE CONNER THE MIRROR OF SOCIETY

Bomhead,1989

 

 

Bruce Conner (1933-2008) was an American artist, notable for the use of techniques such as Found footage (narrative technique used in horror films and false documentaries) and assembly. Pioneer in the realization of experimental cinema, Conner also stands out for the realization of other techniques like the drawing, the painting or the sculpture, without forgetting the photography or the collage.

 

 

Child, 1959

 

 

In addition to a track record that supports him, Conner was one of the motivators of the music video genre. He also stands out as a reference for the underground scene of the 50s and 60s. This exhibition presents, over 250 works spanning 50 years of his career. His work begins in the Californian artistic scene, refers to the culture of consumption, to terror before the nuclear apocalypse and to the fears of American society of his generation.

 

 

 Couch, 1963

 

 

One of its main characteristics is the adaptation of different techniques to his personal style, hybrid pieces alternate painting and sculpture, cinema and performance or drawing and engraving. Early in his career, he began with the reuse of objects for the creation of facilities, these achieved great recognition from the beginning. Do not forget your films, which pioneered many new techniques such as the incorporation of 16 mm film.

 

 

PORTRAIT OF ALLEN GINSBERG, 1960. Wood

 

 

Conner is an artist who knew how to capture the essence of the work to such an extent that today they can be considered contemporary. His political messages, approach him to denounce social problems such as violence in American culture or the assimilation of the female body, as an object of consumption. Curated by Rudolf Frieling, curator of Multimedia Art and Gary Garrels, senior curator Elise S. Haas of Painting and Sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. You can enjoy this experience until May 22nd.

 

 

 


ABIERTO INFINITO. LO QUE EL CUERPO RECUERDA. CICLO DE PERFORMANCE X ART MADRID'26


Art Madrid, committed to creating a discursive platform for artists working within the field of performance and action art, presents Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda, a proposal inspired by Erving Goffman’s ideas in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Amorrortu Editores, Buenos Aires, 1997).

The project unfolds within a theoretical framework that directly engages with these premises, conceiving social interaction as a stage of carefully modulated performances designed to influence others’ perceptions. Goffman argues that individuals deploy both verbal and involuntary expressions to guide the interpretation of their behavior, sustaining roles and façades that define the situation for those who observe.

The body — the first territory of all representation — precedes both word and learned gesture. Human experience, conscious and unconscious alike, is inscribed within it. Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda departs from this premise: representation inhabits existence itself, and life, understood as a succession of representations, transforms the body into a space of constant negotiation over who we are. In this passage, boundaries blur; the individual opens toward the collective, and the ephemeral acquires symbolic dimension. By inhabiting this interstice, performance simultaneously reveals the fragility of identity and the strength that emerges from encounter with others.


PERFORMANCE: OSCURECER UN PAPEL. BY ROCÍO VALDIVIESO

March 5 | 7:00 PM. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.


Nocturnality. Installation. Rocío Valdivieso..


Oscurecer un papel forms part of a series of actions in which the artist engages in reading through repetition, memorization, and a measured degree of improvisation. Within this framework, a non-linear mode of reading emerges from a written text that is transformed when spoken aloud, assuming a different form in the act of articulation. The texts stem from an ongoing investigation into materiality, space, the relationships between body and matter, writing, the sculptural, and a sustained interest in the exploration of voice and orality.

The material from which Oscurecer un papel is constructed consists of a collection of purchase receipts the artist has been accumulating over time. The printed text they contain, together with the action of bringing them into proximity with a heat source—thereby activating the thermal paper on which they are produced—generates meanings that revolve around the notions of consumption and wear.


Rocío Valdivieso. Latent Aura. Performance documentation.


ABOUT ROCÍO VALDIVIESO

Rocío Valdivieso is an artist, researcher, and cultural manager. She is currently a PhD candidate in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid. She holds an MA in Research in Artistic Practices from the University of Castilla–La Mancha (UCLM) and a BA in Fine Arts from the National University of Tucumán, Argentina. She was a Fundación Carolina fellow from 2022 to 2023. She currently co-directs Errática. Laboratory of Processes and Critique in Madrid, alongside Romina Casile.

She was part of the PEEPA 2023 Program at the Centro de Residencias Artísticas, Matadero Madrid. She completed the 2021/22 Artists Program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, and in 2020 participated in the Intensive Curatorial Program of Proyecto PAC at Galería Gachi Prieto, Buenos Aires. She received the Visual Arts Promotion Award at the 4th Visual Arts Week of the Ente Cultural de Tucumán. She was awarded an AUGM scholarship for an exchange residency at UNESP, São Paulo, Brazil. She also participated in the International Residency Program La Ira de Dios and in the Acéfala Galería Residency for Argentine artists.