Henrique Faria Fine Art is pleased to present Works on Paper, Luis Molina-Pantin’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition presents a selection of recent photographs and installations of books that explore popular aesthetics and graphic design campaigns. While he still considers himself a photographer, as he mentions to Daniel Quiles in the exhibition interview, “It is very important to have the ability to know which medium is the best one to tell the story. […] For the first time in my career, the majority of the works in this exhibition do not involve photography whatsoever.” However, in our digitally fueled world seen more and more via screens, the two-dimensional work still has the important role of delineating the frame through its dimensions and point of view as Molina-Pantin aims “to take [materials] out of their original contexts and draw attention to printmaking and other details.” But in moving...from the two-dimensional portrayal of the object in question to the actual object itself, the artist endows a new potency upon the work as it can now be viewed without any mediation or suggestion.
Many of the books gathered for this exhibition were published by the Spanish publishing house Salvat and mass distributed to booksellers and kiosks in Latin America, where Molina-Pantin first encountered them. The artist was attracted to these books for their distinctive cover designs. The photobook Orange Monochrome / Monocromo Naranja (2016) is the result of a multi-stage process of acquiring an edition of forty different Salvat titles that featured an orange square on their covers, photographing them and transforming them back into a book format. As Molina-Pantin describes of the photobook and of the installation of books that comprises it, “The orange square recalls a canonical form of modern painting, yet I pointedly subvert its values of uniqueness and cultural elitism through popular, mass-produced, low-cost multiples.” The photograph Contemporary Painting / Pintura contemporánea (2016) documents the moment of purchase online of another edition of Salvat books, these covers featuring a circle over a dual-colored background. While only the photobook of Orange Monochrome will be on display, the photograph Contemporary Painting will be shown alongside the untitled physical installation of corresponding books.
The legacy of Venezuelan modern art history, in particular Kinetic Art (arte cinetica), has been a consistent influence for Molina-Pantin, especially given the fact that the style of art-making still persists as a major aesthetic movement in Venezuela. Kinetic Reading / Lectura cinetica (2014) is a collection of books that all feature prison bars and jail cells, which to Molina-Pantin evoke the sensation of linear movement one would find in a work by Carlos Cruz-Diez or Jesús Rafael Soto. As the artist describes his work, “I relate the patterns of the prison bars of these popular book covers with “our” geometric movement. […] My goal is ultimately to formally search for a lost harmony or “modernism” that these items or places are not supposed to have.”
The political crisis currently devastating Venezuela is not far from Molina-Pantin’s mind, not only for the reasons of his family being there, but because he feels like Caracas is still an important inspiration for his work. He says, “For me, working in Venezuela is just more interesting. Sometimes I need that informality and chaos in order to create.” But it is also important for his work to keep evolving and exploring new themes and subjects. As he controversially concludes his interview with Quiles, “Many Latin American artists use these [current political] issues as their main language. I think there are limits to this formula; activism and art making do not always go together. If you want to change the world, it is better to be an actor, or social worker, or famous musician—to reach broader audiences.”
Entrada actualizada el el 01 nov de 2016
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