Pasolini said that it only takes a millimetric shift of the point from which one views the world to see a different one. Alberto Ardid (Vigo, 1986) puts this into practice, but without even shifting his eyes: he observes reality and questions it not for its appearance but for what it represents, suggests, and conceals. He seeks out suitable materials and offers his commentary in images that are purposeful, yet always open to interpretation.
In Hay un lugar, he transforms the inner courtyards of the MARCO Museum into outdoor spaces. In one of them, he displays Lugar, an installation that revolves around the notion of private property, in its Galician version — colored shapes (paintings, carpets) imitate plots of land or estates, with stone frames delimiting their boundaries. All together it forms a landscape, in which we start to discern details and intentions: the protecting glass pieces on the top of the wall that first greets the visitor have been replaced by fragments of Sargadelos pottery; the yellow shapes, denoting the land of the estates, are being stalked by gray ones; a watchful bow looms over us from a nearby balcony and is already claiming its first victims...
Private property encroaches on public space in the first gallery, where services—education, food, energy, leisure—have been bunched together. Everything seems interconnected, but one should pause to contemplate each work, because an attentive observer will notice a less peaceful, but equally real, side and no small number of surprises, such as blackboards transformed into targets, paintings that have been vacuum-sealed like fresh food, or a lit candle defying the museum's fire alarm.
Throughout the galleries, we witness a succession of paradoxes, of deliberate confrontations: bronze nests, which are actually Asian hornet nests; COVID dust transformed into a relic; paintings displayed like mass-produced industrial goods...
Like a story being told in sequences, the second courtyard offers up a warm, familiar image at first glance, with a palleiro(hayloft) and allusions to a landscape and a sun (Universe). But the stage being set soon comes under discussion as we discover other possible interpretations — the landscape is actually a banner, a shot is fired from the palleiro. Some actions are more intimate, like the temptation hidden in the cleaning closet, or the machine that insistently begs the viewer to unplug it.
In the second gallery, the opposite effect tends to be at work — felling a tree can be ecologically beneficial act, if that tree is a eucalyptus; broken materials are humorously reassembled; Ionic ornaments customize an industrial support, while masterpieces find an almost unvisited place for themselves. We walk amidst the refuse, but some hope remains.
Reality returns in the panopticon, envisaged as a crossroads where the aftermath of an accident and the memento of a bouquet of chrysanthemums, are evidence of a gesture that sparks empathy.
The above is not a narrative, nor an explanation. It is an invitation to visit with curiosity, to be open to different interpretations, as Alberto Ardid never designs works to be closed.
Miguel Fernández-Cid and Pilar Souto Soto, curators of the exhibition
