 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
PARTICIPATING CREATORS
JL Santalla
nicola costantino
PSJM
In the works of Eliezer Soonenschein there are no borders between personal life, politics and the world of contemporary media images. We find ourselves before an imaginary landscape that creates the illusion of a perfect world, however ruined by violence and the materialistic culture of humanity.
The first exhibitions of Sonnenchein's work in 1994 were unauthorized performances, infiltrations at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, titled Channel a Molotov Cocktails or Channel A Shit, in reference to his virtual TV channel <channel A(narchy) >. These works were conceived to provoke the participation of curators and the public through guerrilla tactics, reflecting the state of daily violence.
In short, in his installations, Sonnenschein permanently attempts to highlight the contrast between the artists' personal experience and a broad set of more global circumstances. The artist uses insignia, selected symbols, signage and various elements of corporate identity from the Western world, manipulating them in his own language in order to undermine and question the foundations of today's society. It traces, with irony, the hierarchies and the clues of success, the ostentatious power of artistic institutions, the manifest hypocrisy, the increasing abuse, and the nihilistic emptiness of our present reality, without forgetting to simultaneously remember the imperative need for self-criticism in a currently unquestioned artistic world.
nicola costantino
The Nicola Costantino exhibits are a showdown with a showcase of fashion designs. Elegant dresses and coats on mannequins seduce at first glance like haute couture. Accessories, such as shoes and handbags, complement the garments and demonstrate the excellence of the leather industry in Argentina. Everything prompts a voracious look. However, the vague recognition of something familiar in these garments causes some uneasiness. Something unexpectedly unites Dior, a gaucho and a human body. These garments possess a spirit of refinement, characteristic of haute couture. The strange feeling comes from the fact that these fashion designs, along with their leather goods, seem to be made of human skin. The restlessness triggers a sequence of antagonistic impulses, between the fascination towards the elegant object and the rejection towards a garment made of human skin, as if it were a haute couture made of living fabric devouring the subject.
Nicola Costantino's work is organized as a set of indicators. In its production, the skin, like the covering of living organisms of the most complex animal species, retains its indication of life. In the effort to present the flesh, Costantino's work is a field of confrontation between the instincts of life and death. Theatrical or real, meat appears in multiple ways, such as hollowed-out animal fetuses, cuts of meat, or haut couture human furriery. In the simulation of what refers to life, death is installed.
PSJM
PSJM is an artistic team made up of Pablo San José (Mieres, 1969) and Cynthia Viera (Las Palmas, 1973), who are working in Madrid. PSJM works as a commercial brand of outstanding art, its actions and works speak about works of art and its place in the market, communication with the art consumer and the function as an art theme, using resources and elements of communication capitalism and the society of the spectacle to find the paradoxes that are produced by its chaotic development.
PSJM has had shows in places like New York ("The Real Royal Trip. By the Arts", PS1-MOMA. In collaboration with El Perro and Aitor Méndez.), Miami ("Deluxe", Casas Reigner gallery), Colonia (KunstKöln04 ), Blanca Soto Gallery) or Berlin ("Shopped till Death", Tuteurhaus) and many individual and group shows in Spain.