Alarcon Criado closes the season with a solo exhibition of the artist Bernardo Ortiz (Cali,1972).
The exhibition is a showcase of the works developed by Ortiz during his stay in Bergen (Norway) in May 2017. It is a collection of drawings on large format canvas made on-site.
Based on the colours of the landscape that the artist has seen travelling to the fjords Sognefjorden over the period of six days - the exhibition executed in Norway is a form of memory exercise as his surrounding have sharpened his own perception.
The result of this exercise is a series of interventions on small pieces of paper that occur in diagonal on the plane of vision. The works were displayed in Ervingen (Bergen), within the curatorial Volt project, in the duration of a single day.
In relation to his experience in Norway the artist describes:
“This is an exercise. Walk through a landscape while thinking about perception. Describe colours. The way some things are built. Or how they stand. But at the same time think about a poet who hears sounds and tries to imitate those sounds with words. Or about a man who sees the glitches in the transmission of a speech as manifestations of alien life. Or the way that software is calibrated to recognize things in images. Or the way a white painting can be reproduced. A walk is a way of experiencing distance. A sort of “high-resolution” experience of distance; a way to overcome the illusion of transparency and immediacy.”
The exhibition of Bernardo Ortiz launches in Seville on May 26th. During the inauguration, the artist will perform a monologue in which will expose a series of reflections on the artistic endeavor and his way of understanding the creative process. Far from constituting a presentation or introduction of exposure, we must understand that this talk is an integral part of the sample, as if it were one piece, although it will only be available to those who have the opportunity to attend the inauguration.
Graphics information and additional data from the connection of the work will be conveniently distributed during the course of the exhibition.

Biography
Cali, Colombia, 1972
Lives and works between Brazil and Colombia. He studied Art at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá and then got a Master’s Degree in Philosophy at Universidad del Valle in Cali. This year, he will participate in the XX edition of Biennale of Sydney, to be held between March and June in the Australian city. His recent exhibitions include Borrar, an individual show on MAMBA (Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires) 2016, Biennale of Sydney (Sydney, Australia, 2016) Biennial of the Americas (Denver, USA, 2015), 43º Salón Internacional de Artistas (Medellín, Colombia), XXX Bienal de São Paulo (Brazil, 2012), XI Bienal de Lyon (Francia,2011) Ephemeroptarae (Austria, 2013), Game Piece (Noruega, 2013), MDE 07 (Colombia, 2007) Ortiz was co-curator of the 7th Mercosur Biennial (Porto Alegre, Brazil) and the 41 Salón Nacional de Artistas (Cali, Colombia).
He worked as a professor at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, at Universidad del Valle and at Instituto Departamental de Bellas Artes in Cali. Bernardo Ortiz’s art works revolve around the words, drawings and symbolic spots that compose a dialogue with the time and with its effects and events.
Thanks to his formation as a philosopher and his knowledge of literature, he investigates the connection, always with intensity, between the written word and the painting or the drawing, by using colours, typographies or textures. The twodimensional surface in his works integrates materials that overlap, texts, folds etc.
Being looked over, these pieces show some decontextualized sentences through which the artist tries to relate images and language, making evident that words can evocate an image, but they also can be seen as a pictorial object by themselves.
His works are part of important collections like: Colección Lara, Tate Modern Collection, London, UK; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA; CNAP Centre National des Arts Plastiques, France; Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt, Germany; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, New York, USA; Museo de arte Moderno la Tertulia, Cali, Colombia; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, France; Private collections in USA, Brazil, England, Colombia.

OPENING NIGHT: Friday 26th May at 8:30 p.m.

mpefm SPAIN art press release