Paisatge glaçat, 1996

Photocopies were a new medium explored by conceptual art, as they did not differentiate between artwork and document. Conceptualism valued their serialised character, the fact of leaving aside the idea of original and unique pieces of art, as well as their ability to designate a new realm of consumption. One of the artists who employed photocopies widely was Pere Noguera, who in 1975 presented an exhibition at the Sala Vinçon in Barcelona entitled La fotocòpia com a obra-document [The Photocopy as Work-Document]. Noguera exhibited a project with greater conceptual reach than what is known as copy-art, as commonly practiced at the time, using photocopies to give an overall grey tone to the advertising domain of consumer objects. Covers, labels and the packaging of industrial objects related to everyday needs are here intervened with photocopies of the very object itself. They are rectified ready-mades, as criticism called them, in a work about the monochrome and the suppression of colour. In turn, they also address volume and reality, exploring the way to take the photocopier into a spatial dimension.