Page 26 - The Future Belongs to No One. Eugenio Ampudia

nevertheless, that offer a host of possibilities a posteriori: Imagine, for example, a classical library. Everything tidily ordered. The books are on their shelves, culture is safe and sound. But moving image appears on the spines of a few books. The books cease to be books and become something that’s happening in front of our eyes. It’s almost magical, books as living elements. And granted, we’re accustomed to moving image, but in the ancient library, a temple of calm, slight gestures make possible another story, another gaze, another emotion. Let’s now imagine a huge industrial space converted into an even larger empty space where Eugenio Ampudia installs a pond that occupies the whole surface. A space doubled by the mirror of the water. Calm again, and a sensation of unreality. And in this place, where time has also stood still, a detonator creates a wave in the pond. The image is broken. The present is broken. There’s a before and an after.In connection with Ampudia, Blanca de la Torre1 speaks of the difficulty of simplicity – something that in a way brings us to the idea of honesty. Achieving ‘simple’ art involves stripping oneself naked, demolishing walls and allowing many people to come close. There are artworks which are devised without fear of being savoured, handled, thought about and internalised. And the path to this possibility is not an easy one; the easy option is to protect oneself and avoid any possible dialogue, any possible question.Ampudia asleep in front of a Goya, in front of the Third of May 1808. The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid. A painting in an institution. An iconic painting, a popularised image, an item that has become the accepted image that represents facts. Goya’s gaze has travelled forward to the future, the colours of the execution are his, the painting is art but it’s also an illustration in history textbooks. History books that tell various stories based on facts. History, that clever and perverse repository of subjectivity that Goya managed to slip inside to disseminate moods and an emotion difficult to decipher. Latent violence, knowing there is a twist to the story. Also a before and an after.Ampudia asleep in front of this painting, asleep in the museum. And henceforward asleep in other types of institutions, asleep in libraries, asleep in spaces for music, also asleep in that huge empty hall that later hosted ARCO, the contemporary art fair of Madrid, the city where this execution takes place. Ampudia asleep in front of murals, asleep without any disorderliness: politeness can also be used for wrongdoing. Rules, like the rope in front of the Goya, are negotiable if we’re capable of taking them to be a common construct. Ampudia asleep and, by sleeping, providing us with non-existent moments of some institutional settings, providing us with the option of emotional contact. That Goya is his for a night. It is or can be ours. And we can turn our back on it.26 | EUGENIO AMPUDIA. THE FUTURE BELONGS TO NO ONE YET26 | EUGENIO AMPUDIA. THE FUTURE BELONGS TO NO ONE YET