KARLOS GIL. TIMEFALL

This exhibition by the artist Karlos Gil (Talavera de la Reina, 1984) is the most complete public presentation of his work to date. It showcases some of the various lines of work that have marked his practice in recent years: the relationship between artificial and natural, technology and the body, obsolescence, the complexity of second and third degree urban signs, science fiction... among other issues. The exhibition is divided into interrelated parts, “artefacts”, signs and audiovisual productions. The title of the exhibition, Decline, alludes to a metaphorical “fall into time”, a certain sensation of slowing down or a certain impression of “decline”, ruin or obsolescence of historical time.

The exhibition presents various works, including De-extinction (2016-2022), based on recycled neon tubes from old advertising signs that, with the passing of time, have been replaced with LED lighting and other newer technologies. And also Stay Gold (2015-2023), a series of tapestries or textiles with images created artificially by computer and produced on a Jacquard weaving machine, one of the first technologies to use a perforated card.

Two new audiovisual productions were created specifically for the exhibition: Peripheral (2023), in which Karlos Gil recreates the 3D environment of an artificial medusa, speaking to us about the increasingly more difficult task of distinguishing between inorganic objects from living organisms and the latter from artificial objects created by humans. And finally, Origin (2023), an enveloping film that takes us down into the underground of the city of Madrid. The film posits a relationship largely forbidden to humans, except for mass transport, which is the physical and imaginary relationship between humans and the underground. A film located between our memory of the past and the imagination of possible, utopian and also dystopian futures.

KARLOS GIL

Karlos Gil (Talavera, 1984) re-elaborates the temporal distance between the past, present and future to explore the "otherness" of our surrounding world. His practice examines the complex and often contradictory ways in which human beings relate with the natural world, layering his artworks with encrypted stories from science fiction, occultism, underground culture, nihilism, mythology and industrial and biological evolution. His latest projects are conceived as scenarios that generate new possibilities of co-dependence between events and the objects they produce, always reflecting on a manifest impression of the "fall of time", decadence, ruin or obsolescence of historical time.

Karlos Gil studied at the School of Visuals Arts in New York and the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon and Madrid, where he obtained a doctorate in 2016. He has had several international exhibitions in spaces like Centre Pompidou, Paris; HKW, Berlin; Witte de With, Rotterdam; NTU CCA, Singapore, Gasworks, London; Fondazione Baruchello, Rome; CRAC-Montbeliard; Galería Luisa Strina, Sao Paulo; MARCO, Vigo; CA2M, Madrid. He has taken part in the 3rd International Young Art Biennial of Moscow (2012) and Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) in 2020. He is a former resident artist at Gasworks (London) in 2015. Karlos Gil is on the roster of Galeria Francisco Fino in Lisbon.

PEIO AGUIRRE

Art critic, freelance curator and editor. Lives and works in San Sebastián.

His writing includes critical theory, contemporary art, design and other expressions of popular culture. He has penned the books La línea de producción de la crítica (consonni, 2014) and Estilo. Estética, vida y consumo (Turner, 2022). In 2013, he curated Forma y universo, a survey show of the artist Nestor Basterretxea at Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao. He has also curated exhibitions at MACBA Museo d’art Contemporani de Barcelona; Tabakalera, San Sebastián; ARTIUM, Vitoria; CAAM Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno de Gran Canaria; Museo San Telmo, San Sebastián, among others. Since 2000 he has been a regular contributor to art journals and newspapers such as El Cultura(s) de La Vanguardia, EXIT, A-desk, Afterall, A Prior Magazine, Flash Art, El estado mental, e-flux journal, Concreta, Babelia-El País, etc.

In 2019 he curated the Spanish Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale with the work of the artists Sergio Prego and Itziar Okariz.

Produced in the framework of the "la Caixa" Foundation's programme, Support for creation'22.

Produced in collaboration with 1646, The Hague.

With the support of municipality of The Hague.