Artist: Guillermo Rubí
Exhibition title: X-French Tee Shirt
Venue: L21 Gallery, Mallorca, Spain
Date: July 5 – September 6, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Let’s, for a moment, put ourselves in place of the fabric: there we are, rolled or folded, piled up on some shelf. Waiting for someone to have mercy on us and give us the chance to leave our velvet prison. May they do whatever they want with me! Cut me, sew me, make me into a curtain… surely, hanging from the ceiling I’ll get to spend the day watching people walk by on the street. They could also make a dress or elegant jacket for a special dinner. Use me as a patch or knee pad, although due to the low cost fashion, not that many people fix their pants now. They could also use me to make a tablecloth, a carnival costume, a superhero cape or some shorts for summer. I imagined a life that for better or worse changed the day the clerk firmly gripped my roll to serve it on the table and cut a big piece. From there to the counter, I heard coins tinkling on the cash register, which made me wonder what my price might be. I learned what color I was and the material I was made of. Moreover, I learned of the existence of wide width fabrics: the world of fabrics is very complex.
I travelled in the trunk of a car. A strange sensation went over me, I knew I wasn’t being kidnapped, but I did not know the intentions of that man. We got to a house surrounded by great green fields where some dogs ran. I was starting to like this, the dream of becoming a curtain seemed very likely. Would that be my destiny? He took me out of the bag, cut me in a rectangle and carefully ironed me over the table of a workshop. It looked like an artist’s workshop and the views were amazing. I spent a lot of time out in the sun. I was feeling better than ever, specially after the last few months on that dark shelf, holding the weight of other rolls of cloth on my head.
Several quiet weeks went by like that until one day they put me in an infernal machine: a metallic basket of some kind, covered in tiny holes. Soap, cold water, then hot water, more soap, turning and turning. After that my color had changed slightly. I don’t know how many times I went through that process of washing and sun-drying. I also didn’t understand why it was necessary to repeat it at all. It all looked to be part of some experiment but, what kind of experiment? I started to comprehend the day Guillermo came up to me with a white marker… if this was an artist’s workshop, I might be destined to become a work of art. He methodically drew some letters and stamped in immaculate white a word in another language: PRESENCE. For the first time, two very different colors coexisted on my surface: was I a white zebra with black stripes, or a black zebra with white stripes?
The text transformed my nearly pure image into something blurred by the marks left by the sun and the effects of the washing machine. Doubts of whether I was already a work of art or not started to assail me. Despite that confusion, life in the artist’s workshop was pleasant. Music played early in the morning until nightfall, sometimes Guillermo would turn up the volume and I would hear him humming a melody.
-Óscar Florit
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, X-French Tee Shirt, 2019, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Guillermo Rubí, g spot (glassjaw) orange on dark orange, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 100×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, g spot (glassjaw) yellow on yellow, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 100×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Deviation, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Control, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Apperception, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Anxiety, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Empathy, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Morale, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Disorder, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Presence, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Satisfaction, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Tolerance, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Submission, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, Add Violence (NIN) Degrees of Freedom, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 200×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, db (glassjaw) yellow, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 100×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, db (glassjaw) orange, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 100×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, db (glassjaw) red, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 100×100 cm
Guillermo Rubí, g spot (glassjaw) red on red, 2019, Silkscreen printing on cotton fabric, 100×100 cm
