DOUBLE STANDARDS
Jesús Palomino, Franziska Opel, Mark Matthes, Thomas Ehgartner // Opening on Thursday 18.05.2023 / 20h Friday 18 - 21h
Saturday 12 - 14h + 19 - open end
Saturday 21h Performance by:
Burdeos & Mark Matthes
Finissage on Sunday 21.05.23 / 12 - 15h
Pabellón Pelicano
Placa Pelicano 4, Local 30
41003 Sevilla
The second exhibition at Pabellon Pelicano features works of three artists from Hamburg, Mark Matthes, Franziska Opel and Thomas Ehgartner in dialogue with an installation by Jesus Palomino from Sevilla.
Palomino´s reading site is a textual and visual proposal in relation to our present time of failures and hopes. The poetic, but strongly political work suggested a response by the other artists to select or create work, that can share this context.
Together they weave a network of global topics, combining social reality, politics, city planning, aesthetics and poetry as a subject for art.
They playfully juggle with ambivalently charged symbols to open up imagination to everlasting problems, where knowledge, money and power have always failed. It may once again be the obligatory task of art to shift the perspective.
They show their personal artistic views on difficult subjects, either with a bit of humor or a serious hope for change. Sometimes with simple interventions on daily objects and images to shift their original purpose and meaning, or by a reinterpretation in a different context to reveal the double standards in which we are caught.
The exhibition consists of a broad range of media like sculptures, objects, sound installation, text, painting and photography. Despite their differences they start a dialogue and influence each other's possibilities of interpretation.
Jesús Palomino has undertaken site-specific projects concerned with participatory art and the politics of spectatorship. Each of these projects in numerous countries has been designed to offer an aesthetic response and a commentary on issues such as Human Rights, ecology, cultural dialogue and democratic criticism. These projects undertaken in Cameroon, Venezuela, Serbia, Texas, Canada, China, Mongolia, Russia, Algeria, and Ireland, among other places, have taken shape as artistic actions based on real situations that demand urgent reflection, resolution and, hopefully, transformation.
His installation Untitled (A Reading Site) addresses textual imagination as a good mean to launch effective messages in relation to social life.
(artist-Post addition) The playful and resistant style of the manifestos provided the adequate aesthetic freedom to express ideas related to, namely: aesthetics, politics and poetry, the war in Syria, the future as a cultural fact, the urgent need for new approaches to ecological criticism, etc.
Palomino (Seville, Spain, 1969) studied at the Fine Arts School of Cuenca, Spain (1988-1993) and Ohio State University (1993) and obtained his PhD International Mention (Summa Cum Laude) at the University of Seville (2019) with the Thesis titled: Places, sites, locations and citizen communities. Further information: www.jesuspalomino.com
Mark Matthes will underline the dialog between the positions of the exhibition “Double Standards” by creating a sound installation that unites the pieces in the sonic space. He draws lines with wires and cables that interconnect his objects and makes them resonate in different frequencies and characters. Transparent glass serves him as an image-carrier, which he incorporates into a collage of everyday materials and found objects. The sound echoes in the imaginary space of a painting or it reverberates in the material of a sculpture. His references are observations of city developement, often synonymous with standardized architecture, cheap materials, destruction and reconstruction, and the brazen advertisement of it. The pleasurable depiction of bad ideas and taste, turns into criticism of a wasteful, oversaturated society. A polyphony of errors and hopes.
Born 1976 in Hamburg, he graduated at the University of fine Arts Hamburg (HfbK) in 2006 and is about to finish an additional Master of Music at Robert-Schumann-University Düsseldorf. Further information: www.markmatthes.info
A collaboration with the musician and producer Burdeos (Jesús M. Sánchez) from Seville will on one hand lead to a joint performance (20.05.), but as well influence or expand the sound installation. Further information: www.burdeos.bandcamp.com
Franziska Opel´s artistic practice regards signs and language as visual elements. Her multimedia installations combine language and symbolism with materials in such a way that what is initially described shifts and detaches itself from its original reading. Her works therefore range between image and sculpture. With its consistent layering of iconic cultural symbols, texts and materials, the work triggers a web of associations and ambiguity in the viewer. Opel explores the different properties of the used material and opens up different levels of meaning. Her focus is often on topics such as attraction and protection, closeness and distance, risk and comfort.
Born 1984 in Germany, she graduated at the University of fine Arts Hamburg (HfbK) in 2014. Further information: www.franziskaopel.de
Thomas Ehgartner’s works are characterized by a critical examination of the tension between social, political, environmental and humanities-related problems and their sketchy, sculptural correspondence in space. Most of his pieces deal with a self-exhausting worldview that is urgently looking for new problem-solving strategies. In a mostly dark-humored way, Ehgartner processes a broad range of themes , from failed hegemonic structures of economics and power to the resulting collective apocalyptic mood and global subject/object crises. Material and its specific charges are often contextualized in the work of Ehgartner and become a spatial representative of a contemporary discourse.
Born 1977 in Graz, Austria, he graduated in 2006 at the Acadamy of fine Arts in Vienna with Prof. Heimo Zobernig. He now works and lives in Hamburg, Germany.
Further information: www.artdoxa.com/thehgar
PABELLÓN PELICANO
Pabellón Pelícano is a space for art and interdisciplinary projects in Seville with an international orientation. It arose from the desire to create an independent, experimental space for presentation, communication and collaboration between artists and other disciplines. A sustainable exchange with international artists, especially from Germany and France due to close connections by the 4 founding members, has the potential to enrich the local art-scene in Seville.
The focus is on collaborations between positions that integrate elements from other disciplines such as music, dance or science. The aim is to develop an open format with a workshop character and the exhibitions are complemented by performances, concerts and artist talks.
Pabellón Pelícano is located in the heart of the historic Corralón del Pelícano in Seville, where artisans and artists of all kinds live and work together. It is one of the last 19th century industrial spaces in the inner city.
The origin of the name Pabellón Pelicano is written on the skylight of the exhibition space. The skylight originally served as a roof for the model of the Pavilion of Discoveries at Expo 92. The real Pavillion burnt to the ground just two months before the inauguration. Now it is reused in the Pabellon del Pelicano, where you can discover new art from international artists.
The core team consists of Alexa Grande (Seville/Hamburg), Carmen Ayala (Seville/Paris), Mark Matthes (Hamburg) and Mariu Falder (Seville).
Text: Mark Matthes
Grafik: Franziska Opel
Further information: www.instagram.com/pabellonpelicano