Yolanda Herranz Pascual...NO, AÚN NO...[…NO, NOT YET...]
Ficha
With the collaboration of:
Deputacion de Pontevedra
Through …NO, AÚN NO… […NO, NOT YET...] by Yolanda Herranz (Barakaldo, Biscay, 1957), the MARCO gives visibility to an artist who is more concerned about promoting and making group projects and presentations, rather than highlighting her individual work, which is surprisingly coherent.
The exhibition focuses on the works where Yolanda Herranz Pascual (Barakaldo, Biscay, 1957) plays with the meaning and the strength of concepts. Words become dimension and sculptural energy. The first series are "El mí y el tú” [The me & the you], from the project Distancias y abismos [Distances & Abysses] (2004-7). In this series, a forceful message goes together with a refined visual clarity. she has thought about everything, and everything has been measured. Nothing is useless and the succession of messages creates a rhythm of sequences, echoes and meanings. The way in which she achieves the works somehow recalls bas-relieves, objective stories: it is not a poetic "living in the pronouns"; it is about affirming or denouncing situations. Those come from a private thought, but later, they become a public, collective voice; they become a legend. Alongside, the 16th version of the project Destierros [Exiles] (opened in 2003) evokes absences and calls for presence. Materials and colours, applied in a uniform way, acquire a symbolic nature and insist on the magic tone of the whole. The idea of lost steps, of wandering, of the search for destiny, of the loneliness inside the group... of identity.
…NO, AÚN NO… continues with some works specially produced for the occasion: SOMOS mujeres y ESTAMOS aquí [we ARE women and we ARE here] parts from a work with the same title (carried out in 2015). In this work, two series of 690 words in alphabetical order starting with the letter ‘A’ and ending in feminine and plural, all extracted from the Dictionary of the Spanish Language, are recited. Instead of documenting the action with photographs, Yolanda Herranz Pascual places the word on the wall, in blood-red vinyl. Attending to the way it is displayed, the work can be regarded as a manifesto with an ensemble scent. A text labyrinth on gold vinyl –...NO, AÚN NO...– captures the gaze of the visitor upon reading it for it is infinite, modular, repeated.. As a dissipated voice, echoed and multiplied.
This work leads to her most innovative work. Today, when many creators follow the social and vindictive direction initiated by artists like Yolanda Herranz Pascual, she focuses on personal identity, by using a poetic, intimate and drastic work. She combines texts with a series of eleven exploratory self-portraits. She faces the portrait as the recognized and complacent gaze of the other, and the self-portrait as a restless question, a tense, interior gaze. If one tries to linger, the other asks about the loss of the present, and questions or affirms the identity. El Arte Sana / El Arte Cura (Autorretratos) [Art Heals / Art Cures (Self-portraits)] is the artist's answer to a personal situation of extreme uneasiness, as she feels that everything she wants is vanishing: art is a way to ask questions that allow her to understand that elusive reality, or –at least– to live with it.
Curators and publication
Miguel Fernández-Cid and Pilar Souto Soto curated the exhibition, produced by MARCO. A publication on the work El Arte Sana / El Arte Cura (Autorretratos) will be published on the occasion.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks should be given to Arancha Aguete de Pazos, Rosalía González Pousa, Wedyla Rodrigues de Alcántara and Ruth Rodríguez Gonzalo — students at Fine Arts College, (University of Vigo) — for their assistance during the installation process of this exhibition, and to Noelia Riveiro González for her technical assistance in video-editing (Autorretratos series) for press purposes.
Bibliographical Exhibition / Documentation
The Library-Documentation Center at MARCO presents a selection of catalogues and publications of Yolanda Herranz. The documentary dossier, which brings together links to articles and other information about the artist will be also available here or on the website www.marcovigo.com at Library/News and Exhibitions/Present.
Learning Activities
For groups of Pre-School, Primary, Secondary, High School and others.
With the support of: Obra Social “la Caixa”
From 17 March, 2020
Place: exhibition halls and Laboratorio das Artes
Hours: Tuesday to Friday from 11am to 1:30pm / For booking please call +34 986 113900/113904
Information & guided tours
Guided Tours: max 25 people (Museum staff included)
The exhibition staff is available for any questions or information, as well as regular guided tours:
Daily at 6pm
‘A la carte’ group tours, please call +34 986 113904 / 113900 to book
PERFORMANCE
SOMOS mujeres y ESTAMOS aquí [we ARE women and we ARE here] parts from a work with the same title (carried out in 2015). In this work, two series of 690 words in alphabetical order starting with the letter ‘A’ and ending in feminine and plural, all extracted from the Dictionary of the Spanish Language, are recited.
The exhibition “…NO, AÚN NO…” […NO, NOT YET…] includes a wall-installation named SOMOS mujeres y ESTAMOS aquí, by Yolanda Herranz Pascual. This work parts from the artist’s first performance which took place in 2012.
During the period of the exhibition at the MARCO, this performance was carried out on two different occasions:
Online audio performance
18th of May 2020, online premiere on the International Museum Day.
http://www.marcovigo.com/en/content/we-are-women-and-we-are-here-v-deo-performance-yolanda-herranz-pascual-dim-international-mus
Live performance
18th of September 2020, at MARCO’s exhibition galleries.
http://www.marcovigo.com/es/content/somos-mujeres-y-estamos-aqu-performance-de-la-artista-yolanda-herranz-pascual
Yolanda Herranz Estévez
“El Arte Sana / El Arte Cura”
Photo: Somos una prolongada espera (VIII), 2016-20. Framed text and photograph, 90x90x3 cm
Síntesis del proyecto
My sphere of vital and professional interest is Sculpture and the cores of my artistic creation and research include: Text, Body, Gender, Identity and Existence.
I work with the poetic potential of language at its fullest. Spectators get involved in my exhibitions, which combine pictorial, object and sculptural references from a word-focused work.
For me, as an artist, creation involves a constant search for one's own identity through work, which is framed in different human problems.
Our approach to creation goes through different places where identity lives. This problem involves the search for existence from different angles and positions. These diverse travels enhance the understanding of a world full of complex relations.
I elaborate my works so that, from the concept, emotion and utopia bring up several thoughts:
- They are enigmas that allow us to transcend materialism, the nature of objects and the definition of the written. They are hidden references to human nature, which are an allusion to the spiritual nature.
- They try to delimit a dual place of ambiguity, to define an implied space and, therefore, to generate a field of maximum opening for reflection.
- They are a personal vision of the world, of the other, seen through me; it is a vision that wants to be rigorous, lucid and severe, and that operates in a field crossed by a direction with two ways: irony and paradox.
- Its message is the result of the oscillation between three territories: the poetic, the conceptual and the critical.
Sculpture is the language where I establish my artistic work, and is, perhaps, among all the traditional territories of creation, the one that experiments the deepest transformation during the contemporary period. Although the highest point of this radical transformation happened in the mid-sixties and onwards through the avant-garde movements, such as the Minimalism, Arte Povera, Land Art, and Conceptual Art —the most radical among them all. Conceptual art proposed the dematerialisation of work and the preponderance of idea over materialisation.
These days, Sculpture is more an event than procedure
Art is a very powerful weapon. As an artist, I bear in mind the responsibility of having that power in my hands. Art is a means of transforming the “I” and “the other”.
From those approaches that focus on issues of identity and gender, I see Sculpture as a bridge between the self and the world with a direct impact on society.
My work is born from a place of questioning, where I assume the oscillation between two positions:
- My commitment to life (as a human being and as a woman)
- The search for coherence with myself (as a woman and as an artist).
I conceive “creation” as a double and indivisible link that unites “thought” and “action”.
My works are a bridge between the “I” and the “world” seen through a social context. There is a full involvement of myself in them. They reflect the vital and conceptual positioning that I assume in the reality in which I am immersed.
The title of the exhibition:
… NO, NOT YET…
It defines a link that has the maximum opening: it is a link where the before and after are unknown.
By projecting themselves into the absences, the readers-spectators complete these gaps with their experiences.
… NO, NOT YET… expresses a double negation that is an affirmation of a contained action.
The word Yet withholds time, and the suspension points (…) at the beginning and the end (…) dilate and stop the sentence.
… NO, NOT YET…
It involves pleading, supplicating, praying…
Persistent plea… Infinite praying…
My artistic work focuses on the space defined by the contradictions originated in the search for “identity”.
In the first room, several works are presented as part of the project “Distancias y Abismos” [Distances and Abysses], which was presented in 2007 in a large exhibition named Pese al Paso del Tiempo [Despite the Passing of Time], in Salamanca (in five rooms) when I turned 50. The works of the project “Distancias y Abismos” focus on the always conflictive relationship between the Me & the You, in search and construction of the autonomy of one’s own.
On the front wall, there will be a large format work made of blood red vinyl, named
SOMOS mujeres y ESTAMOS aquí.
The main supply is the word; it contains around 1,380 terms:
- WE ARE (STATE): (690 words in feminine and plural, in alphabetical order).
10 blocks with 69 words each.
- WE ARE (EXISTENCE): (690 words in feminine and plural, in alphabetical order).
10 blocks with 69 words each.
Some questions regarding the text that conducts the performance:
The 690 terms related to STATE and the 690 terms related to EXISTENCE have been extracted from the Dictionary of the Spanish Language. They have been selected from among 12,012 words starting with the letter “A”.
The letter “A” is the one that includes and defines the feminine gender (at the end of words) in the Spanish language.
In this text, each word begins with the capital letter “A”, and all the 1,380 terms end in feminine and plural.
SOMOS mujeres y ESTAMOS aquí was also my first performance and it was carried out as a prayer, an audible recitation where:
- declamation was introduced in prayer and in affirmation
- dematerialization was shaped with will
- procession became a demonstration
In this performance, the chain of words shaped our litany… Throughout this action, the sonority of the pronunciation eliminated the materiality of words as in a mantra, it dissolved the meanings and it appeared as energy.
When this work is materialized into an installation, it is embodied in blood red vinyl and shaped in two parts. Both parts should be seen at the same time (one in front of the other).
The project SOMOS mujeres y ESTAMOS aquí is a work that is text, and it is text that is a work:
It is word, in a written text.
It is text, in its record in a book.
It is drawing, in its incursion on the paper.
It is painting, in its irruption on the wall.
It is sculpture, in its intervention on architecture.
It is installation, in its integration on the wall.
It is action, in its declamation and representation during a performance.
SOMOS mujeres y ESTAMOS aquí is definition… prayer, recitation, litany… word, silence...
We pursue the apprehension of the meaning of anything that cannot be defined; although in this work we have tried to do so through the pronunciation of numerous voices…
SOMOS mujeres y ESTAMOS aquí is speech… enunciation, pronunciation, manifestation… text, dematerialization...
This project has succeeded in concretizing one of my essential aims in my works, which is to reach the maximum of meaning with the minimum of incarnation and presence.
In the centre of the first room, we present a floor sculpture installation made specifically for this exhibition. The work is named Destierros XVI [Exiles XVI]; it is 17 meters long and it is built with more than 200 elements that dialogue with the architecture and the place. The project “Destierros” reflects on concepts related to the wandering being, to traveling without destination, to abandonment, distance, loneliness, absence, loss…
At the entrance of the second room, we see the work which gives name to this exhibition: … No, Aún No… [… No, Not yet…], made of gold vinyl. It has been conceived as a concentric and circular labyrinth, which forces the viewer to make a continuous visual journey. The recitation of the written word welcomes each reader into the web of emotional interdependencies. Thus, the untiring repetition and the never-ending circularity of the text make the plea persist… in a continuous prayer…
“… No …Aún… no me dejes… No …Aún … No…”
[“… No… Not yet… Don't leave me… No… Not yet… No…”]
Lack of love and Abandonments
The second room is arranged through 11 diptychs from the project: “El Arte Sana / El Arte Cura” [Art Heals / Art Cures], series: “Autorretratos” [Self-Portraits]. These works have been elaborated specifically for this exhibition at MARCO.
They are eleven self-portraits linked to texts that promise an introspection into the dark areas.
We discern perplexed and imprecise faces in the silhouettes... Those faces do not have a name, but the author recognizes herself in them.
The self-portrait is pretty much an X-ray of the spirit, which helps us to unveil and think about the self... about ourselves.
In these X-rays resound echoes and negations which embrace the dark evergreen of hope: they lead us to see ourselves as we are:
Blackness tattooed on the soul
