Adiós Amigo!

Exposición / Invaliden 1 Gallery / Schönleinstraße, 25 / Berlin, Alemania
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Cuándo:
31 ene de 2013 - 16 mar de 2013

Inauguración:
31 ene de 2013

Organizada por:
Invaliden 1 Gallery

Artistas participantes:
Sergio Belinchón

       

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Descripción de la Exposición

invaliden1 Galerie announces the solo exhibition Adiós Amigo! by the Spanish artist Sergio Belinchón. Adiós Amigo! reviews the story of Spaghetti Western filmed in the area of Huesca, Spain, in the 1960s and 1970s. At invaliden1 Belinchón presents photography and video works analyzing the illusionary world that was created as a copy of the American Westand now has left behind its ruins.

 

A Fistful of Dollars directed by Sergio Leone in 1964 was considered by the critics as a film of a new genre: the Spaghetti Western. After this production in the next two decades over 600 other films were shot, many of them in Spain. The Spaghetti Westerns were known as low budget productions that were based on the historical background of American West and modified by adding Mediterranean mentality. Being produced over years this genre became part of the film history as well as of the Spanish life in the areas of film production.

 

Adiós Amigo! is a part of the artist´s oeuvre dealing with the story of Spaghetti Westerns that created ghost towns now abandoned in the modern Spanish landscape. The video shows a lonely cowboy riding through Huesca´s desert, passing by empty towns to finally end up riding his horse onto a modern empty highway that brutally bisects the landscape. As in a typical western, the cowboy crosses a river that leads him to the promised land. Looking for a better life, the man and his horse seem to be both lost and displaced.

 

The photographs of the series function symbolically emphasizing the ambivalence between being held back by reality, in this case by modern architecture, and the eternal hope to find better life in the west.

 

For the first time open to the public is the artist´s storyboard and documentation that explores the research phase of the project. The original posters from the films shot in the region of Huesca and the storyboard not only explain a part of film history, but demonstrate Belinchón´s path through the mystery of this cultural construction that engraved the common image of the entire western genre.

 

As part of the documentation the artist presents further works probing deeper into the history ofSpaghetti Westerns. El Yankee is a documentary following the story of the village Alcolea de Cinca, in the province of Huesca where the original film Yankee was filmed by the Italian director Tinto Brass in 1966. Belinchón traces the emotional memories of the local participants to the film and interviews the younger generation that has never heard of this western before. This discrepancy highlights the power of cultural dynamics producing themes and places that evolve and disappear within short time leaving certain consequences unsolved.

 

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is a video work based on the same titled film by Sergio Leone from 1966. Belinchón arranged the remake by following the original film strictly frame-by-frame keeping the dialogues, but leaving out the characters. The focus of the film shifts to its landscapes and emptiness of its places.

 

As in his works Belinchón plays in the installation of the exhibition with the idea of reality and representation - in front and behind the scenes. Thus, also the main screen for the video work Adiós Amigo! can be viewed from the front side as well as its construction from behind as in a common cinema set.

 

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