SANTIAGO F. MOSTEYRÍN AND LUISA UNGAR. EXERCISES IN CONSTRAINT

Presentation by Santiago F. Mosteyrín and Luisa Ungar on their residency at Bulegoa z/b in April-May 2019.

Santiago F. Mosteyrín and Luisa Ungar work with performance, installation and drawing, manipulating definitions of animality and humanity and using confusion and humour to revise contemporary instructions, disciplines and anxieties. During their residency, the artists will be working on a theatrical structure with which they can explore submissive relationships to authority, relating to the multiple resonances of intimacy in these times of overexposure: two characters offer their assistance, but have nobody to assist and consider themselves too lost to be helped – as Giorgio Agamben said in Profanations, “There is nothing to be done for us.” These helpers are also prone to boycotting, and set up micro-conspiracies against one another, threatening to turn every decision into a chance to fail and return to servitude and surrender to a listless, lost cause.

Their work process combines structure, script and improvisation in different ways. While one of the two works exhaustively on the script to open up space for improvisation during the staging, the other improvises technical solutions throughout the process and creates consistency through a long series of repetitions. The two methods conjoin to emphasize the rehearsal as a space and time, allowing tensions to develop between what is provisional, and what is choreographed or improvised.

Luisa Ungar (Bogotá) studied Visual Arts in Bogotá and Amsterdam. Her work is conceived as a place to explore the limits of language. She revises narratives on animality, forms of nature and the non-human, using a variety of means including performative action, text and artefact. Her work has been shown internationally at the Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre; Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo-CA2M, Madrid; Spring Workshop, Hong Kong; Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; and Bienal Sur, Argentina; Ar/Ge Kunst, Bolzano; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. She has been resident at Gasworks, London; RESò, Italia; AIR, Antwerp; and Maebashi Arts Center, Maebashi, Japan.

Santiago F. Mosteyrín (Madrid) studies the relationships between line and surface, body and environment. He trained as a biologist and artist in Europe and America, in different contexts and approaches. He was awarded the Pilar Juncosa & Sotheby’s International Experimental Printmaking award; the Mondriaan Fonds Jong Talent award; and has been a resident artist at the Jan Van Eyck Academie. His work has been exhibited at Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam; and Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Mallorca.