MADRID.- Galería Elvira González announced the opening of the third solo exhibition of the Spanish photographer Chema Madoz (Madrid, 1958). The exhibition brings together works produced between 2019 and 2020, and through them, the artist continues his exploration of the hidden and potential meanings of the object. This is the first occasion in which Chema Madoz produces and shows a sculpture.
Chema Madoz began to develop his vision around the concept of the object in the nineties. Since then, this has been a current topic in his practice. Exploring their plural, not univocal identity, Madoz visually replaces the primary function of the objects by imagining new meanings. His work is influenced, among others, by surrealism, Duchamp’s ready-made and magic realism, currents that turn around the object, the assemblage, and the creation of meaning. The use of different devices for their alteration and relocation has been a constant in his work. In addition, through his long and coherent career, Chema Madoz is one of the photographers in Spain who has taken photography to the category of artistic discipline.
This exhibition brings together a selection of recent photographs. Some of the works (such as the aloe vera inside the cage, the airplane about to land on a winding road, or the shoe/coffin) transmit a sense of certain distress or adversity. In turn, we find boats, airplanes, fields and clouds that speak of an escape or resistance. Additionally, the idea of game, a recurring theme in his work, is present in several works of the exhibition. Images that show games which are truncated or unable to advance (such as the house of cards contained in a wooden structure) place us in that very ambiguity, between that which begins and that which is suspended. The author's experiences and the current situation are brought out in different ways in the photographs presented.
The show brings us closer to his constant questioning of the limit between the abstract and the figurative, the actual and the potential. Each work proposes an attempt to find new possibilities of existence for the object, new maps for connections, opening to the viewer a space for interpretation.
Chema Madoz lives and works in Madrid. He received the Kodak Award in 1990 and the Art Exchange Award from the Banesto Cultural Foundation in 1993, and the National Photography Award in 1999. Madoz has exhibited in various galleries and institutions in Spain and abroad, such as the Royal Photographic Society of Madrid, the Canal de Isabel II, Madrid; the Pompidou Center, Paris; the Netherland Photomuseum, Rotterdam; the Fondazione M. Marangoni, Florence; the Museum of Fine Arts, Caracas, and Fotofest International, Houston.
His work appears in several public and private collections around the world, such as Museo Reina Sofía, Andalusian Center of Photography, Juan March Foundation, Telefónica Foundation, CocaCola Foundation, Buenos Aires’ Fine Arts Foundation, IVAM of Valencia, Barcelona’s Fotocolectania Collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Margulies Collection in Miami, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Marugame Hirai Museum of Art in Kagawa-ken. Since 1999, (the year in which she won the National Photography Award) Madoz has worked in collaboration with brands such as Purificación García -producing images every season that encapsulate the essence of fashion collections- or international firms such as Hermès.
