
Gallery façade designed by Rubén Guerrero. September 2022.

Torii III, 2021. Nico Munuera.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Exhibition view. L: In the water mood VIII, 2021; R: In the water mood VII, 2021. Nico Munuera.

Exhibition view. L: In the water mood VIII, 2021; R: In the water mood VII, 2021. Nico Munuera.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Exhibition view. Lago de plata, 2022. Santiago Giralda.

Exhibition view. Casa roja, 2022. Santiago Giralda.

Exhibition view. Sabik, 2022. Rosa Brun.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Cresida, 2022. Rosa Brun.

Exhibition view. Fondos (Light Yellow), 2018. Angela de la Cruz.

Fondos (Light Yellow), 2018. Angela de la Cruz.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Nariz vs barbilla, 2022. Rubén Guerrero.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Soñe que Revelabas (Fraser), 2021. Juan Uslé

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Luz y Sangre VI, 2022. Juan Uslé.

Exhibition view. September 2022.

Sin título, 2020. Secundino Hernández.

Detail from "Sin título" de Secundino Hernández.

Detail from "SQR (Fraser)" de Juan Uslé.

Detail from "Torii III" de Nico Munuera.

Detail from "In the water mood VIII" de Nico Munuera.
Information
IN PRAISE OF DENSITY
Rosa Brun, Ángela de la Cruz, Santiago Giralda, Rubén Guerrero, Secundino Hernández, Nico Munuera, Juan Uslé
From September 8 until November 12, 2022
The Galería MPA / Moisés Pérez de Albéniz is pleased to present the first of two exhibitions of the season that deal with the evolution of painting in Spain. The objective is to focus on the artists who, at this moment, can be considered strong points in the practice of painting in our country. The second exhibition will open in mid-November.
The death of painting has been declared so many times in the course of modern and contemporary art history that artists ended up accepting, in the words of Juan Uslé, that the language they use is “a dead language.” Despite its extinction, a language that, unlike the classical ones, is understandable for those who can comprehend its rich grammar.
In Praise of Density, an exhibition curated by Mariano Navarro, brings together works by seven artists, three represented by the gallery and four from others, and its discourse pivots on the senior figures of Juan Uslé (1954) and Rosa Brun (1955) and five other artists currently in their maturity, Ángela de la Cruz (1965), Nico Munuera (1974), Secundino Hernández (1975), Rubén Guerrero (1976) and Santiago Giralda (1980).
Except for those of Ángela de la Cruz and Secundino Hernández, dated in 2018 and 2020, the works exhibited are of recent creation, some of them completed even in the last few months. It is, therefore, a look at the present that does not shy away from contemplating the past reality of each of its members.
All of them contribute, as paradoxical as it may seem, to a widening and a deepening constitution of a pictorial language, as original as it is connected with the different vocabularies that the practice of painting has provided since the different investigations of post-war avant-gardes.
In a certain sense, what Rosa Brun considers the zero point of abstraction, can be applied to them: “The zero point of abstraction is not a primordial universe identical to nothingness, but the thrilling and enigmatic instant in which the gaze, free of curiosity or seduction, stumbles upon color, texture, brightness, volume and stops, disconcerted and calm, in the elemental, the simple, our cradle, the zero.”
Since that germinal moment, the artists gathered here have developed formulas and manners whose common denominator is the fresh density of their language: be it the rhythmic succession of the brushstroke and the syntactic exuberance of Juan Uslé; the formal power and heterodoxy of the formats of Rosa Brun; the monochrome and the tight violence exercised on the traditional idea of the painting of Ángela de la Cruz; the chromatic conformation and the fluid viscosity suggested by the works of Nico Munuera; the elaborate manipulation of the canvases with which Secundino Hernández “constructs” the surface to be painted; the search for the image of Rubén Guerrero and his sophisticated manual fabrication or, finally, the confluence of differentiated modes that distinguishes the work of Santiago Giralda.
An interesting element of distinction is that while Uslé, Munuera, Hernández, Guerrero, and Giralda configure their work from the element of the “painting”, Brun and de la Cruz enter into modes that correspond to expanded painting.
Mariano Navarro
Curator of the exhibition