Eulàlia Valldosera

Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona
Through March 25

The recent retrospective exhibit, Eulàlia Valldosera. Works 1990-2000, curated by Bartomeu Marí and Nuria Enguita Mayo, looks at the three principle phases in the artist’s career on which she has been working during the last ten years: works related to the body and self-exploration; images of the body projected onto immediate surroundings; and, finally, relationships and encounters with others.

Presented in chronological order, the exhibition starts with her cigarette pieces: torsos marked out on the floor with butts that are later swept away by the artist; the cans filled with the butts she has collected from smokers; and the filming, or photographing, of the entire process.

These works are followed by the “Appearances” series, in which the artist replaces these “remnants” of human activity with everyday objects and light effects. This series links to Valldosera’s installations in which space is considered within the context of the home. Exemplary of these works—in which the artist achieves a delicate harmony of visual expression through her use of light and objects—is The Fall. The third stage includes the series “Relationships” and “Provisional Home,” which follow on from the earlier works, in which the artist records situations—at time spontaneous, at others provoked—on video, photo, or slides and manipulates the resultant images with mirrors.

Starting from the “concrete,” Valldosera explores the “noises”—as she calls them—or remnants of everyday human activity, such as cigarette butts, bread crumbs, crumpled sheets; and the “invisible” mental attitude that was instilled in her as a young girl, leading her to carry out such unrewarded actions as cleaning and taking care of things. This thread of “ecological consciousness,” which weaves through her entire oeuvre, in relation to our treatment of mundane objects, draws attention to excessive mass-production in society.

Light and shadow, the revealing of the “machinery” behind her work, and a lack of narrative, combine to thrust viewers into the midst of her works, inviting them to trace the steps of the creative process which Valldosera has taken in their absence.




Montse Badia