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Email PageConcrete-Skeleton
July 20, 2006- August 17, 2006
Reception: July 20, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Javier Hinojosa
Haydee Rovirosa Gallery
529 W 20th St
The inaugural show at the new gallery, located at 529 West 20th Street, is "Concrete-Skeleton," a site-specific installation by Mexico City-based artist Javier Hinojosa.
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In the Adjusting of One Thing to Another
As a material concrete has two physical moments that present conceptual relevance: as an agglutinant, liquid material, that manages to adapt to the required mold or form; and a solid moment, whereby the rigidity, weight, and volume of the material remain as markers, accepting all the imperfections of the previous moment.
If we limited our definition of the terms directly referent to this work to those found in the dictionary, it is interesting, in such a case, to see how these adjectives describe part of the proposed discourse as: Concrete, said of an object: in and of itself opposed to the abstract and general, excluding whatever may be strange to it; solid, compact material, resulting from the process of concretion; precise, determined; construction material, mix of mortar and stone.
Matter: primary reality of which things are made of; spatial reality perceptible by the senses, which, alongside energy, constitute the physical world; opposite of spirit; subject that comprises a work of literature, science, art, etc.
It is not easy to situate Javierīs work within the enormous discourse of installation or intervention art, in its more radical expressions as could be the works of Gordon Matta-Clarke, or the sculptures of Rachel Whiteread, because Javier does not pretend a work which is revealing in its own nature, instead he agglutinates elements to speak in another language.
In his work materials do not lose their formal symbolism or their value as a language; they do not mix, they only unite to work as a team where they each occupy specific places within the total discourse of the piece as a whole.
There are several examples in Javierīs previous works where the material or object presented is found occupying and resolving a situation, whether it be as a texture or as structure, which ought to be done by another material or object. This semantic play makes the work somewhat complex, demanding a distinct attention from the observer in order to resolve the paradoxes it presents.
I believe this work stems from two sources of inspiration: firstly, a common language shared in contemporary art regarding the attitude and use of materials; and on the other hand, the materials one end up using, without necessarily meaning to, will always be representative of their locality and will thereby be highlighted in their unconsciousness, permeating the works with this unique value.
The technical level demonstrated by the work is interesting in terms of the essentialist manner in which it uses tools; it could be said that in the scale of these pieces there is something honest regarding their relationship with body and mind a sense of understanding.
In the adjusting of one thing to another, Javier experiments in order to make a given object function at various levels of representation, in so doing it questions the very reasons why these elements were constructed as such in the first place. Getting somewhat lost in the reasons why these materials and objects were chosen, the artist presents us with a new condition for our physical environment in order to create a mental connection.
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CONCRETE-SKELETON S i s t e m a C i m b r a - C o n c r e t o Concrete-Skeleton refers to the construction method, Concrete-Skeleton, particularly to the characteristics that it acquires in Mexico City and the possibilities that it generates by relating itself to a different context than the usual one, generally constructive within the architecture and the urbanism.
The concrete is the result of a summary of the characteristics of several materials, it is about a multiple material in which center or core takes places an exchange of structural tasks that allow it to connect with the gravity in a more spatial way. The concrete in its liquid state is able to fold itself over any surface acquiring its form or wrapping it completely, it is a material that can be adapted, a material of extreme approximation.
I am particularly interested in the construction process prior to the casting of the material: the skeleton. For example, in Mexico they use skeletons that could be pine trunks and wood platforms and even prefabricated steel molds, being these steel molds the less common. The skeleton is expected to support something that is not there but that will eventually appear and take up a space. In that understanding I am interested in the capacity of the material, its liquid state to get involved with any object of the urban environment and the capacity objects have to become a mold or skeleton depending on the characteristics of the concrete. At this point it becomes crucial the context of the city where the work of art is being carried out. I am interested in the differences that may exist between the objects that inhabit the urban surrounding in megalopolis so different like Mexico City and New York, taking into account that my job has been developed so far in Mexico City. I am interested in the shaping solutions that could be generated from these differences, in the emplacements.
- Javier Hinojosa
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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Haydee Rovirosa Gallery was last updated: 2008-10-07
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