ARMANDO ANDRADE, 'SALLE DE REPETITION', PART ONE AND PART TWO

Armando Andrade, Salle de Répétition, Part Two









Armando Andrade, Salle de Répétition, Part One



Armando Andrade Tudela
Salle de Répétition Part One
11 September – 2 October 2010

‘I believe that a door handle moving slowly (object) creates a stronger impression than the projection of the person who sets it in motion (subject)'. Fernand Léger (1)

Part One of Salle de Répétition will consist of three films, presented as relatively modest sized projections, and shown simultaneously. The subjects of the films are: Marcahuasi, the famous rock forest on a mountain plateau in Peru (Marcahuasi 2009); sun rays and the geometry of refracted lens flare (Untitled Film #1 2006-7); and a music rehearsal space in the suburbs of SaintÉtienne, built and run by a nonprofit association for over 20 years (Salle de Répétition 2010). Shot on 16mm in simple observational mode, and mostly edited in camera, Andrade's films aspire to a condition of transparency. “Ideally I try to think of filming and subsequently viewing what has been filmed as parts of a same timescale, a sort of experience of continuity and transparency. The aim I suppose is to transcribe the actuality of being ‘there’ to the viewer”. (2)

While these films explore examples of social space - ethnographic, architectural, ritual, communal - they are ambivalent about any notion of objectivity. With the camera circling its subject, moving from long shots to close ups, from interior to exterior, darkness to light, there is a sense that these films draw in part for their inspiration on the legacy of experimental film making, in particular elements of abstraction in varying degrees coming to the fore and the perception of space shifting into experience.

(1) Hans Richter New Living, Andres Janser and Arthur Rüegg.
(2) Interview with Ariane Beyn, to be published in Andrade's forthcoming monograph, Efectiviwonder.

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Armando Andrade Tudela
Salle de Répétition Part Two
8 October – 20 November 2010

Andrade Tudela's Balzer Reliefs (Relieves Balzers), like Fontana’s series of works Concetto Spaziale or Oiticica's early Metasquemas, use cuts and geometry as a way to convey ideas of space beyond the pictorial surface. Typically composed of two geometrical apertures, Andrade Tudela’s hollow reliefs can be seen as schematic architectural diagrams of transitional space such as corridors, hallways and terraces – places that involve a flow of movement and can exist in states of both occupation and non-occupation.

Through these cuts we can glimpse patterned, grid-like paper that has been positioned at varying angles. The paper comes from Andrade Tudela’s local bakery depicting repeated logotypes and restrained expressionistic gestures, both essential components to the modernist syntax. The interaction of these two geometric systems – the cuts and the patterned paper – creates a subtle shifting tension between the works’ two and three dimensionality, between connecting and corresponding surface and space.

The sculptures in the show are also constructed following a geometric system, though here the angle, or the intersection of spaces and matter plays an additional role. Made from materials such as concrete, aluminium profiles, coloured Plexiglas and built using simple processes such as casting, leaning and layering, the sculptures are like abstractions of low-grade commercial buildings – sculptures that in their fragmentation and scale evoke passages to a larger environment.

Armando Andrade Tudela (1975, Lima) resides in both Berlin and Saint-Étienne. He studied at the Universidad Pontificia in Lima, the Royal College of Art in London and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. His work has been presented in Barcelona (MACBA), Dijon (Frac Bourgogne), Berlin (DAAD), Birmingham (Ikon Gallery), Frankfurt (FKV), and Basel (Kunsthalle Basel). He has also participated in major group exhibitions in Lima, Warsaw, Vienna, New York, the Shanghai and Sao Paulo Biennials.

http://www.carlfreedmangallery.com