BARCELONA.- ‘Everything that cannot be said in a literal or direct way has to be said through humour, and then humour can be more tragic than tragedy’, said Jordi Colomer (Barcelona, 1962) in an interview on Ràdio Web MACBA (Fons d'Audio RWM 27, 2014). Humour, certainly, but also participation, traditions, historical quotes and urban planning are aspects that come into play in the artist’s work. The exhibition builds a ‘profoundly nomadic’ environment, where different projects coexist throughout various itineraries, in a kind of travelling urbanism typical of fairs and other makeshift architectures.

Colomer puts forward a theatrical dimension – where the illusory and the real come together in a continuous back and forth – as a deliberately ambiguous axis running through the entire exhibition. From this perspective, several questions arise: How and where are communities built? Who are their actors? What are their temporalities? How do their imaginaries come into play? These are some of the issues that permeate the different works featured in the exhibition.

However you want. Maravillas (fragmento) (1995-2004) can indicate both the exhibition entrance and its exit. The illuminated sign is like a FAÇANA (façade) through which you can gain entry to a universe where reality is blended with fiction or, if you are on your way out, you can consider your visit to the exhibition as complete and return to the place where fiction melds with reality. So many differences and none between what happens inside and outside the museum. Everything depends on how each spectator relates to the exhibition narrative and the nature of the distance they establish from it. It is advisable to approach it with a sufficient measure of that ironic distance that overcomes distances: as if you were attending a FESTA (party), the conventions of which you know in advance will not be respected. The chairs and tiered seating must be occupied because, in addition to being useful during the break, they also make it possible to participate in the various scenes.

The exhibition is organised as a sequence of scenes, (dis)ordered organically in an overlapping of places, narratives, objects and characters. Nothing is displayed as a fixed FOTO (photo), but as a series of theatrical tableaux arranged simultaneously in a single mise-en-scène typical of fairs and other makeshift edifices. Each project is a stage for an action – be it minor, like a tattoo (Idea, 1987; Espejo, pulga, lirismo, 1990; 45 Gold-fish, 1992) or an authentic communal FESTA (La, Re, Mi, La Festa de la roba bruta, 2014; Svartlamon Parade, 2014; and Modena Parade /Corteo modenese, 2022) – that encompasses the real time of the filmic narrative, as well as the time of its display, thus making it a two-fold act.

The scenographic strategy makes it possible to overcome the distinction between play and everyday life. Reality and fantasy feed into each other in a back-and-forth in which the popular imaginary and culture, utopian fictions, numerous landmarks in modern architecture and all kinds of other fragments of assorted provenance are called on to play a part. With a dose of humour and in a variety of settings – urban peripheries (Avenida Ixtapaluca [Houses for Mexico], 2009; and New Palermo Felicissima, 2018), rooftops (Crier sur les toits, 2011; and Medina Parkour, 2014;) and balconies (El balcó, 2024) – events occur in which action and potential are indistinguishable. Life is realised and emancipated while also being imagined in other ways. In his description of a utopian life, Charles Fourier includes the culinary art as one of the more pleasant tasks. Thus, FIDEUS a la cassola (a noodle dish) or a rice dish (L’Avenir, 2011) can send us on an experience containing the gastronomic and the political in equal measure. Traditional utopian thinking imagines the FUTUR (future) as a finished FOTO, as an image projected towards a time in which it will be perfectly consummated; but there are also ‘realisable utopias’ (X-Ville, 2015), collective exercises in which the FUTUR materialises. This is what we call ‘prefiguration’: that mode of direct action to which all those involved lend their capabilities and that knows only the time of the event. Every scene comprises a particular event, a consciousness of the present, capable of reviving past dreams (Prototipos 1, 2004) and future ones (¡Únete! Join Us!, 2017) alike.

In the disordered time of the event (No? Future!, 2006), the established codes are also set in disarray. The scenes are constructed with a daring combination of systems and media. Synaesthesia – the creative confluence of realms as diverse as the word, the image, the material nature of objects and the vicissitudes of the territory – blends the ingredients, as a recipe might, to add flavour to bland FIDEUS. Architecture and urbanism must be seasoned until they become speaking objects (Un crime, 2004; and Spanish Coast, 2017), and language needs to be smoked in order to breathe ambiguity into it and to multiply its lingos (Frase [Der Wachtturm], 1991). Every stage is a threshold that leads to an entropic universe, one where precarity is not poverty but a force for versatility. Every scene is a FAÇANA that brings the flank of ordinary time together with its own distortion. If a single letter, for now, is capable of all this, imagine what we can achieve with an entire alphabet (Abecedario argentino, 2023/2024).

Jordi Colomer works in the fields of sculpture, installation, photography and video art, and all his activity is imbued with a pronounced sense of performativity, which, through actions, puts to the test the customary uses of architecture and the urban space. Colomer is interested in the system of representations of the city and our ability to subvert it. From this research emerge underlying themes such as nomadism, the periphery, the popular imaginary, humour, community, provisionality, fiction and utopia.

He represented Spain at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), curated by Manuel Segade, presenting his project ¡Únete! Join Us! in the Spanish Pavilion. Since 2018, he and the producer Carolina Olivares have been working to promote La INFINITA, a creation lab and meeting place for the visual and the live arts, based in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. His work has been shown in numerous museums, art centres and biennials, among them the Museo Reina Sofía and Matadero, Madrid; Jeu de Paume and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Belvedere 21, Vienna; Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; Arte Alameda, Mexico City; Manifesta 10, Saint Petersburg, Russia; Manifesta 12, Palermo, Italy; 7th Mercosur Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil; MAAT, Lisbon; Bozar and Argos, Brussels; and ZKU Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin.

Colomer studied art at the Eina school, art history at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and architecture at the ETSAB. In addition, he worked as a set designer on the plays Olga Sola (Joan Brossa), Final de partida (Samuel Beckett), Perfect Lives (Robert Ashley) and Carta als actors (Valère Novarina).