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Raw Cabaret - Simón Vázquez (1979)

Rithika Merchant Barcelona art exhibition poster

English - Castellano

Inauguration: Friday 23rd Feb, 19:00 - 22:00.

Dates: 23rd Feb - 11 May

Hours: WTF: 16:00 - 20:00 S:12:00 - 18:00 or by appointment - Art@biencuadrado.com

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Raw Cabaret, in Bien Cuadrado gallery in the emblematic Barrio Gótico. In this exhibition, the artist Simón Vázquez presents a diverse tasting menu; a cornucopia of brutal delights and a veritable feast for your eyes.

Your pupils will begin to dilate as the artist first presents a menu of bronze sculptures. These pieces have a rough and rugged finish, an aesthetic choice of Simón’s, as he creates the diverse and often grotesque characters that swarm his mind. In this process Simón’s works are darkly humorous, making reference comic styles that have influenced that artist. A number of these piece have never been shown before and have been prepared especially for consumption at Raw Cabaret.

The tasting menu continues as the artist showcases the more ‘brut’ aspects of his work. In these schizophrenic paintings, served on wood and old pieces of furniture, the weight of the medium and the stroke of the brush immediately strike the viewer. The artist notably rejects the traditions and rules of aesthetic beauty that govern fine art, as old thrown away objects reflexively become central to his compositions.   

Raw Cabaret smells like a workshop cover in the dust of bronze and old wood. And don’t even think about sweeping up the dust…

Bon appetite.

Biography

Simón Vázquez’s (Barcelona, 1979) is known for his varied work. Having initially began in animation Simón shifted his focus towards plastics through studies at La Llotja in Barcelona. Having devoted much of his time to illustration up to this point he began mastering painting and sculpture with much of his work exhibited in renowned galleries locally and internationally.

Vicious bodies made with mutable jelly like appearances, overflowing in voluptuous Fellinian forms, whose dangling boneless limbs appear to be trying to escape the confines of their structures and skeletons. These are the grotesque beings created by Simón Vázquez. Monstrosities that reveal political lies, carnal lust, green and media carnage.

In Simón’s work he flirts with the success of Hollywood and alludes to the scandals revealed by news feeds, yet these are twisted through his lysergic use of visual gags and manipulated bodies.

The artitst aesthetic style is a fusion of poster art, heavily influenced by visceral comic texts that display witticism and puns, over layered with forbearing shadows imported from gothic novels and expressionist cinema. In this eclectic journey Simón makes a conscious decision not to concede to established ideas of “good taste”, instead channelling the transgressive spirit of underground comics of the sixties. He quotes Robert Crumb as one of his referents, and hold him in high regard alongside Manolo Valdés and Alberto Giacometti.  

For More Information:

Artists Homepage

Instagram

Inauguration

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