Ian Waelder at Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani

Artist: Ian Waelder

Exhibition title: even in a language that is not your own

Curated by: Francesco Giaveri

Venue: Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma, Spain

Date: October 19, 2023 – February 18, 2024

Photography: ©Juan David Cortés / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani

Ian Waelder (Madrid, 1993) works by collecting fragments of materials and seemingly fictional stories that have been cast aside and lost to memory. His art explores often intertwined lines of thought, from accidental poetry to memories fashioned from remains or traces left behind, picking out small material stories and stretching the possibilities of language through his life and work.

“even in a language that is not your own”, his new project for Es Baluard Museu, begins by researching his family tree, reflecting on recent history and drawing parallels between body and machine, while also inviting us to reflect on our bearings, speech and insignificant gestures that can replace words.

In this show, Waelder leads visitors along a path and structure far removed from both the museum and the hustle and bustle of everyday life. They are taken on a journey through a kind of interzone, a space between the real and the imaginary. This space might be an oral cavity or the engine room for an abstracted yet strangely familiar place where speech is materially articulated.

History is inevitably viewed through a personal prism. Waelder embarks on a quest filled with stories, casual asides that throw open a dazzling array of prospects and detours, almost as footnotes to the main text.

This path forms a single space in which visitors have to reorient themselves. The physical structure of this transitory passage contains a series of interventions, images and sculptures consciously articulated without any logical sequence or discourse. Rather it is designed as a whole in which first to lose yourself, before gradually regaining your bearings and eventually finding a route.

The show’s underlying structure is like a labyrinth, a blank map, a sketch with enigmatic or laconic elements that the viewer has to decipher—short notes scrawled from memory or written in pitch darkness.

The artist uses the means at his disposal to engage the audience and nudge them towards a mutual experience, a kind of shared memory passed on orally, perhaps unprecise and surely incomplete. And yet somehow clearly recognisable.

We find ourselves in a kind of suspended interzone, as if conveyed to someone else’s speech and language—a place where, despite initially losing our habitual references, we are surprised to recognise understandable and even familiar surroundings. The exhibition format was conceived as an oral discourse that continuously appeals to the personal and the political, introducing us to a language that whispers along with every step, revealing traces and fragments lying in wait for us.

– Francesco Giaveri,

Ian Waelder is a Spanish-American artist and publisher. He studied Fine Arts under the mentorship of Haegue Yang and Peter Fischli at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, where he currently lives. His work is primarily based on concepts linked to memory, trace and language, using media ranging from photography and sculpture to sound and installation.

He has had solo exhibitions at Galerie Rolando Anselmi (Rome), ethall (Barcelona), Centro Párraga (Murcia), The Finnish Museum of Photography (Helsinki), L21 (Madrid/Palma) and LOCAL Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago de Chile), among others. He has also participated in numerous collective exhibitions in galleries and institutions such as Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona), Delfina Foundation (London), Francis Irv (New York), Nassauischer Kunstverein (Wiesbaden), Kunstverein Wiessen, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Salón (Madrid) and La Casa Encendida (Madrid).

Since 2019, alongside his artistic practice, he runs Printer Fault Press, a publishing house specialising in artists’ books.

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, Upright (The Pianist Diminuendo), 2023, Wood, glue, air-dry clay, metallic structures, screws, 126,5 x 17 x 21,5 cm

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, Even in a language that is not your own, 2023, Path and environment, structure of honey-comb cardboard, air-dry porcelain, sound, Site-specific dimensions

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, A Nose Is A Nose Is A Nose (Injured Bird, The Streets Are Still The Same), 2023, Used sneaker, papier-mache, tissue paper, cardboard box and sheet of anti-reflective glass, 31,5 x 23,5 x 15 cm

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, As Far As I Can Recall, 2022–2023, Audio track in loop spreading throughout the exhibition space and museum halls, 13:33 min. Whistling from memory the piano melody of Federico Waelder, the artist’s grandfather

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, Sprain (38), 2023, Antique wooden last and air-dry porcelain, 24 x 11,5 x 8 cm

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, To Handle With Care (Bare Hands) – Hip-Pose, 2023, Series composed of cut-outs of hands from the instruction manual of the Opel Olympia of 1935 and the artist’s family archive. Prints on acetate film installed in different parts of the exhibition space. Variable dimensions. This particular piece is constantly in movement due to the air stream of the museum’s A/C originated in this corridor

Ian Waelder, To Handle With Care (Bare Hands) – Hug, 2023, Series composed of cut-outs of hands from the instruction manual of the Opel Olympia of 1935 and the artist’s family archive. Prints on acetate film installed in different parts of the exhibition space. Variable dimensions

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, 1993– series, 2022–Ongoing, Gelatin silver prints on resin coated paper. Variable dimensions. An ongoing series of portraits of a Monstera plant gifted to Waelder’s mother on the day he was born, still alive and growing today in their house

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, Background Vehicle Series, 2021–Ongoing, Floor vinyl prints. Variable dimensions. Series composed of film stills where the Opel Olympia car from 1935 appears in the background of the scene of a number of different movies. For the installation, several pieces have been cutout from the existing floor vinyl covering the skylight connecting each floor, creating a light-box effect coming from the light of the ground floor’s exhibition

Ian Waelder, The Pianist (Something Remains), 2022–2023, MDF wood previously used as a table to sculpt clay, traces of clay, patinated mirrors, inkjet prints on acetate film, tape, air-dry porcelain, 235 x 28 x 26 cm

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma

Ian Waelder, You Who Are The Stranger (Moth Joke), 2023, Door peephole on wall, accumulated fat traces on wall from visitors, muted video played on screen in loop 9 min

Ian Waelder, even in a language that is not your own, 2023, exhibition view, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, Palma