Eugenio Ampudia, Melgar, 1958.
As a multidisciplinary artist, his work approaches the artistic processes from a critical point of view; the artist as a promoter of ideas, the political role of creators, the meaning of art pieces, the strategies that allow to bring them to life, their mechanisms of production, promotion and consumption, the efficiency of spaces assigned to art, as well as the analysis and experience of those who watch and interprets them.
His work has been internationally exhibited in places as ZKM, Karlsruhe, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico DF, Centro de las Artes de Monterrey and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston Ayala Museum, Manila, The Whitechapel Gallery in London, Abierto X Obras, Matadero, Madrid, MAC Gas Natural Fenosa, La Coruña, Ars Electronica, Linz, and in Biennials such as Singapore and Havana’s The End of the World Biennial. And it is also held in collections of museums as MNCARS, MUSAC, ARTIUM, IVAM, and La Caixa, among others.
His work “Try Not To Think So Much” won the 13th edition of the ARCO-BEEP Electronic Art Award
His works at the collection:
Try Not To Think So Much, Mala Hierba, and Perec
Try Not To Think So Much, 2018
With this piece Ampudia continues his line of work of emphasizing on art as an effective communication method. In this case, the artist plays with the paradox of breaking that flow through communicational noise. By applying the term “noise” to communication, he not only addresses an unpleasant sound but also any interference in this process. With this work, he alludes to the communicational noise with which we cohabit and which surrounds us, and transforms into a silent method of influence in our everyday environment.
The artist aims at communication in the art world, that tends to be endogamic and self-referencing while proclaiming discourses which are supposedly intended to bring culture to the spectator. The fact that the piece´s noise is made from the appropriation and superposition of conferences related to the art world which are hardly understandable, is an ironic nod to the theoretical apparatus and the codes on which the art system relies. The phrase is a composed amplifier, and every letter comprising it has a pertubing mission, allowing Ampudia to configure a faltering narrative, which also speaks about subjetivity of the discourse and opens doors towards ideas sunch as the discourse of powers or the power of Foucalt´s discourse.
Mala Hierba, 2015
“Mala Hierba” (Bad Weeds) is a sculpture that plays at giving life to a referential element such as weeds, breaking this space in which we recognise ourselves by making it breathe, exploring our fears.
“It’s too late to be afraid. Nothing is more disturbing than impotently watching the movement of the grass below our feet. Those that prefer injustice to disorder cannot stand the drive to advance of those who express no other destiny than measuring their own disordered, convulsive and messy, strength. The risk is the message.”
Perec bajando una escalera, 2013
A library whose books lack the strength to express themselves and need the help of the moving word at their back. And sometimes the words are too specific. Or maybe they have always been too specific for the world, for art, but especially for the present moment, and we find ourselves in urgent need of different codes and strategies.
Work on deposit from LaAgencia Collection.