On Sunday morning I found myself looking out the window. I was looking at that blue Madrid winter sky, that characteristic light that shows the colors in their splendor and that indicates that it is cold outside. Suddenly, a thought: “On the least expected day, spring makes its way.” Those words made me come out of my reverie and the succession of hackneyed clichés that had taken hold of me. “Phrases of 0.60” that Ojete calor sings. “Núria Espert, the great lady of theater”, “It was Yoko Ono’s fault”, “Marina Abramović, the grandmother of performance”, would be others… Those that those of us who dedicate ourselves to writing try to avoid because they are empty, because they are worn out, so repeated that they no longer say anything.
What if we recover its meaning? What if we take each word with the full weight of what it means? What’s wrong with being a grandmother? Why do we sometimes use this term as a derogatory term? That Abramović is the grandmother of the performance It gives her a category that few have: that of pioneer – another hackneyed word and a great truth -, a sapper in the battle waged by art, a reference for those who came later. She is present, she is a grandmother who continues to nurture her work, the artist within and, of course, her offspring. From Saturday, until the 30th, it can be seen at the Liceo de Barcelona Balkan Erotic Epic. The theater describes the piece as “unclassifiable.” Victoria Combalía includes the creator in her book The extravagant ones. Women outside the norm (Circe), which was presented on Tuesday at La Central del Reina Sofía. Of course, the artist is present, but if she, at 79 years old, is the grandmother of performance, we could also include Yoko Ono, 92 years old, there (Insound and Instructure at MUSAC until May 17). Aren’t Esther Ferrer and Concha Jerez also, aged 88 and 85 respectively?
Both are present, here, in Madrid, and now, is there anything more performative than the here and now? Ferrer in the sample Fold and process at the Casa de la Moneda y Jerez Museum in Concha Jerez / José Iges: 1+1=3, in the Freijo gallery. Inevitably pioneers, yes, again, that is what they are.
Fold and process It is a compendium of Ferrer’s creation. It is a physical and temporal journey through your actions. The exhibition goes through his works, it is an immersion in some, as he always does with the installations of prime numbers; The memory of others, through documentation that maintains the record that they occurred, brings them to us in the present and makes the passage of time present. She emphasizes this, martially and assertively counting out loud: “One, two, three, four…”. Can something as aseptic as the way of listing be described? Ferrer’s is imperative and firm. He exposes his face over the years; results in the idea of infinity. Time is marked with his voice, with numbers, with Satie’s beats, with steps, with the wrinkles and flaccidity of his body. Concha Jerez marks it in another way: with the sound of a slide carousel.
Concha Jerez / José Iges: 1+1=3 It is, as its title indicates, a joint exhibition by this couple of artists who have been creating together for more than three decades and, dare I say, anticipating the facts. It gives chills to hear the alternative rules to ludo of No Man’s Lands (2002): “The intelligence services have just leaked fake news, from this moment on…” It seems funny that the rules change as you play following the instructions recorded by the creators. It is not when it is the real world that is modifying the established norms.
Jerez and Iges have individual and collective projects and this is the first time that a gallery organizes an exhibition with their collaborative works, a selection, the essence of their retrospective, Resignations, which could be seen last year at the Galician Center for Contemporary Art (CGAC). Therefore, Jerez is present in Madrid, yes, but with Iges. That does not diminish the importance of his figure since the seventies, his perfomancesto its facilities, to its reflection of censorship, memory, the political context, the media…
The characteristic noise of the passing of the slides black holes (2025), a video in which timeless images follow one another, is nothing more than a resource of the artists. There is no such projector, the sound brings to the viewer’s memory a device that is almost extinct, well, to the viewer who knows it. I hope that more young people who have never seen a slide in their life, and think it is something for grandmothers, will visit more galleries and start collecting.
