Avelino Sala & Eugenio Merino
Walking together: for them and for us
Doormats
FELPUDOS is a reflection on the misogyny that prevails in the history of humanity and culture. A cleaning exercise to reflect on a problem that remain current in a global context.
Through the derogatory phrases against women of great thinkers on mats, we are able to wipe our feet on them and leave them behind. A review of the history of thought and philosophy in a hegemonic-deconstructive key.
The doormats are printed with sexist phrases by philosophers, scientists and intellectuals, selected from the book The Artithmetic of Patriarchy, jointly by the artists and the author Yadira Calvo.
In the contemporary world, any object can almost, without realizing it, represent a real political statement and in this case, a doormat tells us so. The mat is placed on the floor and is used to clean our feet when entering the space of others.
Eugenio Merino and Avelino Sala use the mat as a canvas; "as a place where through words they expand messages, in this case, popular phrases written or declared throughout history by philosophers or scientists. Characters very important in the history of humanity, built by them, in the same way that language protected structures of ideologies they wanted to order. In all these sentences the woman is humiliated or relegated to an absolutely perverse role affirming their lack of the basic values that those same men were using to set their idea of the world in motion" Rafa Doctor.
Avelino Sala (España, 1972)
The aesthetic —that also has a strong ethics— raised by Avelino Sala throughout his career articulate a discourse certainly personal, coherent and yet complex in their readings and their looks.
The diversity of mechanisms employed and expressive languages, which include among others: video, sculpture, photography, neon, drawing or plural world of objects, keeps his (coherent) idea of art, but at the same time complex on the diversity of views.
BIO
Avelino Sala is an artist, curator and editor ( Sublime magazine) and writes in media such as Artishock and Desk. Sala’s work as an artist has led him to question cultural and social reality from a late romantic perspective, with a continuous exploration of social imagery. His work strives to check the power of art as an experimental space capable of creating new worlds.
His work has been presented in various international exhibitions, among the latest: (2013 S.O.S) Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca, (An Essay on culture 2013), NCCA, Moscow, (Distopia:right now) 2012 Museum marble of Carrara, (Funeral Pyre 2012) Matadero, Madrid, (Cacotopia 2011), First Screen, La Pedrera (AUTRUI 2011) Centre Dart Le Lait Grahulet, France, (Block House 2011), (Galeria Raquel Ponce, ARTIUM (stop! 2010), Royal Academy of Spain in Rome, (Fatherland or Morte! 2010), Virgil de Voldere gallery, New York, (hostile 2009), National Museum of art Sofia (International Reencontres, 2009), Queen X Bienal de la Habana, (Comunicacionismos, 2009), A Foundation, London (Off the Street, 2009), Insert Coin, Spanish Young Art, October Contemporary, Hong Kong 2009) or Tina B Biennale Prague, (Small Revolutions 2008) or The Promised Land (Chelsea Art Museum, 2008). Generation 2003 by CajaMadrid award. Sponsored among others by Hangar and Bilbao art. In 2010 was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome and the centro de arte Le Lait of Albi in France.
Eugenio Merino (España, 1975)
Eugenio Merino's works are balanced between belief and disbelief, paradoxes and logic, taste and bad taste, respect and offense. The artist often assumes a cynical role and reveals uncomfortable views of contemporary societies.
Throughout his career, Merino has demonstrated the ability to establish a transdisciplinary work, capable of merging different media such as neorealist sculpture, paintings, drawings or installations. He finds inspiration in a popular imaginary and in the media that he combines with dialectical, metaphorical and metonymic means to assemble his works of art.
The opposition of different realities, as well as disparate references and symbols, also generate different possible ways of reading his artistic production. Elements from 21st century iconography and cultural stereotypes that have shaped Western thought can be found in his works of art with an added sense of acid irony and discursive sarcasm.
BIO
Known for his more controversial sculptures such as “For the Love of Go(l)d” or “Stairway to Heaven”, Eugenio Merino works in different directions and mediums. Drawings, videos, objects and sculptures in bronze, resin or silicone are all part of his oeuvre. Each idea requires a specific material or language. The ideas are the language of Merino.
Eugenio Merino graduated from the Complutense University of Madrid. His first US museum show was held at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art (Houston) in October 2015. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions and has participated in a variety of art fairs, including Volta NY, Volta Basel, ARCO (Madrid), Art Brussels, FIAC (Paris), Armory Show, Arte Fiera (Bologna), Art BO (Bogota), MACO (Mexico), Art Wynwood (Miami) and has exhibited in the MOCA Museum of Taipei and the B.P.S.22 in Charleroi (Belgium).
WORKS INCLUDED IN THE EXHIBITION
