Matadero Madrid center for contemporary creation
EVERY WORD IS LIKE AN UNNECESSARY STAIN ON SILENCE AND NOTHINGNESS
Eugenio Ampudia
Institution
A dark pool of water reflects, like a mirror, the charred room of Abierto x Obras and its visitors. Exhibition goers make their way down a wooden walkway surrounding this beautiful pool of still water. The only way to access it is by dialing up the phone number +34657529016. Each call produces a ripple on the water’s surface. An unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness? The phrase inspired the title of this work by Eugenio Ampudia (b. 1958 in Valladolid), which Samuel Beckett used to describe his own work in 1969, plays with paradox — as does the installation itself. That which lies in the agency of impossibility, in the beauty of deterioration or in the meaning of existentialism.
This site-specific project for what used to be cooling chamber of old slaughterhouse, sees its relationship with place as a dialogue with physical space, but also with context. Thus, Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness offers a critical reflection on communication processes in today’s world. “Thanks to new technologies, it is true that we are able to contact thousands of people almost instantaneously. But what’s going on with communications? Why are we seeing new bills that stop the flow of information between citizens? What is more annoying, to try to communicate something or for people to join forces? Who’s afraid of the words ‘network’ and ‘community’?” the artist asks himself. He finds the answer to these questions in the book Micropolitics: Cartographies of Desire by Félix Guattari and Suely Rolnik. “Democracy may be expressed on the level of major political and social organizations; but it is consolidated, it only becomes consistent, if it exists on the subjective level of individuals and groups, on all those molecular levels —new attitudes, sensibilities and practices — that impede the return to old structures.” Eugenio Ampudia is an artist involved with the world he lives in. From a critical perspective, his work explores artistic processes, the artist as a manager of ideas, the political role of artists, the meaning of works of art, the strategies that allow them to materialize; their mechanisms of production, promotion and consumption; the effectiveness of spaces assigned to art as well as the analysis and experience of those who contemplate and interpret them. His work has been shown around the world in places such as ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany); The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts (Amman, Jordan); Museo Carrillo Gil (Mexico); Boston Center for the Arts, (Boston, MA, USA); the Ayala Museum (Manila, Philippines) and the Singapore, Havana and End of the World biennials, among others. It can also be found in the collections of major institutions such as MNCARS, MUSAC, ARTIUM, IVAM and La Caixa.
This site-specific project for what used to be cooling chamber of old slaughterhouse, sees its relationship with place as a dialogue with physical space, but also with context. Thus, Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness offers a critical reflection on communication processes in today’s world. “Thanks to new technologies, it is true that we are able to contact thousands of people almost instantaneously. But what’s going on with communications? Why are we seeing new bills that stop the flow of information between citizens? What is more annoying, to try to communicate something or for people to join forces? Who’s afraid of the words ‘network’ and ‘community’?” the artist asks himself. He finds the answer to these questions in the book Micropolitics: Cartographies of Desire by Félix Guattari and Suely Rolnik. “Democracy may be expressed on the level of major political and social organizations; but it is consolidated, it only becomes consistent, if it exists on the subjective level of individuals and groups, on all those molecular levels —new attitudes, sensibilities and practices — that impede the return to old structures.” Eugenio Ampudia is an artist involved with the world he lives in. From a critical perspective, his work explores artistic processes, the artist as a manager of ideas, the political role of artists, the meaning of works of art, the strategies that allow them to materialize; their mechanisms of production, promotion and consumption; the effectiveness of spaces assigned to art as well as the analysis and experience of those who contemplate and interpret them. His work has been shown around the world in places such as ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany); The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts (Amman, Jordan); Museo Carrillo Gil (Mexico); Boston Center for the Arts, (Boston, MA, USA); the Ayala Museum (Manila, Philippines) and the Singapore, Havana and End of the World biennials, among others. It can also be found in the collections of major institutions such as MNCARS, MUSAC, ARTIUM, IVAM and La Caixa.
