Video art and painting converse in the Museu Nacional
As part of the LOOP Festival programme, up until the 30th of August the exhibition "The pictorial unconscious" presents twelve video art creations designed to relate to pieces from the museum's collection
In the words of film maker Eric Rohmer, "All organization of forms in the interior of a flat surface stems from pictorial art", and it is an undeniable fact that disciplines such as photography and other audio-visual art forms have always been strongly influenced by the elements of composition, illumination and colour inherent to painting.
As part of the LOOP Festival, the National Museum of Art of Catalonia is currently hosting an exhibition entitled The pictorial unconscious in which the video art collection of the Sorigué Foundation attempts to enter into dialogue with pieces from the National Museum.
The leitmotif of the exhibition is, in fact, precisely this, the shared vocabulary between video and painting, the "pictorial unconscious" that is the fruit of the work of some video artists - for example, works in which filmed movement is contained and both fixed and wide-angle shots acquire the form of tableaux vivants from medieval liturgical dramas in which stationary "actors" would emulate the composition and iconography of religious paintings, precisely the effect that Bill Viola achieves in his installation in the Santa Maria de Taüll room.
In the museum shop the Gregory Scott video Fabrication toys with the possibilities of a Mondrian painting, while the remaining works are juxtaposed with rooms dedicated to contemporary art. Here we can find Ger Van Elk's pointillist style conversing with impressionist canvasses, the South African sketches of William Kentridge in the Civil War room, the hypnotising 3D stroll through the forest that arise from engravings from Diderot's l'Encyclopedie, a creation of Elisa Sighicelli & Marzia Migliori, or the animated theatrical dioramas of Marina Alexeeva that complement the paintings of Juli González and Pere Torné Esquius.
In all, a fascinating plastic exhibition that revisits the rooms of the National Museum and enriches them with an exquisitely conceived breath of movement - an example of how video and painting can cease to be considered as separate elements only to converge in pure image.
The pictorial unconscious
When: up until the 30th of August
Tickets: 12 €
When: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
More information here