
- Artist:
- Carles Congost
- Date:
- 2014
- Technique:
- Video HD. Single-channel, colour, sound
- Origin:
- Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma, Ajuntament de Palma collection long-term loan
- Registration number:
- 931
- Edition:
- 1/5 + PA
In this video piece we find the Belgian actor Bernard Eylenbosh, embodied by the alter ego of the artist who, in five chapters, narrates in first person and looking at the camera, projects by Carles Congost that were not carried out, presenting the spectator with a kind of anthology of works unrealised by this creator.
With this proposal Congost delves into the part of the profession of the visual artist the public is least aware of. The creator sets himself up as an example, enumerating projects and works beyond the customary curricula, full of awards or successes, and highlighting those which never came to light or which failed,for different reasons. Paradoxically, and this is what the artist himself plays at, the list of unrealised projects is in itself formalised by speaking of them, thanks to the narration of his alter ego; they cease to be hare-brained ideas that never materialised to form part of the work, albeit in a different format than the one he envisaged for them at the time.
The piece is carefully staged, an interior space reminiscent of a study or office, a neutral, anodyne setting with which the artist concedes all the importance to the orality of the narrative and the performance of the actor. The episodes follow on from one another with the explanation of witty stories and unsuspected situations from the creator’s past, in a succession of anecdotes which may initially seem funny and naïf, but which ultimately provide an exceptional portrayal of the functioning and ins and outs of the contemporary art system. The five unrealised projects trace a timespan in the life of the creator which runs in parallel to the years of the housing bubble and the beginning of the crisis in Spain. Congost offers us an autobiographical tale which, far from being an egocentric exercise, articulates a narration by way of an example of how the socio-political situation affected artistic agents and the commercial system of art.
I.LL.
A graduate in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona, Carles Congost (Olot, 1970) lives and works in Barcelona. Over his career he has alternated different media such as video, photography, installation, drawing or music in his artistic production. Since the ‘nineties, he has developed creative proposals full of allusions to popular culture with references to pop, TV culture and film. Through these references, he creates his own imaginary and, using his own mechanisms, calls into question the functioning of the art world, intergenerational conflicts, the construction of identity, and other themes. The artist behind the Aura (2014) was the winning work of the Premi Ciutat de Palma Antoni Gelabert d’Arts Visuals 2014.
I.LL.