ARCOmadrid 2021

7-11 julio 2021

Pabellón 7

Stand 7A12

Colita
Jean Denant
Mar Arza
Gonzalo Elvira
Marina Núñez
Lluís Hortalà
Palmira Puig

RocioSantaCruz’s proposal for this edition of ARCOmadrid 2021 takes as its point of departure the role of history in the construction of codes and logics enabling access to spaces of validation in art and culture, with special prominence given to women artists in both contemporary and historical contexts, and in digital and analogue media.

Occupying a space of her own within the stand, Mar Arza (Castelló de la Plana, 1976) will present her installation Armario de aristas (triada), a homage to Jorge Oteiza’s chalk laboratory, in which words printed on strips of paper are arranged in a way that creates unexpected reading angles. Completing the proposal is a selection of Arza’s works from her series Le Hasard Jamais, which was also the title of her solo exhibition at RocioSantaCruz in 2020. In the words of the artist, Suertes, Lindes y Estados transparentes are pieces that reveal “the synonymy between an apparently well-defined term, such as chance, and a fixed continuous system which conditions the drawing of lots”.

Mar Arza at ARCOmadrid 2021

Clearly visible in the centre of the stand is Gonzalo Elvira (Patagonia, Argentina, 1971)’s Bauhaus 1919, modelo para armar, an installation that references a different level in the history of women’s access to art. It is a site-specific mural that had been originally scheduled for display at the Mercosur Biennial, but because this did not take place, is being exhibited for the first time at ARCOmadrid 2021. Forty-four paper portraits show the women of the Bauhaus movement, who throughout history have been largely ignored.

Gonzalo Elvira at ARCOmadrid 2021

Jean Denant (Sète, France, 1979) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the nature of materials, gestures and identity within a wider reflection on the concept of reconstruction. He will be showing a selection of works taken from his most recent project, États limites – drawings made of sand and cement on paper representing the landscape of Palestine. These pieces address the subject of borders, physical and imaginary, and the origin of our civilisation. Accompanying them will be one of his most emblematic works, Anarchitecture, an engraving on plywood – an architectural representation created on a purely construction material.

Jean Denant at ARCOmadrid 2021

Photography features in the RocioSantaCruz stand with a markedly feminine – and feminist – stance. Vintage prints by Palmira Puig (Tàrrega, 1912 – Barcelona, 1978), who was an exponent of the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, an artistic movement that revolutionised modern Brazilian photography and which is the subject of an exhibition currently showing at the MoMA in New York, hang alongside photographs by Colita (Barcelona, 1940), mainly from her series ‘Antifemina’, shown in exclusivity here for the first time, and of life on the streets of Barcelona and Madrid in the 1960s.

Colita en ARCOmadrid 2021

Palmira Puig en ARCOmadrid 2021

And lastly, our proposal for ARCOmadrid 2021 rounds up with two videos by Marina Núñez (Palencia, 1966), whose work can be seen in a solo exhibition entitled Vanitas currently showing at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza; and a series of oil on wood paintings by Lluís Hortalà (Olot, 1959), a reinterpretation and detail of his work Ante la Ley (National Gallery), presented at the last edition of ARCO.

Marina Núñez en ARCOmadrid 2021

Lluís Hortalà en ARCOmadrid 2021