Anomalías

SET Espai d’Art
Plaza Miracle del mocadoret 4, Valencia, Spain
September 15th – November 11th 2017

www.setespaidart.com

I’m always looking for new systems to make the city part of my creative process. Each experiment I do is a series and, to be able to compare the results, I carry out these experiments very rigorously and methodically. In the process, I often find myself in strange situations, off-key from the reality that surrounds me. In the city’s routine, my actions can be perceived like anomalies. The generated artworks act as testimonies of the experience lived between the artist and the city.

6 aros (6 hoops)

This project started with a map of Valencia. I looked for itineraries with the most circular shape possible. I found six. I created a wooden sculpture from each itinerary. Subsequently, I walked each sculpture in the city on the very path it represents. Each walk varied from 1 to 6 km. I presented the sculptures as they were at the end of each walk.

Piedras pintadas (painted rocks)

I looked for rocks in the streets around the gallery. I found 14. For each one, I noted down the exact place where it was found. I brought the rocks to the studio and I painted them with 3 coats of 3 different colors. Then, I brought each one of them back to the place where I found it and from this point, I kicked it through the street until it entered by the gallery door.

Dibujos en la EMT (drawings in the bus)

Running away from the comfort and the security of the studio, I drew pictures while sitting inside the urban buses of the city of Valencia. I drew the same composition 12 times during 12 journeys on different bus lines. Every imperfection on the drawings are the result of the annoyance and discomfort produced by the movement of the trip. I not only had no absolute control over my drawings but I also had no control on where the bus was bringing me; at the end of each drawing, when I raised my head, most of the time I was totally lost.

La Ville et le Mouvement

Le Pilori visual arts space
Place du Pilori, Niort, France
September 27th – November 10th 2017
Exhibition organised for the 4e mur festival by Winterlong gallery.
Participating Artists: Jeroen Jongeleen and Eltono

www.winterlong-galerie.com

Détours

Six 20 minute random itineraries starting from the exhibition space door. At each intersection, a die is used to determine where to go. The result is materialised by six painted wooden sculptures.

RUFO

A painting is dragged in the street, with the painted side facing the floor. The route, a loop in the city, is fixed beforehand. The board is exhibited as if with a map showing the route.

G.A.S

Horizontal printing system using street movements. Each print is exposed to traffic for at least an hour.

Photos: Eric Surmont et Eltono
Videos: Victor Thiré

Crossroad #3

Doppelgaenger Gallery
Via Verrone 8, Bari, Italy
Double solo show with Italian artists Sten&lex
May 4th – September 20th 2017

www.doppelgaenger.it

I showed three different bodies of work:

Percorsi Aleatori, three collages on paper representing three 10 minutes random itineraries that I executed in the streets of Bari Veccia using a dice in my pocket.

Esculture Casuali, a random sculpture experiment where the length and angle of each segment composing the sculpture were decided at random.

Morceaux Choisis, eight randomly generated woodcuts following the rules of generative mural Modo n.º7.

Fluctuación

Antonia Puyó Gallery
Calle Madre Sacramento 31, Zaragoza, Spain
September 29th – November 19th 2016

This new series of works is built on the itineraries generated by wandering randomly in the streets of Zaragoza. The exercise consisted in walking half an hour in the city using a dice at each intersection to determine where to go next. The artist and more than 60 participants performed the experiment and the results were translated to different medias: a wall painting in the Delicias Park, three sculptures, three collages, five paper cut-outs and a video.

Pictures by Daniel Pérez

Modo n.º11 – generative and participative painting:
4 days and over 60 participants – project curated by Antonia Puyó Gallery for Asalto Festival.

Pictures by Antonia Puyó Gallery and Asalto Festival

Text by Estela Rojo (in Spanish):

TRANSITAR Entre DELICIAS (Y GALERIAS)

Explorar, experimentar, observar, participar o deambular son términos ya habituales en el trabajo de Eltono. Artista del espacio público, como él se define, crece artísticamente desde la práctica vinculada al graffiti más puro, para evolucionar en la búsqueda de soportes y lenguajes que no sólo actúen en el espacio público sino que lo activen, generando líneas de reflexión sobre nuestra forma de relacionarnos y mirar nuestro entorno inmediato.
Sus acciones se han revelado la mayoría de las veces a través de la geometría y los colores planos, generando un código muy personal cargado de simbologías cercanas a lo caligráfico que interactuan con el espacio y hacen partícipe al contexto arquitectónico. El azar es uno de los condicionantes importantes que marca la dirección de su ir, introduciendo la aleatoriedad y el juego en sus procesos. Aparecen componentes lúdicos que tienen que ver con esa idea del disfrute, de la libertad del salir a vivir la calle y dejarse llevar por elementos que ella misma le proporciona, a veces de forma imprevisible, otras marcada por formulas autoimpuestas. Eltono pinta, arrastra, pega, clava, mide, genera nuevas experiencias desde la exploración y la deriva. Un sinfín de posibilidades, combinaciones y experimentos que van renovando su propia investigación formal.

Nacido en Francia su transitar vital le ha llevado a dejar una fuerte huella en España donde ha vivido durante más de una década formando parte de colectivos como Equipo Plástico, Noviciado 9 o trabajando junto a artistas como Nuria Mora, Momo y Luce entre otros. De esta forma su trabajo ha ido constituyéndose como uno de los referentes en el arte urbano español desde inicios de los noventa, en plena efervescencia del movimiento, hasta nuestros días. “De Madrid al cielo” dicen, en su caso Pekín, Londres, México, Varsovia etc… son numerosas las ciudades que recogen la huella de su “deambular” por las calles, a veces de forma clandestina y en otras bajo proyectos amparados por galerías e instituciones.
Este es el contexto en el que hoy nos encontramos: el espacio privado, un reto al que ya se ha enfrentado en numerosas ocasiones y que aborda como una más de las “tensiones” que un artista urbano afronta. En su caso este conflicto de “territorio a combatir” lo resuelve apropiándose de ese lugar como si se tratara de un mero contenedor de experimentos, una base logística o un escaparate más. Disuelve las fronteras convirtiendo la galería en un espacio para la invitación, donde romper barreras que separan al artista de aquel que ¿no lo es? proponiéndole, eso sí, sus propias reglas del juego. Genera dinámicas cercanas al espectador y formas colaborativas de producción ya que el propio visitante puede compartir mediante un dibujo su propia exploración del recorrido y colocarlo junto a las piezas de Eltono estableciendo innumerables diálogos.
El resultado de sus acciones en el Barrio de las Delicias, durante el festival ASALTO y en el entorno de la galería, se recogen en la sala de forma abierta, proponiendo enlaces con la experiencia directa del territorio urbano. Pasear por lugares conocidos y compartir esos recorridos por los que el propio artista se ha dejado llevar en un proceso de descubrimiento, hace que el concepto de transitar o recorrer el mismo espacio tome gran importancia en la configuración de la psicogeografía del barrio.
El artista reivindica a través de sus acciones y sus piezas un arte de contexto, incidiendo en su dimensión social. Nos hace conscientes del poder transformador del trabajo artístico en nuestra propia percepción de los lugares cotidianos, mediante un gesto tan sencillo y revelador como… caminar.

www.antoniapuyo.com
www.festivalasalto.com

Venturing Beyond

Somerset House
London, U.K.
Exhibition curated by A by P
3 March – 2 May 2016

Footpaths
Four 15′ walking performances
Black ink on 285 g. Fabriano Rosaspina paper 100 x 70 cm, 2′ video


Rules:

  1. The participant of the action selects an area of public space and defines a specific time period.
  2. The perimeter of this predefined space is then circled in a clockwise fashion.
  3. When an outsider visible to the participant enters the perimeter, the participant must immediately attempt to reach the outsider’s point of intrusion.
  4. If the perimeter is further breached  during the attempt to reach the initial intruder’s entry point, this subsequent point becomes the new target.
  5. Once an intrusion point is reached, the participant continues circling the perimeter until either a further intruder enters or the time limit is reached.
  6. Finally a drawing is generated; a testimony to the footpath experience.

www.a-by-p.com
www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/venturing-beyond

Lugares Comunes

Luce + Eltono
SET Espai d’Art

Plaza Miracle del mocadoret 4, Valencia, Spain
November 13th 2015 – January 12th 2016

lugars-comunes-luce-eltono

“Lugares Comunes” was my first collaboration with Spanish artist Luce. We worked during three weeks on four installations based on observations and experiences we had around the city of Valencia.

1 – Escalera Butrón (break-in ladder):

This piece is about making holes in abandoned plot walls so we can facilitate the access to their interior. The holes were punched following a zig-zag pattern so that they could be used as a ladder. We used hammers and chisels and the holes came out irregular because they were made quickly and illegally. The size had to be big enough so a foot could fit in it. In the gallery, we showed five full scale “break-in ladders” made of wood. They were exact life size replicas and included the same shape, dimensions and arrangement for each hole. Reproducing the holes in wood had to be done rigorously and required precision and accuracy, which was a direct contrast to the way the holes were randomly produced on the street with a hammer and a lot of adrenaline.

2 – Periscopio (periscope):

This is a hollow omega shaped structure we build to be placed on top of deserted plot walls. Inside, a set of mirrors allowed us to literally see through the wall. We attached wheels so the artifact could be moved horizontally offering the viewer a proper exploration of the inside of the plots. In the gallery, we built a wall to support the periscope and showed a video of how people used it to see through different walls around the city.

3 – Asientos Acondicionados (seat conditioner):

All around the city, we observed a lot of unused L shaped brackets on places where an air conditioning unit used to be installed. We decided to exploit them to install a seat. The seat and the backrest leaned on the L squares mounted on the facade of the buildings. For the exhibition, we installed L brackets to set-up one chair and we showed four photographs of one of us sitting on it. These self-portraits served as a witnesses to the performances in the street as well as an opportunity for the public to see the artists enjoying the devices as they contemplate the city from a novel point of view.

4 – Compas (compass):

We used eight wood sticks of different lengths with a hole drilled on one side and a wax crayon attached to the other. In the street, we looked for unused screws coming out of the walls to hang them. These screws became center points to draw curves playing with the restrictions imposed by the position of the screw, the size of the stick and the surrounding elements. Inside the gallery, we reproduced a real situation that we observed in the street formed by eight screws and used the sticks to draw lines on one of the gallery walls. We made eight small scale drawings on paper that serve as a proof of the completion of the mural.

Extras:

Additional actions we did during the preparation of the show. Experimentations that we didn’t show in the exhibition but that were part of the process.

 

Pictures of the show:

Aléas

Delimbo
C/Pérez Galdós nº 1 Acc., Seville, Spain
October 8th 2015 – January 12 2016

Eltono-aleas-6

6 Lienzos (6 canvases):

Interested in using the street as a workshop, I created a printing system that takes advantage of the passage of cars to generate works on canvas.

U.V.:

In this experiment, I take advantage of sunlight to produce prints. The procedure involves placing a cardboard template on a painted fluorescent color paper and leaving it in the sun for a certain period of time.

7 lines passing through 4 points:

Random painting exercise – I painted 7 lines each one built by linking 4 points together. The coordinates of the points and the order of the colors are chosen at random.

Punto de encuentro (meeting point):

Wooden planks found in the streets of Seville during the trips I made between my hotel and the gallery. Each table is modified making a cut that reproduces the route that I took, the table under my arm, between the place where I found the wood and the gallery.

Collages:

Each collage is comprised of the combination of 3 different templates, 3 colors and background paper (yellow). I tried different combinations by changing the order of the designs and colors making unique collages where no two combinations are alike.

Verso:

This exercise is a non-exhaustive comparison of how different pens react to different papers. Depending on the weight of the paper, the drawing appears more or less defined on the back of the sheet. I drew 91 versions of a modular drawing and displayed them showing the back side of each paper.

Exhibitions view:

Text (in Spanish) by Guillermo López Gallego:

Eltono: lo que hay debajo de la playa

Paso largos periodos fuera de Madrid. La última vez que volví, sentí una penetrante melancolía ante las piezas plateadas de la M-30, las puertas cubiertas de tags, las letras redondeadas. Sentí como dolor lo que ya sabía: el graffiti es una conversación en cada ciudad, y yo me estaba perdiendo la de la mía.
Como una marca con ínfulas, he visto piezas en Abijan, Berlín, Bogotá, Bruselas, Buenos Aires, Zaragoza, Conakry, Freetown, Hamburgo, Monrovia, Nueva York, París, Panamá, Portland, Santander, San Petersburgo, Seattle, Sevilla, Tallin, Riga, Vilna… Pero no he seguido esas conversaciones.
Y eso es lo primero que me viene a la cabeza al pensar en la obra de Eltono.

*

Parece que hay dos maneras de escribir sobre Eltono y su obra.
Hay quien opta por el enfoque histórico. Este se puede encontrar en otros sitios, y de la mano del propio Eltono en la publicación Line & Surface. Es sabido: Otone, GAP (crew a la que Eltono todavía mencionó en 2009), los trenes parisinos; cómo llegó a Madrid en 1999 y cómo reaccionó a la saturación del centro, es decir, la aparición de Eltono, la adopción de un icono que ha ido refinándose, adoptando una estética minimalista, limpia, sencilla, y una técnica depurada y sin aerosol.
Luego están los relatos sobre la experiencia de conocer la obra de Eltono en las calles de Madrid. Entiendo el aire de epifanía que tienen aquellos, porque recuerdo pasar el verano de 2001 buscando a Eltono en las puertas y rejas de Lavapiés. Me acuerdo de una pieza en los cuarteles de Daoíz y Velarde en 2006, la primera que vi con tres colores; otra envejecida al final de Cuatro Caminos, en 2009. Hace dos años, descubrí una obra antigua en la calle Infantas, cerca de Colmenares, que reaparece periódicamente bajo los carteles que anuncian conciertos y fiestas.
He podido apreciar, como muchos otros, la importancia que el contexto tiene en la obra de Eltono, su forma de señalar texturas en la ciudad y de ennoblecer y recuperar espacios. Y no creo que se pueda acusar a Eltono de contribuir a la gentrificación de los lugares donde trabaja; conociendo su respetuosa reivindicación de la artesanía y la forma en que trabaja con las comunidades, seguro que ha pensado en ello.
He observado también, siguiendo su trabajo en museos y galerías, la inteligencia con la que ha sabido llevar a esos contextos la esencia del trabajo de calle. Cualquiera que haya visto las obras de taller de Blade sabe que la transición de la calle al circuito comercial no es fácil.
Eltono (y aquí empieza mi intento de ir más allá de las dos maneras de escribir que acabo de mencionar) ha sabido inducir los principios generales del trabajo de calle, y trasladarlos al taller. Ha sabido encontrar, creo, dos claves del graffiti que le permiten crear arte urbano fuera de la calle. Quizá porque Eltono es francés, siempre las imagino en términos franceses.
En primer lugar, ha extraído y refinado la idea de contrainte, de restricción, propia del Oulipo. La obra de taller de Blade, como la de Seen y Lee y otras leyendas del graffiti, tiene algo kitsch, porque se limita a usar los aerosoles sobre el lienzo en vez del vagón, y no sabe incorporar la forma en que la calle determina el graffiti, el peso de tener el tiempo contado, la interacción con el público y la intemperie: su pintura no es obra sino reproducción.
Eltono, en cambio, ha identificado algunos elementos del graffiti que le permiten crear en el taller obras de calle: la aleatoriedad y la intervención acelerada del paso del tiempo, por ejemplo. Y lo hace, como él mismo dice, de manera casi científica: «imagino un protocolo, decido unas reglas, las ejecuto y observo los resultados». Es decir, a la manera de Pérec y Queneau.
En segundo lugar, Eltono ha ahondado la raíz situacionista del graffiti. No hablo de las banales pintadas inspiradas en la obra de Debord y Vaneigem, desde mayo del 68 hasta hoy. Me refiero al enfoque situacionista, de nuevo casi científico, del paseo, y el uso que de él hace Eltono, por ejemplo, en obras desarrolladas en Vitoria y Pekín.
(Y al détournement, también situacionista: la subversión de la publicidad de cerrajeros y pintores de brocha gorda, que también habla de su conocimiento de la ciudad.)
Es posible que haya contradicción en someter la artesanía del paseo situacionista al rigor de la contrainte del Oulipo. Pero Eltono parece resolver ese problema por la vía de la inmanencia, como podría decir François Julien: contrainte y deriva no se aniquilan, sino que crean.

*

Oulipo y situacionismo. Recuerdo también que Javier Abarca, cuyos estudios de la obra de Eltono son brillantes, habla de Daniel Buren y Space Invader en algunos de ellos. Quizá Eltono es más francés de lo que nos gusta pensar. Pero es parte de nuestra conversación.

Guillermo López Gallego

Incontrôlables

Instituto Cervantes de Paris
7, Rue Quentin Bauchart, 75008 Paris
June 12th – September 4th 2015

eltono-incontrolables-icp

Incontrôlables is a series of experimental actions in which the artist loses, on purpose, the control of the creative process allowing outside secondary factors to work. The end result is unpredictable and the artist finds himself in the observer’s position surprised by his own creations.

Exhibition curated by Slowtrack (Madrid) and Juan Manuel Bonet.

paris.cervantes.es
slowtracksociety.com

Moulures:

Fascinated by the places on the facades of buildings where different volumes and levels come together, the artist collected the silhouettes of moldings around the city and brought the negative of the silhouette into the gallery on a wooden placard.

Rules: the molding has to meet a flat surface. The negative form obtained should not be studied in advance.

U.V.:

Works of art should be protected from sunlight. Here, in contrast, the artist takes the aggressiveness of the sun’s light to produce prints.

Rules: a template on a painted fluorescent orange paper is placed and exposed to the sun. Every day a new piece of paper is put out in order to observe the progression of the experiment. 7 papers were exposed for a week in Albuquerque and 15 for two weeks in Belvès (France).

G.A.S. (Street prints):

Revolving around the idea of using the street as a workshop, the artist conceived a printing system that takes advantage of passing cars to generate prints.

Rules: the result is shown exactly as it was found when removed from the street, even in case of failure. The date, time and location of the print are written on each print.

RUFO (Rudimentary Unidentified Frictional Object):

To study how the city can literally alter a work of art, the artist “walks” a painting around on a leash. The painting is face down with the artwork touching and scraping against the street.

Rules: paint a table and “walk it”, with the painted side face down on the city streets. The route is determined in advance. The artist can not look under the board before the end of the walk. The course completed for each painting must form a loop.

8/4 and 5/4:

An exercise in random painting where the artist paints up to 8 lines each composed of 4 points. The coordinates of the points and the color or each line are chosen at random.

Rules: the coordinates of each point are randomly generated. The points are marked on paper and numbered from 1 to 4. Then, they are joined together in numerical order. Up to 8 colors can be used in random order of appearance.

Graviers:

An experiment regarding the movements of the city. Having painted a rectangle on the floor, the artist observed its gradual degradation until it completely disappeared.

Rules: Painting done on a horizontal surface made of gravel. Paint a red box with a template and take a picture of the result. Return at least once a day to photograph the changes until the rectangle has totally disappeared

Thanks to Slowtrack, Marta Moriarty, Inés Muñozcano, Juan Manuel Bonet, Rafael Schacter, Raquel Caleya and everybody at the Instituto Cervantes de París.

Pictures by Sierra Forest, Rafael Schacter and Eltono.