Page 5 - The Future Belongs to No One. Eugenio Ampudia

Grass that breathes, suspicious dynamite wires, controlled demolitions, clouds of smoke, books that move or libraries that appear to be on fire. The spectator’s feet trapped on the ground, words and phrases that are both formed and break up before our eyes (or as we please), hurricanes, implausible routes and unexpected encounters. Some of these pieces are already iconic, others are less known and a few have never previously been shown, but they all force us to think, devour and rethink the multiple strata of our everyday life, to open other possible doors behind which there may be other possible ones... and others, and others still.Given this most unorthodox nature, it would be out of place to commission the usual sort of critical texts riddled with rambling rhetoric, remote references, commonplaces and stylistic pirouettes that so often accompany exhibitions of contemporary art and their printed remains. Here the texts needed to take the more adventurous form of fables that at the same time allowed Eugenio’s personality to be unravelled and, instead of explaining the works, sought other possible common ground in order to reveal to the public what goes on inside Ampudia’s head.Gabriela Jáuregui thus fell down the ‘rabbit hole’ and came up with a piece of hybrid literature combining art critique and fiction in which, like all good poets, she treats us to a style that is free and refreshing but perfectly structured and as engaging as a novel or a chapter out of thousands of possible tales.Martí Manen takes as the point of departure for his absolutely unconventional text Eugenio’s now famous Dónde dormir (Where to sleep) series; his many-sided analysis of the gesture of sleeping provides vanishing points through which it is possible to cross between Eugenio’s work and the open doors his oeuvre permits. Sleep as the epitome of Eugenio’s oeuvre, but also of society and the present and possibly the future, that which has neither an owner nor certainty.Finally, Guillermo Santamarina’s apparently outrageous questions give rise to a conversation with Eugenio that manages to translate the oeuvre and the artist as a person all at once. It is arresting and analytical. It is no easy task to unravel the artist and analyse his work in a single gesture, let alone analyse the artist and unravel the work with him. Santamarina achieves both with the deliberate extravagance of his inquiries.All three tales help us give shape to a project that takes the form of a game of paradoxes akin to the sign of the times: invisible, imaginary and virtual presences which remind us that we need to see further than our eyes and that we must not forget – as the title of the exhibition recalls – that nothing is decided and that, above all, The future belongs to no one yet.5 | EUGENIO AMPUDIA. THE FUTURE BELONGS TO NO ONE YET5 | EUGENIO AMPUDIA. THE FUTURE BELONGS TO NO ONE YET