Mar García Albert at DOC

Artist: Mar García Albert

Exhibition title: Silk, Cotton, Scented, Padded, Dependence, Effect (4 Ply)

Venue: DOC, Paris, France

Date: March 3 – 27, 2022

Photography: Léa Mercier, Juneul Huh / images copyright and courtesy of the artist and DOC, Paris

Disturbances

On Friday the 13th, Death opened a boutique / on the Champs-Élysées, sang Future Bible Heroes. It had air conditioning and escalators up to the sky or down to the centre of the earth. There, on the basement, was the supermarket where Joe Strummer disappeared in 1979.

Disturb. 1. Agitate and destroy (quiet, peace, etc.); break up the tranquillity or calmness of.

Tired of walking, Jonathan Richman sat down and began to watch people coming and going. He noticed the strange emblems on bags, repeated along the walls like Dlags in a parade. Green triangles, red apples, a closing inverted comma after a small p… If the musician from Massachusetts were a shopping centre, it would feel ashamed of itself. On a news programme thousands of kilometres away, a voice-over exclaimed, ‘Shops and businesses give Madrid the rank and status of a metropolis.’ Nobody realised that that spotless behemoth was selling fear and dismay. After all, anybody could walk through those huge passageways and buy the products they saw on TV. ‘What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as poorest… the President drinks Coke,Liz Taylor drinks Coke and just think, you can drink Coke too…’Open seven days a week, it was de rigueur and chic. For the wicked and the weak, death opened a boutique.

Disturb. Distract the attention of, intrude upon.

First thing in the afternoon, there’s no toilet paper left. The tills are Dilled with bags Dlecked with black and green triangles and soft packs expand or deform the red apple of the logo. 12 rolls, 24, 36. 3-ply, extra soft, neutral pH, aloe vera. 4 -ply, is that possible? Six 4-ply rolls. Silk, cotton, scented, padded. The cashier sucks the tip of her foreDinger to separate the plastic more quickly. Compact, mega, super, ultra. She looks back out of the corner of her eye: the queue is getting longer and longer. People came from far and near to buy poison and tears. ‘Specialists in you’,can be heard through the sound system, while a handful of customers inspect the last racks and crouch down to check whether there’s anything left on the lowest shelves. The staff rush off to the stockroom, come back, shake their heads, ‘I’m sorry, try again tomorrow. The décor was delectable the service impeccable.

Disturbed. 2. Psychiatry. Emotionally or mentally unstable or abnormal.

The sales will soon roll in, like the scrap merchant, with a bang and big promises (‘Madam, we collect any old iron, washing machines, stoves, old beds, water heaters…’). The greater the discount, the greater the crowds. ‘When possible buyers enter in hordes it’s like an invasion’, read an old advertisement that is never outdated. And there go the housewives, Dighting over a garment that was expensive – what isn’t?, but is now half-price. ‘A giveaway, a giveaway’, sang Almodóvar and McNamara. And their wrinkled hands rummage through the heaps of clothes at cut prices, while in the background music in our heads Mecano sings, ‘I’m hunting, hunting, hunting amongst garments, I’m hunting, hunting, hunting for a bargain’ and her friend or sister-inlaw take their place in the queue that now reaches all the way to the door. They’ll leave when it’s dark, eyes bright and pockets empty, knowing that their family will at last be able to wear for the First time what other people previously wore for the First time.

-Mireya Hernández Pozuelo, translated from spanish by Josephine Watson

Mar García Albert, Silk, Cotton, Scented, Padded, Dependence, Effect (4 Ply), 2022, exhibition view, DOC, Paris

Mar García Albert, Painting (Flamingo), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 83 cm x 70 cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (Tork), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120cmx 98cm

Mar García Albert, Silk, Cotton, Scented, Padded, Dependence, Effect (4 Ply), 2022, exhibition view, DOC, Paris

Mar García Albert, Transitional Painting nb.1, 2020 / 2019, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, oil on canvas, 120 cm x 80 cm / 18 cm x 24 cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (drop), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120 x 98 cm

Mar García Albert, Silk, Cotton, Scented, Padded, Dependence, Effect (4 Ply), 2022, exhibition view, DOC, Paris

Mar García Albert, Plumes, 2020, Oil on canvas, 133,5 cm x 146 cm

Mar García Albert, Transitional Painting nb.1, 2020 / 2019, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, oil on canvas, 120 cm x 80 cm / 18 cm x 24 cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (scott nb.2), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120 cm x 98 cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (Scott nb.1), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120cmx 98cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (butterflies), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120 cm x 98 cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (heart), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120cm x98cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (Bouquet), 2022 Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120 cm x 98 cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (Kleenex), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120cmx98cm

Mar García Albert, Painting (Flowers), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120 cm x 98 cm

Mar García Albert, Silk, Cotton, Scented, Padded, Dependence, Effect (4 Ply), 2022, exhibition view, DOC, Paris

Mar García Albert, Painting (drop), 2022, Oil on laminated canvas on linen, 120 x 98 cm

Mar García Albert, Silk, Cotton, Scented, Padded, Dependence, Effect (4 Ply), 2022, exhibition view, detail, DOC, Paris