To wander, to stroll without a specific destination, allowing intuition to be our best guide, and observation the perfect blueprint, for it enables us to uncover hidden secrets in every corner of the path. After two years of documentation, Jordi Abelló presents, in a virtual gallery born of new technologies (http://instagram.com/abellovilella), a project, the fruit of observation and chance, which he has named “Compintaeltemps”.
Leonardo da Vinci used to show his disciples the evocative shapes that moisture stains created on walls. These stains revealed faces, landscapes, battles, and a multitude of forms which, when carefully observed, unveiled a parallel world to them. It was as if they were the result of a primitive photographic positive of the surroundings, a pinhole camera that, on the emulsified walls, had been capturing images throughout time.
Within these stains, scrapes, scratches, cracks, crazing, and occasionally, fortuitous human or canine interventions, one can discern forms and gestures that seem to belong to other renowned artists, artists who have shaped and continue to shape art history. These are not, of course, their actual works. Yet, they essentially evoke their distinctive approach. Abelló does not determine to whom these images of time might belong, but one after another, they form a gallery of chance. They are akin to the “Dada” actions, the Surrealists’ “Ready-mades,” found objects, and everything derived from contemporary art thought. How many artists must have constructed their work following these parameters? Some have concealed it, others have not.
Time reveals its works to the wanderer, born from the alternation of day and night, and from the passage of other unknown travelers who, in their wandering, left their marks. Subsequently, the rains, the moss—first greenish, then, with excessive sun, turning rust and black—completed their formation. There is no deliberate intention in the creation of these works, nor is there any refined or clumsy technique evident, nor are they the decadent outcome of a master formula. There is no struggle involved, other than that inherent to the materials themselves; with the artist’s hand absent, it is the accident itself that has brought about the result.
Magnificent works that do not await judgment, that will never be the fruit of greed or market speculation. They exist because an artist noticed them, framed them, and through the lens, preserved them intact in that small jewel that is his photographic camera. Immediately after being photographed, these images returned to their usual state: invisibility to the common human eye. Until they decide to reveal themselves to another curious artist, to another wanderer. But tomorrow they will no longer be the same; time, the greatest of painters, will also have contributed to their evolution.
VIEW THE EXHIBITION on JORDI ABELLÓ VILELLA’s INSTAGRAM
