An ephemeral museum for the memory of the Venezuelan peoples created from Girona

2023-07-14 06:30:28

The artist Pep Admetlla will build a small ephemeral museum dedicated to the memory of the cultures of Aragua within the fifth art biennial of this state of Venezuela. Girona is one of them twelve international artists who will participate in the eventwhich will last from October 5 to December 15, and which under the title V Bienal del Sur, Pueblos en Resistencia focuses in this edition on the concept of memory.

With the motto “Street, memory, hope”, the Venezuelan biennial invites a dozen local artists and a dozen more from countries such as Egypt, the United States, Italy, Argentina or Iraq to propose projects that will be seen in the area from Tejerías and Maracay, in the state of Aragua, located in the north of the country and which can be interventions in the public space, video art, performances or plastic art.

A model of the structure, formed by two large bodies. Transferred by Pep Admetlla.

Following his line of work ofunite sculpture, architecture and public spaceAdmetlla has conceived a piece “at the limits between what can be considered a sculpture and a passable installation intervention”. It is a huge structure made up of two large pieces with a patina of cement tinted with reddish natural pigments which will be installed in a natural space, still to be defined, in the Tejerías area. Named as Memory and content. Narratives for the next millenniumthe piece will function as an ephemeral museum to collect objects representative of the cultures of the area, elements of local communities that, in the artist’s opinion, should be preserved for future generations.

Fondre natura i artifici

The set of these two volumetric bodies of “mineral geometry” will create a receptacle that can be accessed, a “hard and risky” proposal, more typical of an urban space than a natural environment, with which Admetlla intends that “nature and artifice merge through the ephemeral fact impossible to limit».

The uncompromising art of Pep Admetlla and Jordi Amagat is found in Benedormiens

As he already did in the sculptural and architectural project of the Vinyes dels Aspres de Cantallops winery, this structure will have a cover with openings that will function as mirrors: they will allow natural light and sounds to pass through for the visitor who is inside, and at the same time, they will allow the objects that will be inside to be observed from the outside.

«The holes and studs that pierce the skin will let both natural light and that of the observer’s gaze pass through.which will never be passive, whether he accesses it and remains enveloped in the interior becoming part of it, or because through the mirrors they penetrate with their gaze and thus exterior and interior will escape the limits”, explains the artist.

An outline of the project. Transferred by Pep Admetlla.

The sculptor is closed in the studio these days, working from Girona on the scale model to define the structural system and the plans. With its documentation and instructions, the structure will be built on site and at the end of August, the Girona will travel to Tejerías to supervise its finishing and complete it with the contents.

And it is that this changing structure thanks to the effect of light, shadows and the sounds and silences of the environment will invite the visitor to reflect on the concept that promotes the biennale, memory, through what will be found there inside: a short sentence and elements of anthropological, social and cultural memory of the area that Admetlla collects by visiting the different communities that live there.