ESTRUCTURAS DE LA RAZÓN

Adrián S. Bará
June 14, 2019 | August 16, 2019

Adrián S. Bará: Estructuras de la razón June 14, 2019 | August 16, 2019

Opening: Thursday, June 14, 2019, 8:00 pm

Páramo is pleased to present Estructuras de la razón, a solo exhibition by Adrián S. Bará. Estructuras de la razón furthers Bara´s ongoing project and research based on the artist´s interest in the effects of standardized international architecture on the body and the senses. Comprised exclusively of a new production of works that includes painting, drawing, collage, installation, sculpture, and video, Bará proposes a deconstruction of the urban environment to explore the structures that shape daily life. At the same time, Bará´s tactile oeuvre creates a sharp critical commentary on the detrimental historical predominance of a vision centered interpretation of knowledge, truth, and reality. Bará´s exhibition produces an immersive experience through the inclusion of sculptures and installations that contains staple materials used in the construction of today’s cities, including concrete, structural steel studs, and sheetrock, to provide evidence on how this type of buildings sets out its main interests without examining the impact it generates on society, identity, and body. Bará reveals how this type of architecture that is built quickly with cheap and easy to export materials to all parts of the world diminishes our social capacity, empathy, and participation with each other, and isolates us from reality with its tendency to standardize all. The visual display of this exhibition is manifold. The artist fusion of cutouts and printouts from architecture magazines and books intermingled with corporal structures and construction objects highlights how, since the classical Greek, the hegemony of vision has been reinforced, both in aesthetics and speech. As well, the artist´s constant use of a white color palette on structures, collages, paintings, and sculptures references the denial of the essence and age of the materials in standardized international architecture, to reflect our rejection and fear of death. In contrast to this view, Bará confronts the viewer with an intended raw aesthetic, while transforming construction materials into complex narratives. The presence of the artist´s body imprints on clay blocks, cement sculptures, and the evidence of physical drawings on the wall, combined with the smell of wet pavement, and the disruptive existence of an unfinished concrete wall embraces visitors to question the authoritarianism of reason, the state of alienation disconnected from our own bodies and acceptance of decay.

About the artist

Adrian S. Bará’s (b.1982, Mexico City) practice, at its core, explores the body and its relation to space and modern architecture, as well as its representation at the intersection between sculpture, installation, painting, and video. The artist’s training as a filmmaker drives his narrative—pulling in from daily materials and positions to construct ‘sculpted situations’ that are meant to be activated by viewers as they project their own accounts into the objects that invite them to do so. Bará´s artwork often functions as archival traces of personal events—as stories that are meant to be intervened, challenged, and transformed through acts of looking. Bará has held solo and two-person exhibitions including the ongoing project and exhibition Estructuras de la razón, Páramo, Guadalajara, Mexico (2019) and ArtCenter / South Florida in Miami, USA (2017); Adrián S. Bará and Florian Schmidt, Johannes Vogt, New York, USA (2017); Aesthetics of a Collapsed System, Casa Pedregal, Mexico City (2016); Le Palais, Páramo, Guadalajara, Mexico (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Almost Solid Light: New Work from Mexico, Paul Kasmin, NY, USA (2018); Tinnitus y Fosfenos, Zapopan Art Museum, Zapopan, Mexico (2014); and Everything Must Go, Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York, USA (2011). In 2019, Bará was an artist-in-residence at PIVÔ Research, São Paulo, Brazil, and in 2016 at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York, USA. The artist’s work as director of photography for films includes The Weekend Sailor (2016), Madrid International Film Festival award for best cinematography, and The Solitude of Memory (2014), included in Le Festival de Cannes 2015, and winner of the jury Award for Documentary Short at the Slamdance Film Festival. Work by the artist is held in private collections worldwide, including the Space Collection, Irvine, California, USA; Luciano Benetton Collection, Italy; Suro Collection, Guadalajara, Mexico, and Diéresis Collection, Guadalajara, Mexico. For further information, please contact: media@paramogaleria.com / +52 33 3825 0921. Press enquiries: media@paramogaleria.com / +52 33 3825 0921. Páramo would like to extend its gratitude to Tequila 1800 Cristalino, Club de Costa and Cerveza Minerva for their collaborative support. TAGS: #AdrianSBara #Estructurasdelarazon #Paramo