Solo Show 2024 – SWAB Barcelona Art Fair

SWAB PRESENTS THE SOLO SHOW PROGRAM

A PROGRAM CURATED BY YIPEI LEE AND CARLA GIMENO JARIA

The Solo Show project emerges from the initiative to establish a platform dedicated to local independent spaces from Barcelona. This proposal stands as an exploration around self-identity and new ways of working from a collective perspective in the presentation of solo exhibitions. In collaboration with the Fundació Vila Casas, this project not only aims to promote local artistic talent, but also that of new emerging figures in the field of curating.

“The blue color of my sky”

In this edition, the project expands further, seeking to establish a dialogue with the participation of a guest territory and curator. In this case, the invited territory will be the city of Taipei, establishing an encounter with Barcelona through 8 proposals, 4 from each place, under the curatorship of Yipei Lee (Taipei) and Carla Gimeno Jaria (Barcelona).

Under the evocative title “The blue color of my sky”, a concept is proposed that explores the media and social contexts from the perspective of “Redistribution”, which implies a reinterpretation of power relationships. The integration of economic, social, political and cultural factors generate a direct correlation that leads to the deconstruction of the discourses and the “redefinition of practicality” for the sake of artistic thought. This process of deconstructing the discourse will involve value judgments, perspectives of vision and levels of intimacy in interaction.

The 8 proposals will reflect on the notion of collective identity, making use of everyday materials, narratives and scenarios. The artists generate visual and conceptual dislocations around the everydayness of the body, architecture and landscape. By introducing them into a new symbolic and social environment with its own logics, they invite us to think about resilient ways of inhabiting contemporaneity. The German philosopher Björn Kraus, developer of constructivist epistemology, defines the lifeworld as the subjective construction of reality that a person forms under the conditions of their vital environment.

Likewise, by generating dialogues between both territories on nuclear notions of shared concerns, the artists present intersections on the media and the logic of standardized actions -Toni Crabb and Fu Wan-Ting-, the representation of everyday life through the body -Fabià Claramunt and Ho Chan-, the systems of organization -Estanis Comella and Kuo-Wei Lin- or the construction of history and contemporary stories from the image -Oscar Holloway and Wu Chan-Lun-.

A collaborative art exhibition is like a pause in space-time; a heterotopia, as Michel Focault would introduce in 1966 to refer to those spaces, physical or mental, that function in non-hegemonic conditions: they are worlds within other worlds or even counter-spaces that both reflect and alter what is outside. One of the principles of heterotopia, precisely, is that of deviation, which appeals to those individual behaviors different from those established by the norm. Exploring both “Redistribution” and “Deviation”, this curated program within SWAB, opens avenues for observing, questioning and disfiguring the fabric of affirmations and logics embedded in our social body.

“The Blue Color of My Sky” explores how Barcelona based and Taiwanese artists transform their knowledge of media and images, break conventional narrative patterns, and mutually construct a Life World with their own perceptual practices as they play a part in the process of modernization. When looking closely at the artworks, the weight of the support, the composition of the objects and the light of the material will trigger the depth of our sensation. In other words, the Vital Worlds of the artists not only allow the audience to reflect on the symbol and structure behind the works, but also allow us to appreciate the independent value of the language of art and its collision with the future.