Descripción de la Exposición
Ellen de Bruijne Projects warmly invites you to the opening of Lara Almarcegui’s third solo exhibition in the gallery: Gravel.
Every day, 250 tons of gravel was piled up on the square in front of the Art Basel buildings. The day-to-day loads, created growing heaps of gravel, that was excavated of one of the Basel gravel pits. The immense growing mountains were mirroring the average volume of gravel extracted from this quarry, and as an obstacle, became an invitation to reflect on the consequences of the extractions in relation to the land and the remaining landscape. Beside these active gravel pits, there are many abandoned ones around the city of Basel. They look deserted now, and creating landmarks that are reflecting the direct consequences of the disturbing excavations in terms of the landscape. But in many cases, as Lara Almarcegui delicately observes, nature takes back on the abandoned industrial sites, also on the gravel pits, and the public can enjoy the different terrains which awaits new functions. Gravel became a large scale video installation, which is on view at the gallery. It is the second directed and mounted film after Buried House, Dallas from 2013.
Gravel was made on the occasion of the exhibition Basilea by Creative Time, commissioned by Art Basel for Messeplatz 2018 Camara: Cesar Martinez Editor: Pablo Ruiz
In the galleries cabinet will be on view the preliminary work to Gravel. In drawings Almarcegui shows the second stage of Mineral Rights, that started in 2015 when the artist became holder on the mineral rights to an iron ore deposit near Oslo. This was the first step in Almarcegui’s oeuvre to focus on ‘what is happening with the soil deep under our feet’. Owning the rights on this iron deposit, was for the artist a way to get to the heart of the matter: who owns the earth? And drag attention to the origin of components needed for construction materials in buildings and other structures, that originates from the soil below our feet. Also in this case landscapes are disrupted, communities wiped out for the sake of exploitation. In several drawings the artist shows sections of the iron deposits she owns near Oslo and Graz. The drawings are made from the data after taking measurements of the iron magnetism with a geological magnetometer.
Next to the main exhibition we will show a selection of previous works by Lara Almarcegui in our office space.
Exposición. 13 dic de 2024 - 04 may de 2025 / CAAC - Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo / Sevilla, España
Formación. 01 oct de 2024 - 04 abr de 2025 / PHotoEspaña / Madrid, España
