Fundación Telefónica

Art & technology Exhibitions Venezuela

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Fundación Telefónica Venezuela

The artist will show until 3 June, under the auspices of Fundación Telefónica, machines designed to draw hand-in-hand with spectators

Caracas, 16 April 2012.- “Psicomecánicos y otras proposiciones” (Psychomechanics and Other Proposals), a solo exhibition by Asdrúbal Colmenárez, brings together a selection of the author's recent output, who on this occasion tackles the use of machines for artistic creation. This exhibition, which is sponsored by Fundación Telefónica, includes electromechanical devices, boxes that can be touched and handled, magnetic items and videos which use different media ranging from paper to projections on the walls of the gallery.

The series of drafting machines that go by the name of Drawintor and combine the power from electrical motors and the energy generated by the viewers to create drawings on flat surfaces is a highlight of the exhibition. Resized versions of the psychorelative pieces, arranged relief-like on walls or horizontally like gambling tables, are also exhibited. Likewise, the exhibition includes a large-format psychomagnetic and a monumental-scale, graffiti-inspired psychograffitiearth, both made of sheet steel and metal dust on magnetised sheets. Furthermore, the work Círculo de levitación (Levitation Circle) (2012), a 3D mixed-media proposal where the author recreates the relationship between art and language, is also shown.

Born in Trujillo in 1936 and living in Paris since 1968, Colmenárez views the artwork as a tool for playful and intellectual interaction where sensitivity and invention converge. Taking this principle as a starting point, the exhibition “Psychomechanics and Other Proposals” proposes a sort of kinematic automatism that combines the cognitive and action aspects while giving plenty of leeway to random configurations. Human body and machine complement each other to leave a print where turns, oscillations and shifts (in which discontinuous patterns and instinctive variations alternate) are seen. Regardless of the results, the meaning of these pieces is the recording of the psychomechanical exchange process that takes place between the individual and the technical artefact.

In this occasion, Colmenárez not only gives continuity to an artistic endeavour lasting almost four decades but also brings to the fore some subjects which have great currency in contemporary society such as the utopia of participatory art, the role of playfulness, the concept of language and the impact of technology on art processes.

Fundación Telefónica has just finished showing for the first time in Venezuela Telefónica's Contemporary Photography Collection, an exhibition which had more than 9,000 visitors at Los Galpones from 13 November 2011 to 26 February 2012.