Group Exhibition
17 September–14 November 2015
Juan Araujo in 'Múltiples Mundos'
Carreras Mugica, Bilbao, Spain
Juan Araujo is included in 'Múltiples mundos', which features a selection of works from Galeria Elba Benitez's exhibition program, curated by Elba Benítez and hosted by Carreras Mugica in Bilbao.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, 'Múltiples mundos' approaches contemporary art from a perspective that is rooted in the idea of multiplicity: multiplicity of formats and media, multiplicity of artistic languages and conceptual strategies, multiplicity of geographic region, multiplicity of age-range. There is no overarching narrative or thematic structure into which each work must be made to fit; instead, MúltiplesMundos aims to create the conditions from which such a narrative might emerge of its own accord, via a kind of ‘centrifugal force' (in Calvino's formulation) generated by the co-existence of the works themselves in a shared exhibition space. In this way, 'MúltiplesMundos' faithfully reflects today's international art world, where a wide variety of artistic languages freely co-exist in time and space, while it also offers a privileged glimpse of Elba Benítez's singular vision of the art of our time.
The artists in 'MúltiplesMundos', who hail from nations as diverse as Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Portugal, South Africa, Iceland, Peru, Germany and Spain, and who range in age from their 30's into their 80's, move freely among a variety of media, including photography, video, sculpture, prints, wall drawing and installation. Moreover, in their varied and complex practices, the artists in 'Múltiples mundos' employ methods that range from explicit reference to oblique suggestion, from historically grounded research to hard-edged social critique, from theoretically-oriented examination to conceptually-based visual poetry. What all the work on view shares, however, is a high degree of formal rigor at every level of execution, and an informed participation in the international artistic discourse of our time.
