AGGTELEK Works 4 Poor Monologues Travel Notes Poéticas del Objeto The Speaker A Sort of Song Fast & Low & Cheap & Silly The Autopsy of Form Slash Theatre of My Mundo Di Chengben Opera When Necessity Becomes the Norm Installation Tale Ass-Dialectics Bio & Info
4 Poor Monologues Performance / Installation Variable dimensions 2013 In 1982 approximately 1,200 small-scale wire-frame sculptures were found on the street outside a transient home in Philadelphia, USA. Nothing is known about the artist s identity or motives. The anonymous artist who created these works is assumed to have had access to tools required to bend some of the heavy-gauge wire visible in the sculptures and it is hypothesized that the sculptures were abandoned after their creator s death. Based on the demographics of the neighborhood in which these works were found it is assumed that the artist might have been African-American. Nearly all the works consist of tightly wound wire around objects including plastic, packaging, nuts, bolts, newspaper/ magazine cutouts, electrical parts, batteries, coins and other items. Some bundles used rubber bands or tape to bind the objects together. Based on limited possible research, the collection has been dated to around 1970-1975. The collected works were given by the art student who found them to Fleisher-Ollman Gallery in Philadelphia which, since then, operates as the guardian of these works. Though the display itself requires an activation through the four monologues written by the artists. These monologues, enacted during the opening, operate somewhere in-between improvisational theater and enacted audience participation, give a variety of different visions/ proposals for the exhibition as it could have been developed but in fact wasn t. The exhibition is written as a kind of shopping list of impossibility to realize an ultimate exhibition format, leaving homeless a bunch of unrealised ideas. Aggtelek <> Philadelphia Wireman becomes an economic drama based on the history of art and contemporary artistic reality. Aggtelek, Gema Perales and Xandro Valles, pay homage to these works by creating a setting within the gallery that integrates the works of Philadelphia Wireman as part of a stage-like set consisting of various novalue materials; random fragments, partially recycled from previous exhibitions, and various performative objects.
Travel Notes Series Painting 100 x 70 cm 2013 Travel Notes is a series of paintings created from the research of Tumblr images. By alterating their configuration, the idea is to give them a new conceptual destination. Each one has their own authenticity certificate which, as a writting-collage and waybill, draw a specific travel itinerary. A 3D painting where the artists expect the collector or the spectator experiment the conceptuality of the work, both by living in the idea and theatricalizing the action of representation as well as becoming performers of the artwork. These series want to emphasize the life of the painting, because the goal is to venture into its concept (trip) and to experience it.
Poéticas del Objeto Sculpture / Installation Variable Dimensions 2012 In a revisitation that alludes to relic exhibitions, curiosity showcases or anthropology museums, this surface is host to objects inspired by the authors subjective social ideas about today s world. Each one comes from and is related to a social response idea, mood or attitude. Media, consumption, design, art history and, in general, capitalist policy debris come together in a joint narration via the information labels of each product. For the opening, a live text action was held; an expanded product of the installation which was named Un poema en cinco días laborables que no lo son and was performed as a Spoken Word piece by the outstanding young Spanish writer Eloy Fernández-Porta.
The Speaker Painting / Installation Variable Dimensions 2012 Room installation centered around a 72-minute atmospheric novel played on speakers; room consists of one pink wallpapered wall, one brown colored wall, yellow ceiling lights, custom-made pillows using tropical patterns and select oil on canvas paintings of various sizes. Exile Gallery. Berlin. 2012...this process is really cool......elevator wooden-construction......with african-tropical decoration......waiting room...saloon......paintings, the voice......atmospheric novel... Trailer...like the never-ending......happy conceptual work......dont PANIC!!... http://vimeo.com/36534725
A Sort of Song Installation variable dimensions 2011 L Autonomie. Brussels The idea of this experimental show was to break the boundaries between artists and curators. We proposed to make an exhibition completely clueless to the curator, who was forced to collaborate with two other ones. They three had to compose the exhibition, its meaning and path. The main curator placed the works as he thought they must be displayed; the second one wrote a text about the relation of the word Aggtelek with some objects; the third one felt manipulated because he couldn t understand the meaning of the show. He then forced the artists to wear mascot heads at the opening, making them feel as his puppets. Who was curating and who creating?
Fast & Low & Cheap & Silly Photo/Painting/Sculpture variable dimensions 2010 Chez Neon, Lyon Fast and low conceptualism is an art movement where ideas are more important than the object. Ideas must prevail over its formal aspects and in many cases the idea is the art piece, even though this one can be silly or has nothing to do with the represented object. Most of the works of this movement have disappeared or have been or will be destroyed, both because of their economical issues, as because of their storage and transportation. Fast and Low conceptualism is inspired by everything and nothing. It explains things but sometimes it doesn t know what to say. It likes cheapness, stupidity, low-cost life, google pictures, banlieue thoughts, shanzai and fast thinking. It is anti-intellectual, but it gets benefits from intellectualism. It wants to become an art reference but it gets bored with art. It likes very much beer and the mental state of a hangover. It loves money but it doesn t know how to get it. And definitely, it hates the mechanisms of the art world. Maintenant je puis dire que l art est une sottise (Rimbaud)
The Autopsy of Form Performance 20 minutes 2010 Performance played at the opening of 2ème Biennal de Rennes Couvent des Jacobins, Rennes. France. 2010 This is an essay about form written in a performance. Taking the subject of the new forms that will come, the text is read by an orator activating the players to make specific movements or constructions, giving new ideas or possibilities of creation. Below a brief extract of the text: The origin of this essay about form written as a performance is to criticize the form, seeking to give new creative principles, and I ve decided to do it in this way: In a performance, where the word form is implicit in the word. A performance that turns back to its origins: to insult, to bother, to provoke. Not lot of people can say they have seen a performance which was not boring. An essay, as Montaigne said, is a judgement, an experiment. Each single experience must have hypothesis, and the hypothesis has something fictitious. The etymology of fiction comes from fingere, participle of fictum, which means to mold, to give form..
Slash Theatre of My Mundo Sculpture/Video/Photo/Collage variable dimensions 2010 Luis Adelantado Gallery. Valencia, Spain Slash Theatre of My Mundo is a series of works that run from the Big Bang to an unknown future Taking the concept of the first principle of the creative act the story of this project runs from the Big Bang until the Middle Ages. Rethinking creation through history, the evolution of forms are presented in a personal way, using Greek or Asian mythology, contemporary references or vanguardian ideas. The two main characters are both the ones of aggtelek collective. They walk through time and space, seeking to find the absolute sculpture as the philosophic stone of creation.
dí chéngben opera Performance/Installation/Sculpture 30 minutes 2010 Performance played at Antigua Casa Haiku. Barcelona 2011 From own references to poetic words, an eclectic opera in 3 acts. Not suitable for soft hearts. This performance used an earlier installation, to give it a new significance using words and actors and overcoming past concepts of the same work.
When Necessity Becomes The Norm Sculpture/Video Variable Dimensions 2009 LABOR Gallery. Budapest. 2009 A miniature sculpture retrospective sorrounded by a collection of videos. Making everything possible with the least posible amount of resources.
Installation Tale Sculpture & 3 selected videos Instuto Cervantes. Brussels 2009 A visual tale divided in three rooms. Taking up some videos about sculptural processes of construction and demolition, the space was divided in 3 forms: figurative, minimal and conceptual.
1er Ensayo Escultórico Video colour sound 00:14:55 2008 Ensayos Escultóricos Starting off with an aesthetics of accumulation combined with cleaning processes, this project is developed structuring cycles of life and death, construction and demolition, making of a multidisciplinary corpus an expanded projection of contaminated mechanisms. Mechanisms insofar as this work does not distinguish between processes and products, but rather presents itself as a continuum. Thus, contaminated beyond the development of pieces in certain hardwares, this project has not parcels to differentiate disciplines, but rather a space that unfolds so that they all adjoin, fuse, interact and superimpose or, as someone said before, explode. 2º Ensayo Escultórico Video-colour-sound 00:08:21 2008
Ass-Dialectics Video/Sculpture/Installation Jozsa Gallery. Brussels. 2009 This work is an auto-reinterpretation of the series Ensayos Escultóricos, where new models of creation are developed through self references. The result is a video where we start to wonder about the value of the authorship, of creation and the created and specially about the sculptural concept through eclectic references and auto-mockery. For the exhibition Ass Dialectics we presented a display of derived pieces of the videotaped process. The exhibition space ended up totally transformed in a dark labyrinth.
ABOUT Aggtelek is the artistic project of Gema Perales (1982) and Xandro Valles (1978). They live in Brussels and Barcelona CV SOLO SHOWS 2013 4 Poor Monologues. Exile. Berlin. Germany Poéticas del Objeto. Shau Ort. Shaufenster. Zürich. CH we/poo/r.glitch=oildownloads.jpg. Galeria Jose Robles. Madrid. ES 2012 The Speaker. Exile. Berlin. Germany Inkjet & Soundtrack. Skl Gallery. Palma. Spain 2011 Plat du Jour. Homesession. Barcelona. Spain Incident no. 40. Incident Report. Hudson. NY. USA Impossibilities. Extreme Survivals in Art. Espai Guinovart. Agramunt. Spain A Sort of Song. L Autonomie. Brussels. Belgium 2010 Fast and Low and Cheap and Silly. Chez Neon. Lyon. France Dí chéngběn Opera. Antigua Casa Haiku. Barcelona. Spain Slash Theatre of My Mundo. SKL Gallery. Palma. Spain Sapce Riders. Hilary Crisp Gallery. London. UK Slash Theatre of My Mundo. Part 1. Luis Adelantado Valencia. Valencia. Spain Ass-Dialectics + 2 Porno Malevich s. Galeria Magda Bellotti. Espacio Algeciras. Madrid. Spain 2009 When necessity becomes the norm (A poor retrospective). LABOR. Budapest. Hungary Installation Tale. Instituto Cervantes. Brussels. Belgium Ass-Dialectics. Jozsa Gallery. Brussels. Belgium El video del mes. Matadero. Madrid. Spain 2008 1er Ensayo Escultórico. Galeria Espacio Líquido. Gijón. Spain Lightfall Post-Collage. Centre Cultural la Mercè. Burriana, Castellón. Spain AGGTELEK, Subzone1. Galerie Adler. Frankfurt am Main. Germany Boxplot. Perrforming ARCO 08. Madrid. Spain 2007 Performing the Scenography. Jozsa Gallery. Brussels. Belgium Performing the Sculpture & Sculpturing the Performance. Luis Adelantado Valencia. Spain Cartoonformance. Individual Explum. Puerto Lumbreras. Murcia. Spain GROUP SHOWS (selection) 2013 FAQ: Factotum. Fundació Tàpies. Barcelona. ES Les Murs du Temps. Cyan Gallery. Barcelona. ES Comunitats Artístiques del Poblenou. Can Felipa. Barcelona. ES SummerFete. Ceri Hand Gallery. Londres. UK Beelden op het Vrijthof. Maastricht. NL Comunidades Artisticas del Poblenou. Can Felipa. Barcelona. ES Liste. With Martin Kohout. Exile Gallery. Basel. CH Festival Oodaaq. Rennes. FR Me, Myself And I. Fundación Centenera. Sala La Lonja. Madrid. ES Emerging Artists Award. BeersLambert Gallery. London. UK 2012 Artissima. Exile. Torino. Italy 12 Mostra Internacional Gas Natural Fenosa. MACUF. A Coruña. Spain Spaces:Demolition. Centrul Civic. Chisinau. Moldavia Critical Botox In times of 2.0 feudalism. Pavilion Unicredit. Bucharest. Romania Simultan Festival 8. The beggining of the End. Timisoara. Romania claresil 2012 mg. Curated by Alex Brahim. La Capella. Barcelona. Spain Indisciplines! Performance with Pere Faura. Mercat de les Flors. Barcelona. Spain The Immutables. DAFO. Lleida. Spain Spaces: Demolition. Videoscreening. Chisinau. Moldova Ciutat. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Bellaterra, Barcelona. Spain 2011 PDF Sculptures. Window Auckland. Auckland. New Zeland Other Possible Titles. Grizzly Grizzly. Philadelphia. PA. USA Summercamp III. There is so much beauty it can make you cry. Exile. Berlin. Germany Saltar la página. De Velázquez a Canogar. Museo ABC. Madrid. Spain Art is a Combat Sport. Curated by Jean-Marc Huitorel. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Calais. France Premis Ciutat de Palma. Casal Solleric. Palma de Mallorca. Spain 2010 BIAM 2010. Museu del Monstià. Amposta. Spain Partition 2.0/Fake. Modem, Center of Modern and Contemporary Art. Debrecen. Hungary 2ème Biennial de Rennes. Ce qui vient. Curated by Raphael Jeune. Couvent des Jacobins. Rennes. France Santurce es Ley. Curated by DaWire (Carla Acevedo). Santurce. Puerto Rico Festival Agitato. Le Triangle. Rennes. France Mientras sea Posible. Casa América. Madrid. Spain Premis Ciutat de Palma. Casal Solleric. Palma de Mallorca. Spain 2009 Remote viewing: New Video Art. Curated by Paul Young. Pacific Design Center. Los Angeles. USA Inaugural Exhibition. Luis Adelantado Mexico. Mexico City 46 Certamen Internacional Artes Plásticas de Pollença. Museu de Pollença. Mallorca. SP Crosstalk Festival. Budapest. Hungary Solo al Buio. Mercati di Traiano. Rome. Italy Diez +: Arte Contemporáneo Español de la Colección ABC. Instituto Cervantes. New York. USA El video del mes: marzo 2009. Matadero. Madrid. Spain Processes2: True Image. VideoSpace. Budapest. Hungria Now. Transformation Spaces. Casa del Lago. Mexico DF. Mexico LP 09. Festival de Dansa o no. CCCB. Barcelona. Spain
2008 Fràgil. Musée Le Carré-Bonnat. Bayonne. France V Certamen de Pintura de Castellón. Museo de Bellas Artes. Castellón. Spain Zomerzone. Museum Het Domein. Sittard. Holland Ajenos. Cavallerizza Palazzo Sambucca. Palermo. Italy Video Europa. Off Loop Festival. Espai Ubu. Barcelona. Spain 2007 VICE. Luis Adelantado Miami. Miami. USA La Noche en Blanco. Centro Cultural Conde Duque. Madrid. Spain Nightcomers Project. X Biennial of Istanbul. Istanbul. Turkey VI Concurso de Artes Plásticas del Gobierno de Cantabria. Santander. Spain Muestra de Artes Visuales INJUVE. Círculo de Bellas Artes. Madrid. Spain Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick. Condesa DF. Mexico DF. México XII Premi D Arts Visuals Ciutat de Burriana. Burriana. Castellón. Spain El ojo que ves. Premio Internacional de Fotografía Contemporánea Pilar Citoler. Córdoba. Spain AWARDS & GRANTS 2012 Beers.Lambert Award for Emerging Art. London. UK 2009 1st Runners-up prize. ABC Art Prize. Madrid. Spain 2008 1st award. 5th International Painting Prize from Castellón County Council. Spain VII Grants Al Norte. Gijón. Asturias. SP 2007 1st award. VI Concurso de Artes Plásticas del Gobierno de Cantabria. Santander. SP 1st award. Muestra de Artes Visuales INJUVE. Círculo de Bellas Artes. Madrid. SP 1st award. XII Premi D Arts Visuals Ciutat de Burriana. Burriana. Castellón. SP 2006 1st award. I Concurso de Creación Artística de la Fundación José García Jiménez. Murcia. SP Award. EXPLUM 06. Puerto Lumbreras. Murcia. SP AGGTELEK aggtelek.net +34 647 069 277 aggtelek@mail.com aggtelek.duo@facebook.com