F2 Galería presents “José María Guijarro: Waiting Room + The Place of Disquiet,” an exhibition curated by Miguel Amado realized in the context of Madrid’s a3bandas initiative. The exhibition consists of a solo show by José María Guijaro, an artist represented by F2 Galería, and a group show with international artists Adriano Amaral, Sérgio Carronha, Carolina Caycedo, Fokus Grupa, Marcos Ávila Forero, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Maria Laet, Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, Mel O’Callaghan, Yazid Oulab, and Carla Zaccagnini. a3bandas is an annual event managed by hablarenarte: in which guest curators organize exhibitions for Madrid-based galleries featuring artists they do not represent.

Introduction

This two-part project consists of a solo show by the Spanish artist José María Guijaro and a group show of eleven international artists, the display combining both exhibitions in the same gallery. Guijaro’s presentation, Waiting Room, surveys his practice, reuniting works created since the late 1980s and introducing a newly produced sculpture. All of the works address his ongoing interest in metaphysical (with political nuances) interpretations of the landscape, the body, language, and the object. The other presentation, The Place of Disquiet, features recent works that explore contemporary approaches to the representation of nature or the human figure, ex- perimentation with the written and spoken word, and depictions of the built environment.

“Sala de espera” (waiting room) are the handwritten words that appear atop a picture by Guijaro, roughly outli- ned on a modest piece of paper, of ten chairs missing their seats. This drawing—or, more accurately, the sketch and its annotation—dates from 1988, and it set the stage for Guijaro’s later arrangements of groups of seatless chairs. In some situations they have been affixed to the wall in multiple positions, from linear to rhizomatic, as in Sin título (2007). Elsewhere, they have been dispersed across one or various rooms, disorderedly occupying the gallery. In both scenarios, Guijaro is examining both the materiality and the existential qualities of these articles, speculating about the relationship between their purely physical function and the lived experiences of those who would utilize them.

The chair is a piece of furniture designed to accommodate the body. By altering the items employed in his insta- llations, Guijaro clarifies that he is only concerned with it as a metaphor, a vehicle to express his concerns with the world. A similar attitude emerges in Sin título (2014), two freestanding wooden legs and a head lying on the floor. The work evokes a classical rendering of the human figure, but the missing torso and limbs, as well as the allusion to beheading, hints at traumatic events, for example war.

A waiting room is an area—perhaps in the hall of a doctor’s office, or an airport—where people usually sit (or stand) until the occurrence they are anticipating is at hand. When Guijaro first thought about it in 1988 and deemed it worthy of addressing, he was probably considering it in personal terms, as an isolated scene he had recently noticed. Over time, however, he has given the waiting room a far more sustained investigation, and attributed to it a profound meaning: as a space of suspension, in which transition is about to happen, thus ge- nerating either expectation or anxiety. Far from a place to rest, it usually plays host to disquiet, a state that all of us undergo at some point.

All of this informs the selection of works by eleven international artists that constitutes The Place of Disquiet. The exhibition mines Guijaro’s presentation; the works investigate the subject matter with which he is engaged with a fresh perspective, taking it out of familiar territory and enacting new understandings of the issues he raises. But they do more than dialogue with Guijaro’s output: they become autonomous, suggesting a conste- llation of ideas and images that convey a sense of the spiritual while reflecting on topical issues of social life.

Carla Zaccagnini’s drawing recalls English suffragettes’ iconoclastic gestures between 1913 and 1914, replicating an attack on a Velázquez female nude. A series of paintings by Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude portray a man interac-

ting with a TV set in various manners, capturing a fusion of flesh and machine. Kiluanji Kia Henda’s photograph Compacted Distance (2014) depicts a brick wall erected in a desert with two apertures recalling silhouettes, referring to border crossing via exploded barriers and mirages. Videos by Marcos Ávila Forero and Carolina Caycedo record the survival strategies of South American populations in the context of displacement, focusing on the transformation of the territories they inhabit and the conflicts from which they are fleeing.

Fokus Grupa’s sculpture, a replica of an oak twig, encapsulates the relationship between nationalism and eco- nomy through an environmental symbol. Yazid Oulab’s sculptures, in which he takes advantage of materials such as barbed wire to design words—as in Não (2014)—outline motifs that indicate unsettlement, often with sacrificial associations. Sculptures by Sérgio Carronha and Mel O’Callaghan—formless shapes made of clay or nautical cables as well as numerous minerals—transmit a magical atmosphere, emanating the mysticism rela- ted to earth. Maria Laet’s monotypes, titled Sem Título (Gaze) (2014), involve the skin (and other membranes) that reveal and obscure something. An analogous effect is carried out by Adriano Amaral’s sculpture, a white plastic sheet suspended from the ceiling that highlights the tension between transparency and opaqueness. - Miguel Amado