F2 Galería | Madrid | 14.11.2015 > 09.01.2016
The works presented by Álvaro Negro in his first exhibition at F2 Galería are eclectic and vary in technique and format; however, beyond the first impression, there seems to be something special that links them together: this has to do with a certain “spirit” which, like an echo, takes shape as we view the exhibition as a whole. This tie seems to rest on a tendency that slants towards a conceptual stance and goes beyond topics of figuration-abstraction or a pictorial style and takes place between the two large-sized paintings that are the protagonists of the exhibition: Columna I [Column 1] and Cadro-tumba [Tomb-Painting]. Formally, they seem opposites: an oil on canvas representing a landscape with “impressionistic” reminiscences – to label it for the sake of clarity – and an abstract mirror something like a mezzotint. However – and now talking about affinities – both the main column in the centre of the landscape and the central-vertical partition in the mirror approach each other with a mutual influence, as if the “tomb-painting” were the abstract shadow of the “column painting”. Indeed, these two works are useful as highlights from which to explain this exhibition, but also to unfold a broader vision of Álvaro Negro’s body of work created over these past five years.
A publication is available online at ISSUU or as a PDF file, with texts by the artist himself, the poet Chus Pato and the architect Luis Gil Pita [spanish]
Composiciones sobre la ruina (Vittorio Gregotti), 2014, two-channel video projection on black granite slabs
