Mercedes Azpilicueta at Prats Nogueras Blanchard

Artist: Mercedes Azpilicueta

Exhibition title: Mercedes Maga Estrella de la Mañana

Venue: Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona, Spain

Date: May 30 – September 7, 2024

Photography: All images courtesy by Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona/Madrid. Photos: Roberto Ruiz

Let’s suppose there are multiple lives living in a body. Lives that live momentarily through gestures, gestures transcribing, scratching language on the surface.

Almost a century ago, in an empty ballroom with mirroring ceilings, somewhere in central Europe, right before dawn, a masculine figure finds himself freed. He is traversing the floor, spinning in a forgotten tutu, and his spins are not only gestures but also music. Meanwhile, marks of his movements are imprinted on the reflecting ceiling.

Suddenly the room seems full again, inhabited by friends, ambiguous characters from the past and the future. All mirrored upside down.

The masculine figure realises then that each character –regardless of their gender, generation, or coordinates – has something from him, a common red thread that ties them together. As he observes the body of bodies spinning, and therefore dancing, he also realises that transformation is possible.

To capture this moment one could only paint it. Paint it by spinning it, by wiping it off a ballroom floor.

Like a kind of script, the paintings are articulated further as Mnemonic Visuals, which Mercedes or the masculine figure have been using throughout their artistic practice as scores for their performances.

On the surface of the canvas, dancing their way through opacity and transparency, past and present come together in a gestural ball –a collaboration of bodies and essence – which again points towards performativity.

Similarly, the drawings emerge on paper: a kind of dancing writing, which seems to carry a timeless, non linear message.

To dance with desire.

Under the name Mercedes Maga Estrella de la Mañana, Argentinian artist Mercedes Azpilicueta presents a group of new works in Prats Nogueras Blanchard – encompassing painting, drawing and sculpture– that explore the idea of multiplicity within one’s self. Bringing together diverse characters from the past and present is a common gesture within the artist’s practice; the gesture of painting is a sounding board for the echo of the past. Mercedes Maga Estrella de la Mañana moves in a spiral, revisiting performance scores, textile and furniture sculptures, revealing traces of other lives, giving them new voices.