Descripción de la Exposición
Escalera de Incendios [Contemporary Art] is pleased to present the online group show O.O.A.A. Curated by the independent artist and curator Omar Jerez.
14 photographers from 4 different continents have been shot during the state of alert. This is O.O.A.A.
[Orden Opresor Altamante Angustiante] [Order Oppressive Highly Distressing]
Artists: Lucía Carretero, Mara Catalán, Elisa Ceretta, Anna García Solana, Rafael Tanaka Monzó, Carlotta Gambato, Lle Godoy, Haruki, Juan Jerez, Inma Liñana, Julia Martínez, Alan Pfeiffer, Ehrior Sanabria and Adam Wiseman.
Cities: Abano Terme [Italy/Europe], Barcelona [Spain/Europe], Granada [Spain/Europe], Londres [U.K./Europe], Madrid [Spain/Europe], Melbourne [Australia/Oceania], New York [U.S.A./America], Panama City [Panama/America], Paris [France/Europe], Tokio [Japan/Asia] and Valencia [Spain/Europe].
Human been is a creature of habit, therefore all behaviour that we think is unusual and innovative is as old as our own species.
The coronavirus has shown how homo sapiens is the most virulent of all existing species. Some sociological codes sleep the beast temporarily, as long as, it does not go out of its comfort zone, but, we go out of our VIP zone. Currently, immerse into the manure, it comes that we were and we will, until the end of our cycle on the planet earth. We are dross.
O.O.A.A. arises during the lockdown period as an essential reflection about who we are and where we are going. Two cycles of my life take me back to what we are going through in interpersonal relationships nowadays, psychopathic relationships. The first one, during my stay in Syria (Damascus) and the second one, years later, in Morocco (Agadir). In these places were common practice for citizens to act as secret agents. They watched all your movements and it could have lethal consequences with the state because of a false or malicious report leading your life to the most absolute abyss.
Pinochet declared, ‘In Chile, no leaf moves without my knowledge’. This is exactly what happened during the lockdown. A movement of yours that became in suspicion, it could be able to lead you unintentionally to an incident and to see yourself in a tough situation.
In the collective imaginary when we want to reference the evil on a hologram we quickly imagine Hitler or Stalin, everything is easier than we guess because of our mistaken beliefs. It is not necessary to appeal to these two tyrannicides to narrate the horror. If you analyzed a bit your perception, the evil can be in everything that you know. You can find it in your neighbour, in the guy who says to you hello while you walk your dog, even your doctor. The Balkan Wars is an example of it. There coexisted, in the same ecosystem, peacefully, different ethnic groups, religions and sensibilities until the greatest atrocities known since the Second World War were committed overnight.
In all this analysis, I do not find a negative or pessimistic point. However, I find it realistic without concessions. It is weird to notice the disappointed when through the observation you can feel that we are predictable and obvious. Nature as a whole is cruel and heartless, the wildlife craves unfamiliar as the brain functioning. The human being allegedly just use of 15% of its cognitive potential, and with this 15%, we already developed mass destruction weapons which were used deliberately in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant produced DNA deformities against the indifference of the Soviet authorities.
A breeding ground based on repetition and paranoia that has made it possible to use our reptilian brains to control all areas of our existence at the price of the extermination of others.
Science had failed dramatically, politicians acting in between the insignificant and fake also easily replaceable, and the population is been part of a cowardly and entrenched theatricality.
I can only find a glimmer of hope in art as an element of redemption and truth.
14 photographers from every corner of the world. Not employed by any factual force. They are neonates on the gaze. They transmute their creativity through a perfect order inside this O.O.A.A. A reflexive exercise during the state of alarm. How human being radically change their habits and routines in situations of stress and uncontrolled fear. Fiction interweaves with reality, establishing a conceptual metaphor by transforming the figure of photographers, a figure that always observes in the element to be observed.
Omar Jerez
![Mara Catalán [New York/U.S.A.]](https://static.arteinformado.com/resources/app/docs/evento/38/191038/2.jpeg "Mara Catalán [New York/U.S.A.]")
Exposición. 31 oct de 2024 - 09 feb de 2025 / Artium - Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo / Vitoria-Gasteiz, Álava, España
Formación. 07 nov de 2024 - 28 nov de 2024 / Museo Nacional del Prado / Madrid, España
