The videos and movies by Francisco Ruiz de Infante (Vitoria, 1966) have titles that reveal the images and concerns articulated by the visual and conceptual imagery of his installations and stage sets. Thus, the pieces in this exhibition: Texturas (1985), Hacia el agua (1988), El juicio (1991), Las cosas simples (1992) y Los lobos (1995), appertain to the sea, threats, water, light, common places, prejudices, travel, reformatories, walks or survival.
The artist calls his installations parcours (routes) because they are pieces thought up so that the spectator can travel in an environment that harmoniously brings together, painting, audio-visual practice and music. Ruiz de Infante combines his parcours, image, sound and text -without an established hierarchy- to create anguished spaces in which he displays childhood fears, education, learning social norms or lack of communication in today's society. Conversely, his willingness to bring the spectator closer, to establish a relationship of familiarity and recognition towards the objects with them, is manifested through the use of common materials such as wood, plaster or water.
In (Bestiario nº 3) (1997), one of the two projects in this exhibition, the artist displays a disturbing and quiet work area that forebodes the meeting room that follows: Habitación de lenguajes (Bestiario nº 2). This is a global work on the excess and the difficulty of communication today; it consists of a structure of tables and chairs, three screens with their respective video projectors and a set of headphones hanging from the ceiling to provide simultaneous translation into different languages from the language of animals projected on the screens. The mixture of sound, image and language lead to a cacophony, whose effect is enhanced by the apparent disorder in which the furniture is placed. The set is presented as an organic chaos and a metaphor of communication as code without precise rules.
The distortion and overlapping of images and sounds make Ruiz de Infante’s installation an environment full of meaningless phrases that paradoxically create sense from the chain of images and concepts, repeating the pattern of the soundtrack with which the work starts: "If you brush your teeth, you clean your teeth and dirty the mirror. If you dirty the mirror, you can’t see the bottles, you can’t see the walls and you don’t see yourself. "
Exhibition´s details
Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn
Museo Reina Sofía Publications
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