Pasillo Munich, 2001
A tireless traveller who studied in Berlin and Barcelona, Chema Alvargonzález focused part of his work on the notion of travel in the broadest sense. He was interested in physical displacement, but also in the sense of metaphorical and inner displacement, as well as memory as a journey. In his conceptual and multimedia production, he used light and words as means of formal research. His series of suitcases needs to be seen in this context.
Between the nineties and the following decade, he built a series of suitcases intervened as light boxes documenting scenarios of travel and displacement. These are old, open suitcases in which he placed an illuminated photograph in one corner and a mirror in the other to duplicate the image. The photographs are of various urban scenes (Barcelona, New York, Berlin, Munich...) and also of natural spaces. Pasillo Munich (Munich Corridor, 2001), from the MACBA Collection, depicts an urban corridor in the city of Munich. As if they were souvenir boxes or warehouses of memory (the deforming element of the mirrors seems to evoke it directly), these items of luggage speak of the past but also of nomadism, a characteristic trait in modern metropolitan life. Some suitcases operate like a kaleidoscope to create illusory spaces, while others have a duplicative effect, like Pasillo Munich. On more than one occasion, the artist has referred to suitcases, journeys and aeroplanes as elements that allude to continuous human transformation, both in the physical realm and the nomadism of ideas. A nomadism that, in the hands of the artist, shapes a new imaginary map full of duplicate paths and fanciful images.
Technical details
- Original title:
- Pasillo Munich
- Registration number:
- 1824
- Artist:
- Alvargonzález, Chema
- Date created:
- 2001
- Date acquired:
- 2002
- Fonds:
- MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
- Object type:
- Object
- Media:
- Leather, metal, paper, mirror, light and silver-dye bleach
- Dimensions:
- Maleta oberta 43 x 50.5 x 32.5 cm (height x width x depth)
- Credits:
- MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation. Gift of Art Barcelona
- Copyright:
- © Chema Alvargonzalez. All rights reserved for Memoria Artística Chema Alvargonzalez
- 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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