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No(W)here Postcards, 1998

Graphic material, 16 x 11.5 x 1.3 cm

Rogelio López Cuenca’s work appropriates the form of everything from texts and postcards to magazine covers and street signs, altering the content in order to convey both poetic and socio-political messages. Through his adaptation of pedestrian forms – signs and advertisements – López Cuenca probes the limitations and meaning of what constitutes public space. As an extension of his own political works, he was also a member of the active collective Agustín Parejo School and in the early 1980s was a performance and event artist in Málaga.

López Cuenca’s work Beaux Arts is composed of nine paintings installed in three columns and three rows, which together spell out “B-E-A-U-X A-R-T-S,” or fine arts in French. Using the letter logos from various organizations and commercial enterprises, the artist blurs the distinction between sign and referent by subsuming and relating these logos to the sign “fine arts.” Another similar work, using international logos such as Kodak and Texaco, spells out Goethe's famous dictum Kunst bleibt Kunst [Art remains art]. This appropriation of communication languages such as the logo functions for López Cuenca like a found poem, yet as the artist himself explains: “I am trying to do the opposite, to take poetry to the public code.”


Technical details

Original title:
No(W)here Postcards
Registration number:
2149
Artist:
López Cuenca, Rogelio
Date created:
1998
Date acquired:
2003
Fonds:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Consortium
Object type:
Graphic material
Media:
Offset print on paper
Dimensions:
16 x 11.5 x 1.3 cm (height x width x depth)
Credits:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Consortium
Copyright:
© Rogelio López Cuenca
It has accessibility resources:
No

The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.

For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.

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