Peripheries

CURATOR ROSA OLIVARES

EXHIBITION PRODUCED BY THE SECOND CANARY ISLANDS, ARCHITECTURE, ART AND LANDSCAPE BIENNIAL
GUIDED TOURS WED AND SAT 6.30 PM

Featuring the photographs of 10 national and international artists, this exhibition focuses on the periphery as the constantly changing area that surrounds cities and pushes the rural world – what remains of nature – out to a few reserves destined in time to disappear almost completely.

The images provide us with a vision of an artificially transformed and as yet undefined landscape, devoid of moral category and urban structure, but already far removed from any reference to nature, the countryside, order or previous beauty. Man has appeared but still as a destroyer, not yet as a builder. Machines predominate.

ARTISTS

Stéphane Couturier. Neuilly-sur-Seine (France), 1957. The primary subject matter in this artist's work are the architectural constructions and reconstructions of buildings located in cities such as Seoul, Moscow, Beijing, Paris, Dresden, Rome, Tijuana and Berlin.

Sergio Belinchón. Valencia (Spain), 1971. This artist has focused his interest on recording changing urban reality, producing bleak images of buildings, plots of land for development and public spaces, with hardly any human presence, just its vestiges.

Gabriele Basilico. Milan (Italy), 1944. Regarded as one of the leading documentary photographers in Europe, this artist has captured images – always in black and white – of urban landscapes and industrial zones.

Montserrat Soto. Barcelona (Spain), 1961. Comprising various series of photographs and installations, this artist’s work revolves around space, place and landscape, with the void as the predominant element.

Bas Princen. Zeeland (Holland), 1975. The images of this artist, for the most part anecdotal and spontaneous, convey an unexpected order, revealing surprising aspects of our daily lives.

Francesco Jodice. Naples (Italy), 1967. This artist was a founding member of the Multiplicity group, with which he exhibited at Documenta 11 (2002). His artistic quest centres on the relationships between new social codes of conduct and the modifications of the urban landscape in large modern cities.

Matthias Koch. Bremen (Germany), 1967. Koch’s photography reveals a taste for the documentary architectural genre in which, thanks to a perfect balance between light and shade, the buildings and landscapes seem to be portrayed as sculptures.

Gerardo Custance. Madrid (Spain), 1976. Custance is one of the most renowned young photographers in Spain, as shown by his inclusion in the list of artists represented by the prestigious Polaris Gallery in Paris.

Xavier Ribas. Barcelona (Spain), 1960. The work by this artist, whose series always revolve around specific themes, reflects the influence of his training in social anthropology and places a marked emphasis on the traces left by human beings.

Catalogue