Bloc de notas

Exhibition | José Ferrero

Opening Saturday, October 3, 11h

October 3 / December 19, 2020

Opening to the public

Wed, Thu and Fry from 10:00 to 10:30
Sat from 11:00 to 14:00

THE HIDDEN FACE OF THINGS

Nicolas Cancio

What makes the moon more beautiful is knowing that it has a hidden face that we are forced to imagine. It has always been in the distance, unreachable, with no apparent practical use. That has provided inspiration and longing for sailors, the absent-minded and others who wander and ramble.

It is the everyday what we trust to know without hesitation, that which has concrete utility, that seems to hide nothing from us. It goes unnoticed most of the time even though we interact with it every day.

It is the mysterious that is difficult for us to classify, that which has facets that are not clearly seen. This refers to just about everything inaccessible to reason and therefore can seem risky, exciting or scary, and arouse curiosity or rejection.

When something mysterious is also beautiful, a great force of attraction is created. A doubt appears with which we want to live. If, in addition, this beauty and mystery reside in common objects, we will realize that a new world has unfolded. The moon is beautiful and mysterious, but we see it every day, which means that this mystery is related to our way of being in the world and it enriches our lives. That is why the moon lends itself so much to dreams and poetry.

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To transform the ordinary into the mysterious, it is necessary to stop thinking about its usefulness or meaning, and to make it seem strange, to make it a bit incomprehensible. For this transformation, we must take what we have in our environment and move it a bit beyond our reach. Recognizing the beauty of the common requires looking with intention, hoping to find some good qualities where most see monotony. Sharing that gaze is the act of generosity of someone who alerts us of the potential everything around us hides.

José Ferrero plays with these factors when he uses his camera. He takes little bits of the world and reconfigures them creating new realities that we almost recognize, but not quite. He creatively uses the photographic technique to frame the most relevant part of the motif, waiting for the most interesting moment and working the light in such a way that some facets are highlighted and others are hidden.

Is it the world we walk in the one we see in these images? Entering an exhibition space and seeing these photographs is like signing a new contract with reality.
For a few minutes, we agree to forget about what we think we know about the world and in return when we go out, if we have known how to take advantage of the time, we will observe our surroundings with a little more freedom and perhaps even ask ourselves; What is more real, what I have always seen or what the camera reveals?

José Ferrero Biography

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Self-taught, Ferrero began photography in 1982. In recent years his teaching work has been fundamental to his practice. Currently he teaches at the School of Art of Asturias, Avilés. Since his first individual exhibition in 1985, he has exhibited internationally in individual and group exhibits; Milan, Brescia, Paris, Liège, Mérida (Mexico), Rennes, Eindhoven, Köln, the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. He has also exhibited in various institutional spaces and national galleries. Permanent Collection has travelled extensively, to the Utopia Parkway Gallery (Madrid, 2007), Serpente Gallery (Oporto, 2008), Pamplona Citadel (Pamplona, 2009/10), Fallery Valid Foto (Barcelona, 2011), LAUDEO University Extension Cultural Center (Oviedo, 2012) and the Barjola Museum (Gijón, 2014)) and to the ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair.

More interested in investigation, suggestion and concealment than in representation, he understands photography not as a technique or an artistic modality but as authentic life experience. Subjectivity takes over his work in his willingness to express emotions when choosing a motif and “constructing” in his imagination the images, the scraps of memory, which he then presents to us. Seduction and the mystery of the hidden, which is beyond the manifest, are essential ingredients in many of his series. Hence the halo of mystery that pervades much of his creations. This has a lot to do with the importance that Ferrero gives to light and shadow.

In the words of Marta Gili, “probably, one of the most remarkable merits of José Ferrero’s photographs is its ability to intensify our gaze. Although we admit that reality has many faces, our gaze tends to seek the version that requires the least effort and conforms to the appearance of things. Photography, for José Ferrero, is an instrument that allows him to enhance and expand his visual experience and by extension, his life experience. Because it is through what we see and how we see it, that we adjust in part of our behavior and our sensibility “.