LLUCI JUAN: “MARGENADORA” FROM THE CULTURAL PERIPHERY

2023-10-13 21:24:15

LLUCI JUAN: “MARGENADORA” FROM THE CULTURAL PERIPHERY

The project “Margenadora des de la perifèria cultural” by Lluci Juan is made up of three installations in which the artist symbolically relocates her workshop, posing a critical look at the relationships between art and popular culture outside the large circuits.

A person specialized in dry stone construction is called a “margenadora”, a popular construction technique in which stones are juxtaposed without any type of mortar. The artist is aware of how the space and time we inhabit condition our life and work, as well as the need for basic conditions to be able to create. For this reason she takes us to the Taller d’art in La Vall d’Albaida, a space located in an inland town between Alacant and València with less than 5,000 inhabitants, where she has been working for more than 15 years as a cultural creator, claiming rurality as a generator of contemporary artistic discourses.

The works that make up the project are “Intangible Record I, The wounds of the workshop” (2012), a piece that reflects on the transformative capacity of art and how the context defines us, “The floor of the workshop” (2023), a walkable vinyl that reproduces the change in the place as a result of working for years, and “Art workshop simulation. Photographic Assembly 1» (2023), a photographic reproduction that stages the warehouse space of its archive reproduced in plaster pieces and elements typical of popular culture.

Art Workshop Simulation, Photographic Assembly 1 (Art Workshop Simulation. Photographic Assembly 1)2023.
Photography, digital edition and vinyl printing. 199 x 219 cm

He Simulacrum of the Art Workshop, photographic assembly 1 shows us the other part of Taller d’Art: the space that collects the books and concepts behind the works and that accompany the artist’s life experience. Although peripheral areas may seem empty of cultural and creative content, the reality is that there are a large number of people working to preserve and disseminate the culture linked to the territory. Whether individually or collectively, these people collect, preserve and create imaginaries that escape the globalization and unifying nature of mass culture. The archives, reproduced in pieces of plaster, refer to all the people who work for culture from the margins and who with their actions cause a change in society and defend their identity.

On the left Intangible Registry I, Les ferides del Taller (Intangible Registry I. The wounds of the Workshop)2012.
Mixed technique: gauze, pigments and paste. 200 x 400 cm. On the right The Terra del Taller (The Workshop Floor)2023.
Photography printed on vinyl. 280 x 368 cm.

Los Intangible Records adapt to the orography of large surfaces of the soil of the Taller d’Art, collecting much of the material of the place while leaving a part of itself, a metaphor for how the place where we are defines us. They are part of Workshop Wounds, a multidisciplinary work that relates the history of the workspace with the beginning of the artist’s career and the aspects that affect him during those years: the economic-social crisis of 2008, the difficulty of opportunities in artistic creation, gender discrimination or the social rejection of critical and transgressive artistic initiatives.

The Terra del Taller (The Workshop Floor) It is made 12 years after Lluci started working on the Taller d’Art and them Workshop injuries. Although the first work in this exhibition places us in a difficult context, this new piece is an example of transformation and positive results. The imperfections of the soil continue to exist, but the different interventions on it while carrying out Intangible Records They have been leaving their mark: a trail of paint that has turned that gray and dusty cement floor into a single multicolor where the different interventions change. Between the work previously exhibited and this one, the Taller d’Art It has been the scene of different cultural projects and initiatives of considerable social significance. After more than a decade working in the peripheral context, the cultural scenario has changed and is now an active agent of the cultural ecosystem, capable of creating and receiving relevant cultural content.

Luci Juan in the CCCC

Lluci Juan has a degree in Fine Arts from the UPV with a postgraduate degree in Contemporary Art Market and Management from the UV and a master’s degree in Artistic Production. She has participated in different exhibitions and has been recognized with awards in different disciplines. Her work is part of the collections of different national and international collections. She combines her work as an artist with her activity as an exhibition curator and cultural manager, participating in the programming and execution of Capital Cultural Valenciana in Aielo de Malferit in 2022, the seal created by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports of the Generalitat Valenciana that distinguishes “that municipality that makes a determined commitment to culture as an instrument of social cohesion and economic development.”

His works are based on life experiences that change as he grows. Art provides you with a territory of freedom to think about approaches that could not be done anywhere else and allows you to create a strategy to analyze processes and order feelings by critically analyzing our relationship and place in the world to question everyday life, draw conclusions, find a positioning and bring about social change. His projects are formalized in very diverse ways: from formalistic and material resources to more conceptual and performative ones. The intellectual, processual and relational aspects are essential in his work. The result is an art of action built by day-to-day procedures and participatory and even ephemeral processes.

«Margenadora des de la periphèria cultural» is shown together with the projects of Domingo Mestre, Janice Martins Appel and Juan Carlos Rosa Casasola in the exhibition «València 4×4» that took place at the CCCC Center del Carme in Valencia between 27 July and October 29, 2023.

More information:
https://www.llucijuan.art
https://www.consorcimuseus.gva.es/centro-del-carmen/exposicion/domingo-mestre-janice-martins-appel-lluci-juan-i-juan-carlos-rosa-casasola-valencia-4×4