Artist: Radamés “Juni” Figueroa
Exhibition title: Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room
Venue: L21 Gallery, Mallorca, Spain
Date: March 31 – May 26, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and L21 Gallery, Mallorca
“Hurricane of color”
That could have been one of the titles of this new project by Radamés “Juni” Figueroa at L21 gallery. One of those projects that transports you to and traps you in some kind of fictional stage, the components of which are disposed in an elegant and relaxed manner.
A place to meditate about what has happened, trying to find answers to the natural disasters that connect the entire planet and make us feel, whenever they happen, how small and insignificant we are.
A crushed orange heroically holds the weight of a sash window that intends to close itself with a heavy thud. Textbooks, beers, Majorcan lighters, bottle caps, empty soda bottles and the number 13 in the shape of a shiny, spherical, orange pool ball. Over a green, not so tropical background that’s gone through the artist’s eyes and taken to a softer world.
Venetian blinds as contemporary paintings, they hang over the green, not-tropical walls, and the pool balls find their place among them once more. They stay in place thanks to the weightlessness that teems around the room, a room that’s been taken over by a party night, with loud music, light cigarettes, moonshine rum and Barrilito beer.
Friends that find airplane tickets at the last moment so they don’t miss the show the artist grants us. A fight at a bar’s exit, long walks late at night through an industrial park looking for some place to eat.
Cold, the kind that gets inside of you, strong and cold, strong and cold, strong and cold. The windows, up to something, searching for holes to let the air through, damned windows.
A white and yellow striped awning, covering a small lamp with orange light on top of a peach colored wall, this one is a lot more tropical.
Basketballs and footballs used as readymades hold pots with dirt and green leaves. A second life for the leather, kicked and heavily used. From hands and feet, straight to your living room.
Wooden iPhones with very bright screens, with no coverage but infinite battery. Two banana trees having a beer, parrots, birds, fishnet stockings, high heels, very tropical and very topical.
A pool table, where the remains of a Puerto Rican’s party in an industrial park in Palma are placed as if they were a still life. There are no palm trees here, but there’s claping*, at least from my team, who has applauded each of the artist’s actions
-Oscar Florit
Director of Louis 21
*Translator’s note: This is a pun in Spanish. Palm trees are ‘palmeras’, and clapping is ‘palmadas’.
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room, 2018, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room, 2018, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Subtle Shake 1, 2018, PVC blinds and pool ball, 180 x 120 x 10 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Subtle Shake 1, 2018, PVC blinds and pool ball, 180 x 120 x 10 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room, 2018, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, After Party, 2018, Pool table, liquor bottles, plastic cup, lighter and cue stick, 106 x 130 x 233 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room, 2018, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Looking for the Heat, 2018, Broken exterior curtain over yellow wall, 200 x 250 x 190 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room, 2018, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room, 2018, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Tropical Readymade 1, 2018, Football, dirt, plant, and handmade certificate, varying measurements
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Miami Hotel Room 1, 2018, Glass window, orange, beer bottle and books, 100 x 121 x 15 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Miami Hotel Room 1, 2018, Glass window, orange, beer bottle and books, 100 x 121 x 15 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room, 2018, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, After the Disaster 1, 2018, Broken neon sign, 68 x 38 x 10 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, After the Disaster 2, 2018, Broken neon sign, 58 x 30 x 13 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, After the Disaster 3, 2018, Broken neon sign, 107 x 25 x 12 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, After the Disaster 4, 2018, Broken neon sign, 61 x 60 cm
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Meditations in an Ugly Hotel Room, 2018, exhibition view, L21 Gallery, Mallorca
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Sutil Sacudida 2, 2018, PVC blinds and pool balls, 180 x 120 x 10
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Sutil Sacudida 2, 2018, PVC blinds and pool balls, 180 x 120 x 10
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Tropical Readymade 2, 2018, Basketball, dirt, plant and handmade certificate, varying measurements
Radamés “Juni” Figueroa, Miami Hotel Room 2, 2018, Glass window, Coke bottle and pool ball, 100 x 60 x 8 cm