RODRÍGUEZ-MÉNDEZ. HUMORES Y ESPESORES

Curated by Ángel Calvo Ulloa.

The work of Rodríguez-Méndez (As Neves, Pontevedra, 1968) is grounded in the language of sculpture, from where it has evolved in directions that connect it with materiality, semantics, temporality and corporeality, giving shape to a highly evocative, slippery and hard to classify body of work. Over the course of almost thirty years, his work has undergone a process of dematerialization to the point that absence, emptiness and omission have acquired a framework to affirm themselves, emerge and endure. Humores y Espesores, the project occupying the first floor of CA2M, takes shape through a twofold approach that, while outlining a brief overview of his extensive output as an artist, also showcases a selection of recently created photographic series, installations and actions, some of them never seen before.

A number of by-now iconic works —such as Hombres sentados, a video installation presented in 2011 as part of Matadero Madrid’s Abierto x Obras programme, or Región de validez, a project made in collaboration with his mother and father over a ten-year period from 2007 to 2017, transiting between As Neves in Galicia and Madrid— are on view alongside a compelling new version of Aceite. Peso, deployed over the height and width of the museum’s atrium; the Lo Perfecto. Arriba series of videos, in which the voices of the poets Chus Pato, Astri Kleppe, Musad Abul Fagr, Mohammad Reza Panjwani and João Bandeira are entangled; Las orillas, a photographic series which in addition can also be seen in a publication printed specifically for the occasion; other series like La Eclíptica, Germinar en la pólvora and Proposición. Permear II; and Historia del corazón, a previously unseen sculpture presented for the first time here.

Disciplines like performative action, one of the fields that Rodríguez-Méndez has explored since the outset of his artistic practice, are also presented in Humores y Espesores in the guise of Batir saliva, an action carried out specifically for Agua caliente/Hot Water, his exhibition at S.M.A.K. (Ghent) in 2011, now being reactivated for the exhibition opening, or Os Insinos, a project in which a group of people over the age of eighty place cherry tree branches on the museum walls during the first day of mounting the exhibition. The presence of the body —the artist’s or that of others, often chosen for physical features at odds with his own— mark this type of action in which the performer undertakes a mechanical action, dissociated from the event within which it is framed.

The product of three years of work, Humores y Espesores validates the significance of a body of work which, from the beginning, has navigated paths that seem to diverge from the usual route, further accentuated by the fact that it is not readily aligned with some of the temporal frameworks underpinning artmaking today. It has been materialized in installations conceived with uncommon rigour and understanding of space, specific works that have conditioned his everyday life and studio over long periods of time, or series that have extended over the course of a decade, which he has developed in parallel with others which have opened up new paths to be explored, yet always based on the sculptural language to which the artist has dedicated his practice, whatever the form it ultimately takes.

Humores y Espesores is predicated on a longing to differentiate two ways of approaching artistic creation and human time. On one hand, humor alludes to the different bodily fluids of a living organism, but also to the willingness to do something, now aligning with a set of works based on the serialization —often photographic but also addressed through drawing— of actions, some fulfilled and others unrealizable, more in the realm of aspiration, which operate as allusions to something already realized. On the other, espesor suggests qualities like density or the condensation of different kinds of substances, as well as the bulk of solid bodies: the physical quality of the sculptural and installation-based material around which Rodríguez-Méndez’s practice is structured.

RODRÍGUEZ-MÉNDEZ 

(As Neves, Pontevedra, 1968) has a bachelor’s in Fine Arts from the UCM.
His works have been displayed at institutions like S.M.A.K. (Ghent), MARCO (Vigo), Matadero (Madrid), Instituto Cervantes (Madrid), Yaddo Foundation (New York), Ateliê Fidalga (São Paulo) and Espacio SVT (Vigo) and the galleries Formato Cómodo (Madrid), Paula Alonso (Madrid) and Vilaseco (A Coruña), among others.

He has participated in group projects at the CGAC (Santiago de Compostela), Artos Foundation (Nicosia), IVAM (Valencia), CaixaForum (Barcelona), Centro Cultural Montehermoso (Vitoria-Gasteiz), Contemporary Arts Center (Ohio), CCC Conde Duque (Madrid), S.M.A.K. and Vooruit Arts Centre (Ghent), MAC (A Coruña), Casal Solleric (Palma de Mallorca), CCCC (Valencia) and the Korjaamo Gallery (Helsinki).
He has participated in the residency programmes at the Yaddo Foundation (New York), Kiosko (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia) and Ateliê Fidalga (São Paulo).

He has received grants from the production programmes of the Fundación Botín, Iniciarte, Fundación Bilbao Arte and Matadero, and creation grants from the Ministry of Culture, the Xunta de Galicia and the Community of Madrid. He received a lifetime achievement award in 2022 as part of the Festival Plataforma (Santiago de Compostela), and he was given the Connexio award (Lugo) in 2020.
He has recently published the books La Puerta Natural (libros de la resistencia) and Antes, la fatiga (Ediciones Vilaseco). His work is part of collections like S.M.A.K., CGAC, DKV and MICA. He is currently a professor of Sculpture at the University of Salamanca (USAL).

ÁNGEL CALVO ULLOA

(Lalín, Pontevedra, 1984) holds a bachelor’s in Art History from the USC and a master’s in Contemporary Art: Creation and Investigation from the UVigo. A curator and writer, he lives and works in Galicia and Madrid.

In 2024, he and Marta Mestre were the curators of the 5th Coimbra Biennial. His latest institutional projects include El sueño de la cólcedra [The Dream of the Quilt] by Teresa Lanceta at the Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid); Habitación. El Archivo F.X., las chekas psicotécnicas de Laurencic y la función del art [Room. The F.X. Archive, the psycho-technical Chekas by Laurencic and its function in the art], by Pedro G. Romero, co-curated with Nuria Enguita for the el CA2M (Madrid), MNAC (Barcelona) and La Nau (Valencia); Autoconstrucción Piezas sueltas. Juego y experiencia [Self-Construction. Loose Parts. Play and Experience] by Antonio Ballester Moreno at Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz); Siron Franco: Pensamento insubordinado Trabalhos, 1961–2023 [Siron Franco: Insubordinate Thinking (Works 1960–2023)] at the MAC Goiàs (Brazil); Complexo Colosso, CIAJG (Guimarães) [Complex Colossus, CIAJG (Guimarães)]; and Anidar en el gesto: unas estanterías de Alberto [Nesting in the Gesture: Alberto’s Shelves] at the Fundación Cerezales Antonio y Cinia (Cerezales del Condado, León). Since 2011, he has also curated shows at institutions like La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Caixaforum (Barcelona), MARCO (Vigo), CCEMx (Mexico City), Fundación Luis Seoane (A Coruña), Tabacalera (Madrid), Centro Párraga (Murcia) and EACC (Castellón), among others.

In 2020, he and Juan Canela co-authored the book Desde lo curatorial. Conversaciones, experiencias y afectos as part of the Colección Paper issued by Consonni.

He is currently preparing projects for institutions like MNCARS (Madrid), MAC-USP (São Paulo) and Sala Alcalá 31 (Madrid).