Manu Muniategiandikoetxea .- Etxe gorrian (casa roja)
08/May/2009 - 13/Jun/2009
Extxe Gorrian (Red House) is the title of MANU MUNIATEGIANDIKOETXEA’s third exhibition at Espacio Mínimo Gallery.
The formalization of the space through constructive variations and the exploration of possibilities of perspective within that space continue to be the fundamental aspect of a work which, though recurrent in it motifs, never runs out of ideas and creates a solid continuum.
Three elements – shelf, bench, and beam – quietly articulate the exhibition space. Firstly the shelf provides support for small sculptures at the entrance, generating the dialogue between these and the paintings across the room. The bench remains empty and is shown alongside the central sculpture that dominates the gallery’s larger space and that is reflected in the white painting that hangs on the front wall. Finally the beam makes up the downstairs work. These three elements are accompanied by the mirror as a distorting feature that redefines the space.
In this exhibition the artist continues to place sculptural and pictorial works in front of each other, intentionally trying to accentuate the idea of confusion and of altered volumes and proportions. By pitting sculptures against their two dimensional projections and pictorial volumes against hard edges the artist engages in a baroque game where the manipulation and transformation of the space creates unique dialogues between works of varied techniques and mediums, of different iconographies and styles. The result is a coherent group, a harmonious collection of unique works. As Maria de Corral and Lorena Martínez de Corral explain in the exhibition catalogue for “Planes Futuros. Arte español de los 2000”, “ [Manu Muniategiandikoetxea] is interested in shaping and articulating a place where dialogue can occur and which allows us to perceive the surroundings in a different way.”
In these works, as with earlier ones, we recognize structures and forms from the works of other artists such as Rodchenko or Oteiza, which Manu Muniategiandikoetxea borrows to then reinterpret, using them as quotes upon which to build his own discourse. The aspect of appropriation – writes Chus Martinez in her text for the Sala Rekalde exhibition catalogue – in some way brings the work back to a ‘temporal’ dimension. The quote becomes an experiment in ‘history”. The quote is the point of contact between object and biography. It makes manifest the work’s physical form, its tangible reality, it does not support itself, it is not inherent but arbitrary and a product of the continual process of reading and re-reading which has no confinable beginning or end. There is no “meaning”, no “original”. They might have existed. The quote points towards that possibility; it continuously introduces the hypothesis of an origin where meaning lives, a canon, but by doing so it drags with it not only the sharp illusion of the origin, but also thousands, millions of possible contexts where that event might have taken place.
MANU MUNIATEGIANDIKOETXEA (Bergara, 1966) graduated in Fine Art at the Universidad del Pais Vasco, specialising in Painting and Sculpture. He has shown individually in institutional spaces such as Sala Rekalde on Bilbao (Ni ez nain hemengoa en 2004), CAB. Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos (Baga biga higa en 2007) and Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea in San Sebastián (Behar Gori Primavera Azul en 2008). He has taken part in group shows such as Muestra de Arte Joven (Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid 1994), Pintura Mutante (MARCO. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Vigo 2006) and Planes futuros (Baluarte, Pamplona 2007). His work has been shown at important international art fairs such ARCO ( which in its 2006 edition included his work in the Sixteen Spanish Art Projects , curated by María de Corral), FRIEZE ART FAIR, ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH (in the 2004 edition with a solo projecttitled Orain, Berriz, Gulliver as part of Art Positions) o CIGE China International Gallery Exhibition (in 2008 with a solo project titled El Bosque de Ozú / Ozú’s Forest). He has won, amongst others, the First prize at Caja Madrid’s Generacion 2000, the Gure Artea Prize from the Basque Government in 2000, the Endesa Award in 2001 and the Altadis Prize in 2005. His works are included in Museo ARTIUM in Vitoria, Colección Unión Fenosa in La Coruña, Colección Arte Contemporáneo Museo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, Colección CAM in Valencia, Colección Altadis, Colección Caja Madrid, Colección Kutxa, Colección de Junta de Extremadura, Colección de la Comunidad Autónoma de Murcia, Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava, Colección Banco de España, Colección L’Oreal, Fundación Coca-Cola España and collections of the cities of Pamplona and Vitoria.
