Encounter with Juan Luis Moraza
Held on 15 oct 2014
This encounter serves as an introduction to the Juan Luis Moraza exhibition republic in the Museo (15 October, 2014 - 2 March, 2015), bringing together the artist and João Fernandes, the curator of the exhibition and deputy director of the Museo Reina Sofía, in a public conversation.
The word republic, which lends its name to the exhibition project, sets out from an "expanded" vision of the term, reflecting both its literal meaning, in the form government, and an ethical and aesthetic dimension that appeals to a decentralised and participatory organisation model. Thus, in Moraza's republic the Museo is explored as a space of interpretation and transformation, a space of conventions and possibilities of citizenship that questions and demands the continuous participation of the citizen-spectator.
His work and the present exhibition are fundamentally organised around the crisis of representation. In its explorations it calls into question the idea of representation as a mediation and relationship with reality and the subject’s relationship with society, whilst also questioning the notion of represencialidad, introduced by Moraza as an allusion to the double metaphorical and metonymic presence of the subject of representation - the artist and spectator - that connects in the space inside the work.
The exhibition comprises a broad selection of the artist's work spanning from 1974 to 2014, with its arrangement moving away from the classic idea of a chronological retrospective as it mixes and transforms the works into new associations. The series and themes addressed present the Museo as a Museum of Participation (a space of convergence between the citizen-artist and the citizen-spectator), as a Symbolic Museum (where the notion and uses of the monument in art and the social life are examined), a Demographic Museum (assembling works and documents that contemplate the relationship between iconography and demography) and as an Anthropic Museum (the expression of desire and the vindication of the body as the constitution of the individual).
In collaboration with
Participants
Juan Luis Moraza (Vitoria, 1960) combines his artistic output with teaching and research in the field of art. He is the senior lecturer in the sculpture department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Vigo and is also guest lecturer at the University of Cuenca. His publications include, among others, the books Corduras (El lunar, 2008), Ornamento y Ley (CENDEAC, 2007), Laboratorio de papeles (together with Francisco Javier Sanmartín. Fundación Museo Jorge Oteiza, 2006), MA(non é)DONNA. Imágenes de creación, procreación y anticoncepción (Galería Elba Benítez, 1993) and Seis sexos de la diferencia (Diputación Foral de Guipúzcoa, 1990), in addition to numerous essays in collaborative books, specialised journals, catalogues and newspapers.
![Miguel Brieva, ilustración de la novela infantil Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022) [izquierda] y Cibeles no conduzcas, 2023 [derecha]. Cortesía del artista](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/ecologias_del_deseo_utopico.jpg.webp)
![Ángel Alonso, Charbon [Carbón], 1964. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/perspectivas_ecoambientales.jpg.webp)
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![Carol Mansour y Muna Khalidi, A State of Passion [Estado de pasión], 2024, película](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/palestine%20cinema%20day%202.jpg.webp)
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