Artists: Itziar Bilbao Urrutia, Iñaki Garmendia, Yun Ping
Exhibition title: Segunda versión
Curated by: Aimar Arriola and weecolors
Venue: CIBRIÁN, San Sebastian, Spain
Date: July 12 – September 6, 2024
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and CIBRIÁN, San Sebastian
Note: Exhibition floor plan is available here
Cibrián is thrilled to present Segunda versión, a group exhibition with artists Itziar Bilbao Urrutia, Iñaki Garmendia and Yun Ping, curated by Aimar Arriola and weecolors.
In the words of the curators, “it has been an intuitive and somehow whimsical process in which we have worked with what we have lived and shared over the last year”. The title of the exhibition – Segunda versión (Second version) – alludes to ideas of change and transformation, changing forms throughout a process. And also, to the need to return to something, to insist on attitudes—a question that, without our anticipation, is present in the work of the three artists. The gesture of returning to one’s own imagery and procedures, runs through this exhibition.
The title of the exhibition also seeks to complexify notions of order and value, leaning towards the secondary, as that which is considered minor or inferior.
Itziar Bilbao Urrutia (Bilbao, 1966) draws characters with forked tongues, feline eyes, rows of tits on the torso, as well as heels, nails, and lingerie, often alongside male figures with large snouts and a passive attitude. The drawings in this exhibition mix myth, metaphor, and street culture, spanning more than thirty years of work.
Itziar Bilbao Urrutia shows her continued interest in the monstrous side of female sexual identity, both in her work on paper and in her video and performative practice. She has lived in London since the 1990s. She has recently had exhibitions, performances, and dramatized readings in places such as Cable Depot, London (2024), Bulegoa z/b, Bilbao (2023), and Darlings Pearls & Co., London (2019). As an artist, pornographer, and activist, her work is articulated through the exploration of the fetish scene as a space of practice. She has just received a PhD for publications from Kingston University, thanks to her research on the intersection between art, feminism, and female sexual supremacy, or Femdom.
In the works on display in the exhibition, Iñaki Garmendia (Ordizia, Gipuzkoa, 1972) takes models, leftovers, and other materials that could be considered minor out of the studio and articulates them in shapes that lie somewhere between excess and containment. For instance, in Gestarescala 1 and 2 , the artist explores what flatness does in space through design elements, work surfaces, patterns, discards, and starting points.
Iñaki Garmendia often works with video, music, youth subcultures, and manufactured objects. His processes are based on the creation of derivatives, versions of cultural objects to which he is secretly linked and on which he operates based on a logic of wear and tear. Between the late nineties and 2013, he had an important exhibition presence, both locally and internationally. His last two solo exhibitions have been Ratatatatat… (2021), at ATOI-Traktora coop. in Bilbao, which was his first solo exhibition in seven years, and Tramar lo gótico. N634 (2023), a site-specific intervention and exhibition in an industrial fish market in Bilbao, in collaboration with Studio BEAR architects.
Yun Ping 昀平 (Hubei, China, 1998) connects transit to permanence while setting a tone, a thick atmosphere emerging from the sequencing of scenes that make up the series 回家 (Huí Jiā). This thickness comes from the artist’s working with different scales —body, home, and geography— and the variations between narration, representation, image, what is put in front of the camera, and what happens outside.
Yun Ping 昀平 grew up in Eibar and currently lives in Madrid. His interest in the medium of photography grew in parallel to his journey in search for identity. He studied photography at the Artediez school in Madrid. In 2023, he presented his solo exhibition 回家 (Huí Jiā) at El Local, Madrid and at Galeria Candy Darling, Barcelona. Among his group exhibitions are: Solo si huele a tierra, La Panera, Lleida, Zhōngguó. El País del Centro, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Madrid and Un cambio de paradigma, Sala de Arte Joven, Madrid, all in 2024.
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Aimar Arriola is a curator, editor, and researcher. His practice often focuses on working with artists and print culture. He has been Research Associate (2020-2023) at AZ Alhóndiga Bilbao, member of the Technical Commission of the Eremuak program (2019-2023) and editor of The Against Nature Journal (Council, Paris, 2017-2023). He is currently Program Manager at Intermediae Matadero Madrid.
weecolors is an artist. Through drawing, he explores ways of gaining volume or being in space. He has had solo exhibitions in Pradera, Madrid (2021), Pols, Valencia (2022), and Can Felipa, Barcelona (2023) . He has been resident at the Tabakalera artists’ space, Donostia-San Sebastian. Segunda versión is his first curatorial experience.
