Using multiplication, mirroring, omission, and doubling, Ana Roldán (*1977, MX/CH) explores the social meanings and conditions of space and its representation in an ambiguous and subtle way in her solo exhibition AIR. The artist works with organic forms and materials as well as analog techniques such as ceramics or photograms.
The world is reflected on the surface of the iPhone through the incidence of sunlight on the screen, but also as a reflection of virtual space. The separation between the real and virtual world has long since been abolished.
The work Connected Space, 2022, is emblematic of the artist's reflection on the consequences of such a "fluid" living world. Two sculptures stand on a wall element - one is the original made of clay and formed by hand, and next to it is the 3-D scan produced and printed out with an iPhone application. The copy is not a successful one,...but rather a glitch, a disruption produced by technology of an imperfect scan of the network structure. Optimization and translation processes are also interrogated in the work Reflection, 2022, where a curved white shape is only recognizable as a perfect Möbius strip when mirrored. The use of a phone application then refers to the process of all the beautification programs we use to mirror ourselves as more perfect appearances of ourselves.
Ana Roldán's works are multi-layered and work with cultural codes and representation, visually as well as on a linguistic level. Crowd, Translation, and Mapping (all 2022) are large-scale, color photograms made with tropical fruits and vegetables. They refer as much to the tradition of abstraction as to (colonized) space as a territory that is constantly reoccupied and renegotiated. At the same time, the titles of the works cite the language of social media management and computer based data collection, which are tools for analyzing and influencing people in virtual space. Thus, the work I Am Not Real, I Am just Contemplation (2020-2022) becomes a kind of tilted image, evoking the history of art viewing as well as the question of the possibility of a critical reception of images and content while endlessly scrolling through social media.
Ana Roldán's exploration of spatial conditions also questions our relationship to the world. Projection, 2022, casts the gaze back to our own bodies, refracted in the shiny surface of water, from which we cannot escape. The hanging objects Room for Space, Room for Air, and Room for Shadow (all 2022), in their hand shaped uniqueness, remind us that after the failed promises of industrialization, we urgently need to seek new ways of living together and work on an emancipatory balance between the different spaces in which we move.
Annette Amberg
Entrada actualizada el el 20 may de 2022
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