PSJM – SPANISCHE MALEREI

01 April 2015 – 30 April 2015

Opening in presence of the artists: 2 April, 2015, 7 PM

PSJM is an artistic team made up in 2003 by Pablo San José (Mieres, 1969) and Cynthia Viera (Las Palmas, 1973), based in Berlin. They act as a cutting-edge art brand, raising questions about the art market, social communication and artistic quality. Making use of the communicative strategies of spectacular capitalism they demonstrate the relevance of the paradoxes being produced by its schemed, but chaotic development.

Spanische Malerei [Spanish Painting] is a painterly portrait of Spain’s reality rendered geometrically. In this new series, PSJM develops a line of “social geometry” using statistics to determine a variety of geometric compositions. PSJM creates these pieces by strictly adhering to painting materials. In a more or less explicit manner, a reflection on painting has permeated the team’s trajectory.

Spanische Malerei is their creative output from 2013, a year immersed in the most severe financial crisis people have been forced to experience. Demands for austerity somehow make themselves felt in the production process, now removed from resplendent industrial surfaces. Thus, the hard times faced by the cultural sector are seen in a direct and honest way. Just like the political, financial and social reality which shall be brought to the fore in these mathematical reflections rendered in acrylic on canvas. Notwithstanding the handcrafted nature of these paintings, the precision and neatness of their finish reminds us of the implacable hand of the machine. The industrial primary colors are drastically applied following radical compositions that take the figure of the accurate triangle as a prevailing motif. Removed from any decorative pretence, these “paintings which can be read” suggest a harsh reality that has been objectified through the flow of impersonal information; data and colors that conceal personal dramas, hegemonic ideological trends and social unrest.

PSJM has often been invited and extensively exhibited throughout Europe and America.
On the occasion of the 56th La Biennale di Venezia PSJM is participating in the collateral event “Beyond the tropics”, a group show curated by Imma Prieto.

The work of PSJM is included in many publications p.e. “Younger than Jesus. Artist Directory. The essential handbook to the future of art” of the New Museum of New York, published by Phaidon; and “among the 100 most representative artists of international political art” in the book “Art & Agenda: Political Activism and Art,” published by Gestalten.

Artist information and available works
www.psjm.es