THE GALLERY, THE BOX
Micromanagement, curated by Erika Martin
From February 22nd until March 22nd the gallery became another box parallel to Goizueta’s Micromanagement series comprised of 15 boxes of different scales. Every day that passed, and as he occupied the gallery more and more, we witnessed how the space transformed itself into his studio and quasi living room, provided all the visits he received during the first 3 weeks. As he created a series of circumstances within a limited space, the artist himself became a scenario to watch and observe up close or from afar; just like his boxes he became a character within a larger frame.
From the beginning the ensambles were the pieces the gallery wished to exhibit, it was not until a few weeks prior the first open studio night that we agreed on moving part of his personal studio into the gallery and making this a part of the show. The show’s title was the primary reason for this decision, since otherwise it would be hard for people to fully comprehend all the work or micromanaging put into each box. Due to the nature of the space, making this process visible was an obvious choice. We always see the end result on the wall, we hardly ever get the chance to see the artistic process that leads to the pieces one purchases. During these weeks Luciano and I have met on and off to discuss his work and his experience within the gallery, thus it only seemed natural to share the main questions behind the curatorial process and let the artist be the one that guides you through his work.
When the curatorial process began this past November, I approached you with the interest of augmenting the “box series” you produced as a commission for an apartment building in Guatemala. These were more boxes, at a smaller scale and for a defined purpose. How would you say the creative process of the Micromanagement series has been similar or differed to the making of those initial pieces?
The project in Guatemala was similar in its praxis, since in some way the exercise is to have a number of toys and objects and start playing with them within a limited space. As you say, the commissioned pieces in Guatemala, were more boxes—72 to be exact—on a smaller scale, composed of fewer elements and with the specific purpose inside the building. In Micromanagement the boxes were thought as independent universes themselves, although their context and interaction within the show was taken into account, I always kept in mind that the pieces will end up in different people's houses. Nonetheless, the both exercises -the project in Guatemala and Micromanagement- are the same: each box means a series of parameters and within those limits is where the game is begins.
During our on-going conversation over the past few months, I have come to realize and witness how organic and instinctive your creative process is, would you say the same process applies to the other mediums you explore, for instance in your drawing and paintings? How would you say they are similar, how are they different?
I associate the pieces in this show with a thought designer Isidro Ferrer shared with me when we met during his participation in FID3: “to create is to think with your hands.” The process behind Micromanagement is that: intuitive, a game with little pressure, very much in the present, just like the game, where one is present at one hundred percent and, for me, that makes it interesting. Precisely because the elaboration of these pieces is more this notion of "thinking with your hands”,it is quite different to the process behind my drawings or paintings.
Unlike the boxes, each painting and each drawing is a manifestation of a much longer process in which I usually work in series or collections. Each piece is an idea that is part of a larger project, contrary to the boxes where each one falls more on itself.
My fascination with your ensambles was both your micromanaging capacity of perfectly creating small scenarios or mock-ups within a frame, and the idea of this “microworld” or 3d painting of non- sensical scenes existing within a comprised space. The whole notion of eternity inwards, not outwards towards space, but the dimension continuum. How would you describe these pieces in which certain elements endlessly repeat themselves and somehow become surreal alternate realities?
Understanding the infinite towards the infinitely small is something that I find very interesting. It becomesalmost impossible to understand the infinitely large, but if one understands that the infinite can also occur within certain parameters or margins, it becomes less incomprehensible. As for example the fractal drawings, taking into account that fractal also happen in nature, that is not only through a computer generating fractals endlessly. This concept of fractality brought to conversation in the 70's by Benoit Mandelbrot, with his study of what is now known as the Mandelbrot set, is something that I feel present in my work. These spaces that are reflections of the space in which they are, in some way as margins, within other margins, and within other margins, and so on ...
I am attracted to the concept of the fractal universe where there is infinite complexity in everything, both in a galaxy and in an atom, and therefore, we as beings are also infinitely complex. This is one of the basic themes or pillars of my work, which is particularly reflected in this “box” series.
How do the works in this show co-exist, how do they come together? Aside from shape and form, is there a discourse or theme that binds them? What is your input for the viewer of this individual show, how should they view the pieces independently and as a whole?
I believe that the pieces are linked at a visual level in terms of their materiality and their color palette, in addition to the fact that from the beginning I knew they had to co-exist. However, they were thought of as universes in themselves, one independent of the other. Although there are different interests applied to each of the pieces, all arise from the search to validate the game as a serious practice. The game is a recreation of situations that in the future will be necessary or might be necessary, animals play and as a consequence become stronger, more agile, they learn to fight and hunt. There are many researches that speak of the absolute necessity of the game within a species’ survival, and in my work all the pieces are influenced by this search for the validation of the game.
ou have occupied the gallery now for over 3 weeks, creating on-site the pieces you are now showing. This decision was made to make visible to the public your ongoing process from a blank “canvas” to the final piece, and also for you to experience yourself as one of the objects inside your boxes, since the gallery space is in itself a box. How would you describe what this experience has been like, occupying the gallery?
The gallery being a kind itself a box with an opening to the side, resembles very much the boxes we are using to make the pieces. The gallery’s 24/7 function was an interesting starting point, since the space has been varying since we started on February 22. It has been modified organically, unintentionally, driven by the nature of the work and a tendency towards chaos. From this perspective, "micromanagement" is to enable a space for chaos to happen freely, given that within that pulsation of chaos to order and order to chaos, ideas come to life.
I fully enjoyed the experience of being part of a real-scale box, of being a character in this space and receiving visits from other artists, neighbors, curators and friends. To be on the street, more in contact with the environment, is something very new to me, since I usually work in absolute solitude. Applying this interactive experience to the pieces that have emerged in this time has been very enriching. The whole gallery-studio experience became an key ingredient in the pieces I developed, which would had never happened had I just transferred them from my studio to the gallery.
Time lapse of the entire process that took place between February 22 and March 22