PARIS.- Andréhn-Schiptjenko announced the opening of Cecilia Bengolea’s solo exhibition Cosmo-Conviviality - there is time that passes even when nothing changes. Previously exhibited at Andréhn-Schiptjenko Stockholm in 2020, this is the artist’s first solo exhibition in France.
Bengolea works in a range of media including performance, video, sculpture and wall-based works and uses dance as a tool to foster radical empathy and emotional exchange. She infuses her practice with the symbolic energies found within nature and relationships and forms her compositions around ideas of the body - both individually and collectively. Through collaboration with others – artists, performers, deejays and dancers – Bengolea develops a broad œuvre where she sees movement, dance and performance as animated sculptures, and where she is both object and subject in her work.
A new and central work in the exhibition is the video work Neutrinos Ensemble, projected within an immersive installation where the artist invites visitors to go horizontal, fusing themselves with the ghost bodies of the 44 stuffed costumes. In the development of this work, Bengolea worked in dialogue with astrophysicist Thierry Foglizzo, filming his experimental fountain which demonstrates that fluids and the universe are governed by the same principles of asymmetry which produce explosions. From these explosions, the boundary-less Neutrinos escape and traverse us, travelling through everything into the centre of the earth.
From a macro perspective, all planets seem to be coexisting in peace in a cosmo-conviviality. However, if we could zoom in, we would be able to distinguish the countless explosions of this asymmetric universe.
Magnetic forces present in the universe make elements - from galaxies to stars and cosmic dust - attract other elements and disintegrate from this attraction. Bengolea choreographs from the viewpoint of the neutrinos that travel across bodies and creates a choreography of bodies that meet and move around each other and eventually collapse.
"Our brains are hard-wired to take comfort in symmetry and to look for balance in asymmetry. Andy Warhol created his own series of Rorschach Tests, although he misunderstood Rorschach’s method, and thought that the patient created the inkblots and the psychiatrist interpreted them. In spite of Warhol’s de-stabilising break-through punk qualities, his work was mostly symmetrical.
While liking to relate to Warhol’s miscomprehensions and self-derision, I was always disturbed by the oppressive rules of symmetry. My dance and videos always aimed towards creating chaos and the loss of landmarks.
Until now, I had not thought of symmetry as anesthetic necessity in my choreographies and videos, considering symmetry as a totalitarian vision, to quote Erasmus, « Symmetry is the supreme harmony of the world ». Witnessing the asymmetries of the universe and also the geo-political asymmetries which favor chaos and explosions, I for the first time tried to concentrate on a perfectly symmetrical object, as an antidote to explosions or as an amulet for peace. " ---Cecilia Bengolea
Also on view is Bengolea’s largest lenticular print to date – a 5 meter fresco of a two-dimensional 3-D image in constant motion with the viewer, as well as new sculpture and smaller lenticular works.
Cecilia Bengolea’s work has been exhibited at Noor Riyadh (2024), Museum Thyssen Bornemisza (2021 and 2024), The Vinyl Factory (2024 and 2019), E.A.T – Engadin Art Talks, Switzerland (2019), Copenhagen Contemporary 2023, MUDAM Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg (2022, 2023), Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2021, 2022), the Gwangju Biennial (2014, 2020), Bourse de Commerce - Collection Pinault, Paris (2021), La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2021), Tank Shanghai (2020), Centre Pompidou Spectacles Paris (2010, 2016, 2019), SFER IK Tulum (2019), Fondation Giacometti, Paris (2019), Performa, NY (2019), Desert X (2019), TBA21 Ocean Space (2019), Dhaka Art Summit (2018), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015, 2018), Dia Art Foundation Beacon (2017), Hayward Gallery, London (2016), São Paulo Art Biennial (2016), Tate Modern, London (2015) and the Biennale de Lyon (2015), among others.
Her work is represented in a wide range of public and private collections such as Fundación Arco (Spain), KADIST (USA/France), Le CNAP (France), Le Consortium Dijon (France), Mire Fond Cantonal de La Ville de Geneve (Switzerland), MONA – Museum of Old and New Art (Australia), MUDAM (Luxembourg), Museo Reina Sofia (Spain), The TankShanghai (China), Thyssen- Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Austria) and the Vinyl Factory (UK) to name a few.
She lives and works in Paris France and Buenos Aires Argentina.
