ANTONIO MENCHEN: BLACK WITH OTHERWORLDLY BACKGROUND

Opening of Antonio Menchen’s exhibition as part of his residency at Bulegoa z/b. His proposal negro fondo ultraterreno (black with otherworldly background) was chosen, together with Espigadoras / Gleaners by Claudia Pagès, for residency in 2018; members of the jury for which were José Ramón Ais (artist), Beatriz Herráez (art historian, curator and current director of Basque Museum-Art Centre Artium) and the members of Bulegoa z/b.

Opening: April 3, Wednesday, 7:30 pm.
From April 3 to April 12.
Monday to Friday, 11 am–2 pm & 5 pm–8 pm.
Saturday, 11 am–2 pm.

black with otherworldly background
An object, a story onto which is drawn a contour in time, which projects a shadow still that I try to define. From inside it I try to lay out things, examples, different elements that come together, overlap, or are rewritten to play out as an experience of a simple similarity between non-similar things.

black with otherworldly background is the continuation of a work, a way of making, which considers the transition of image, from the mechanical to the digital world, and how this step acts on a procedure, how it affects a form of knowledge or resource. A gap, where silhouettes can still be made out; papers, voices that transfer the experience, the still perceptible reality of an analgesic, mythical, spectral past.

This changes the way we consider material, by accumulation and conversion, by necessity and habit. Using an archive of images continually being put together and edited, I will try to occupy this framework to think about and reverse the cancellation of projection, of what is still possible, of what is imagined, to recall the structure of a prediction.

Antonio Menchen (Toledo, 1983), finished his Degree in Fine Arts in Madrid in 2007; was a visiting student at the Film Department of the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien (Vienna, 2012-2013) and studied a Masters in Aural and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College (London, 2013-2014) with professors Mark Fisher and Kodwo Eshun. Exhibitions include Distancias elásticas (Centro Párraga, Murcia 2019); Querer parecer noche (CA2M, Móstoles, 2018); Circuitos 2017 (Sala de Arte Joven, Madrid; Sala Borrón, Oviedo; Laboral, Gijón, 2017–2018); Alimentación 30. Archivo 2014-2015 (Espacio Cruce, Madrid, 2015); 10 VC (The Showroom, London, 2015); MUMOK Kino (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna 2013); Rundgang (Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna, 2012); and Sala de lectura (Espacio F, Madrid, 2005). He worked with Raúl Liarte on the film programme Uno casualmente se acerca, siente algo y se queda (CA2M, Móstoles, 2016) and with Paulina Chamorro on the voice and performance programme El imitador de voces (Teatro Pradillo, Madrid, 2016).