MUN_280916_ExpoConstellations

The Museum has inaugurated Constellations of the intangiblea sample of the Guatemalan artist Luis Gonzalez Palma, organized and produced by Fundación Telefonica. The exhibition traces his production from the 1980s to the present day and is completed with works belonging to the Museum's Collection and produced after his participation in the artistic creation program Building Bridges in 2013.

The exhibition, which could be seen at Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Madrid at the framework of the PHotoEspaña festival and at the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC), traces the photographer's intimate and enigmatic universe in a retrospective that brings together more than 80 works. "The itinerancy of the sample has been enriched in each place where it has been exhibited, making it unique and singular. This is the first partnership with the Museo Universidad de Navarra, with which we have many similarities that I hope can forge an alliance," said Laura Fernández Orgaz, manager of Art and Technology Projects at Fundación Telefónica.

At sample, the author explores the technical and formal possibilities of photography by experimenting with the application of Judea bitumen and gold leaf, redefining the limits between photography and painting, combining images and texts or proposing a sculptural experience of the image. His universe is made up of thematic constellations that orbit around his work in a cycle of permanent back and forth. "González Palma appeals to the visitor's intelligence through the gaze that his works give off," said Rafael Levenfeld, from the Museum's Artistic Direction committee . Identity and the report, introspection, intimacy, reflection on power and the representation of the non-visible are some of the major themes that overfly his production. "Although I use different techniques and approaches, the themes of my work are always the same and revolve around a reflection on the human condition," said the artist.

Luis González Palma

Among the works produced for Tender Bridges, the program promoted by the Museum since 2002 that proposes a dialogue between contemporary photographers, as in this case Luis González Palma, with the Museum's Collection, a production of those pioneers in Spain in the 19th century, are 17 pieces that are exhibited within the Möbius series. The artist discovered the Collection in 2013 and noticed some uncut Carte de visite plates by photographer André Disderi, in which sample the same character portrayed eight times in different poses. These pieces, evoked in the artist the awareness that in the portrait we want to be perceived according to the concept we have of ourselves, and in this sense we are complex people, who manifest ourselves in multiple ways through our gestures and our face, the same as the different portraits that appeared on these plates. The artist's work for Tender Bridges has a publication already on sale at the Museum, on the web and in other establishments. 

In his first stage, which develops in the late 80s, the artist has as goal understand the latent ethnic and cultural diversity in his country, with constant mentions to its history, to the documents generated by the colonial power and to the collective report .

His works contain numerous visual and iconographic references that configure ambiguous and extremely subtle levels of reading and interpretation. Through the face and the gaze, González Palma explores immaterial aspects such as trauma, loss, pain and silence, all feelings derived from the violence experienced in Guatemala for more than five centuries.

Few creators based on photography have taken the possibilities and limits of the photographic medium so far, incorporating elements of painting, writing or sculpture into their work. "I am interested in moving away from photography understood as classical and I prefer to include it in a sculptural and pictorial space," said González Palma.

From the 90's onwards, his work follows a path that takes him from the popular to the intimate. He begins to concentrate on the exploration of report and personal obsessions. It is what could be identified as a second stage in which the work derived from the socio-political context is progressively abandoned to give way to a much more introspective reflection.

In his works from 2002 to 2012, issues such as intimacy, incommunication, the frustration of amorous passion, anguish and unsatisfied desire flood his work. At this time, many of his worksleave portraiture aside to focus on spaces and objects that suggest and evoke metaphors of the artist's emotional world: chairs in which one cannot rest, objects that give off a sense of threat, absent presences or desolate scenarios. For the most part, images anchored in unreal and fantastic spaces with certain surrealist echoes and a marked theatrical aspect.

In his last stage, González Palma experiments with abstraction, intervening old and new photographs through the use of geometric figures and color, reminiscent of concretism and Brazilian neo-concretism. With the superimposition of abstract forms on figurative images, he once again approaches the analysis of the gaze.

At this stage he finds his maximum expression in the format of the catoptrics: photographs projected on cylinders or optical devices that reconfigure the image posed horizontally in which no matter how hard the viewer tries to find the perfect point of view, the image always remains fragmented, partial and incomplete. "These elements teach us how we see ourselves and how one person is many people at the same time. It is a reflection of the complexity of the representation of the human being," explained the artist.

Luis González Palma was born in Guatemala City in 1957. After finishing degree program in Architecture, his interest in art, painting and photography led him to train more intensely in these fields and to enter contact with other Guatemalan artists. In 1987 he participated in the creation of Imaginaria, a gallery in La Antigua that welcomed the dissident voices of his country's art. Later, at the end of the nineties, he was part of the founding group of Colloquia, an initiative aimed at discussion, the promotion and diffusion of contemporary art in Guatemala. After several stays in Europe and upon his return to Guatemala in 1998, in 2001 he moved to Córdoba, Argentina, where he began to collaborate on several projects with Graciela De Oliveira.

From his first exhibitions in Central America, the U.S. and Europe to the present, his work has been fundamental to the understanding of Latin American photography. Among his countless solo exhibitions are those held at The Art Institute of Chicago, The Lannan Foundation, The Australian Centre for Photography, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico, The Royal Festival Hall in London, the Palazzo Ducale di Genova, the MACRO and Castagnino Museums in Rosario, Argentina. He also participated in numerous international festivals such as the Houston Photofest and Les Rencontres de Arles in France. Luis González Palma represented his country at the 51st edition of the Venice Biennale .