Issue # 38 Guillermo Mora
A Bridge To Stay On - Sala Alcalá 31, Madrid
Curated by: Pia Ogea
“Transgressing social, political and ideological boundaries is what drives history forward. Transgressing the boundaries of painting, sculpture and architecture is what drives the history of art.” Guillermo Mora
A Bridge To Stay On, an exhibition conceived specifically for Sala Alcalá 31, takes Guillermo Mora’s investigation into the traditional boundaries of painting to the next level. With this new project, the artist approaches the pictorial from a variety of different perspectives and emphatically conveys his idea of “painting as resistance”.
The radical decision to replace the hall’s usual longitudinal itinerary with an alternative route that introduces new angles and gazes is a manifesto of the overwhelming power of paint. Twelve colossal colourful structures whose shape recalls the profile of a broken frame—the perimeter that once contained and delimited painting—transect the space. The gallery’s conventional hierarchies are modified, building bridges between both sides of the hall and connecting the main level to the first floor. This ground-breaking approach questions the centuries-old role of painting as a contemplative window at the mercy of the establishment, a barrier and a screen used to conceal and silence other ideas.
The formal complexity of Guillermo Mora’s artistic language is clearly illustrated in this show by forty selected works from the last fifteen years of the artist’s career, assembled in a total, circular project. All the pieces—from the magnificent central installation to the delicate works occupying the floor, corners, ceiling or walls—reconcile the micro with the macro, the private with the public, the canvas with the architecture, and the artist’s studio with the exhibition space. At the same time, they grant the colour of paint the ability to effect change.
Guillermo Mora (Madrid, Spain 1980) is one of the most nationally and internationally renowned Spanish visual artists of his generation. He was included in Thames & Hudson’s 100 Painters of Tomorrow in 2014, won the Generaciones competition in 2013, and was awarded residencies at the Real Academia de España en Roma in 2010–2011 and ISCP in New York in 2016, among other distinctions. At the age of forty-two, he is the youngest artist to ever produce a solo exhibition for Sala Alcalá 31.
Curator: Pia Ogea
Guillermo Mora (Madrid, Spain, 1980)
Guillermo Mora lives and works in Madrid, Spain, and is one of the most accomplished artists of his generation. In recent years, he has created a particular visual vocabulary in which formal elements like color gradients, layers, textures and shapes are used to create an abstract mode of communication. Mora’s stimulating compositions create environments through which the artist questions the protocols and procedures of contemporary painting.
Mora received a BFA from the Complutense University of Madrid and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and completed his PhD thanks to a grant from La Caixa Foundation. Mora was featured in 100 Painters of Tomorrow by Thames & Hudson, awarded the Audemars Piguet Award in 2014 and the Generaciones 2013 Prize, and received the Residence grant in Casa Wabi, México in 2018, a scholarship at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York in 2016 and a fellowship from the Spanish Academy in Rome in 2010–2011.
His exhibitions include Un puente donde quedarse, Sala Alcalá 31, Madrid (2022); A day with you, Irène Laub Gallery, Brussels (2021); Horizontal with Miquel Mont, Tabacalera, Madrid (2019); Now, Soon, Then, Tomorrow, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, USA (2018); Los fondos remontan, Moisés Pérez de Albéniz Gallery, Madrid (2017); El Escritorio Circular with Teresa Solar, Centre d’art la Panera, Lleida, Spain (2016); Cae el Cielo, ECCO, Cádiz, Spain (2015); Nunca casi nunca a veces siempre, Casal Solleric, Mallorca (2014); No A Trio A with Pia Camil, La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2013); Viaje Largo con un Extraño, Casa Triângulo Gallery, São Paulo (2011) and Quizás mañana haya desaparecido, Extraspazio Gallery, Rome (2011). Mora’s work is part of the Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Miami, La Caixa Collection, Barcelona, Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, Madrid, and DKV Collection, among others.
Guillermo Mora is represented by Moisés Pérez de Albéniz in Madrid, Irène Laub Gallery in Brussels and Casa Triângulo in São Paulo.
PIA OGEA
Curator, Cultural Manager and Associate Professor in Fine Arts at Universidad Complutense.
Her most recent curatorial projects are “A bridge to stay On” by Guillermo Mora Sala Alcalá 31 April - July 2022; "Social Portrait. Women Only. Katriina Haikala” Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza November 2021, “Barbara Morgan. Dance, Gesture and Expressionism” Museo Nacional del Romanticismo PhotoEspaña June-September 2021; “The Ark: Contemporary Readings of the Archivo de Villa” Conde Duque, December 2020 - March 2021 or “Pilar Albarracín: Que me quiten lo bailao”, Tabacalera November 2018 ‐ January2019.
She has also managed prominent contemporary art projects in public spaces such as “Urban Memories” by Spanish artist Juan Garaizabal in Berlin, a permanent installation in the city, or “Los Caminos de Santiago en el Camino de Santiago” by Spanish artist Gabriel Díaz on show in European cities in 2011 including Paris, Cologne, Prague and in Spain in 2010 at the Pamplona Cathedral, the Royal Monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos, the Domus Artium in Salamanca, the Oviedo Cathedral, the Royal Collegiate Church of San Isidoro in León, and at the Museum of Pilgrimages in Santiago de Compostela.
She has worked with several institutions developing cultural programs such as “Tabacalera / Estancias” Latin American Curators Residencies for the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 2016 and 2015 or OPEN STUDIO 2015.
From 2007 to 2009 she worked as Curator at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and previously was director at Elba Benítez Gallery from 2004 to 2008 .
Her career started with the publishing group Allemandi, working in Madrid and Paris at El Periódico del Arte and Le Journal des Arts.