International Montessori School of Beijing
Beijing, China
April 12th and 15th 2013
Automatic mural painting experiment during two days with 51 kids. 62 lines were painted.
Thanks to Jaime, Sierra and all the kids from the International Montessori School of Beijing.
Deambular (Wandering)
Artium, Basque Museum of Contemporary Art
Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
July 6th – September 2nd 2012
Praxis Project: Curated by Blanca de la Torre – Production coordination by Yolanda de Egoscozabal
Deambular – Actions in the public space of Vitoria-Gasteiz and in the exhibition space
Control center and exhibition space: Praxis, North Gallery, ARTIUM
Curators: Sergio García and Javier Abarca
See the whole project here: www.eltono.com/en/exhibitions/deambular
Every morning on the museum’s wall, using the correspondent color, I painted the path I have been walking the day before. Using masking tape, the drawing was stylized and simplified. I added a rule: the more I transited a street during that day, the thicker I had to paint the line. This uncontrolled mural evolved everyday during the 12 days of the residency. The idea was to generate a wall painting in which the final appearance was out of my control and to appreciate the result as a whole abstract painting and not like individual maps.
I used a large paper map to transfer the daily paths from my notebook to the museum wall. This graphic transfer process generated a huge quantity of colored dots (the ones I was marking and following as guides to paint the lines on the wall). The large map proved to be a faithful replica of the map I was creating while sticking the colored dots everyday in the city. This large piece, called Matrix Map, was left on the floor of the museum in the middle of the room – the same place it could be found during the time I was working in the museum.
Praga neighborhood, Warsaw, Poland
April 2012
Project curated by Vlepvnet Foundation
During April 2012, I worked on a social project with kids from the Praga neighborhood in Warsaw. Because of their social environment and other factors, they don’t have an easy life and spend most of their time hanging out in the street. The Vlepvnet Foundation and the GPAS association organized the project, This Way to give them an opportunity to collaborate with contemporary artists and create a mural in their neighborhood. Our mural was painted on Mała street.
Using their help and input, we created an “abstract alphabet” using simple geometric shapes. Then, combining stencils, we painted the words that they chose on the wall. The first two days, we organized a workshop to define the letters of our alphabet and to cut the stencils. During the next 5 days, we completed the mural using the words and sentences that the kids chose.
For those who want to translate the mural, here is the alphabet and a Polish to English translator. (Using the virtual keyboard and pressing the “Alt+Ctrl” key you will be able to use the Polish special characters.)
Click on the picture to see a bigger image of the mural.
The last day, we painted the entrance of V9, the Foundation Vlepvnet headquarter.
Thanks a lot to Vlepvnet and GPAS and in particular to Mati, Mateusz, Maciek, Gołota, Goro, Zrazik and Tomek.
Urazurrutia street #20, Bilbao, Spain
September 2011
Mural painting commissioned by Sc Gallery
More about this project here: www.eltono.com/en/exhibitions/eredu
Outomatic Festival
M van Museum, Leuven, Belgium
July 2011
Mural project on a wall of the M van Museum; in collaboration with MOMO – The full documentation of our participation in the festival is available here: www.eltono.com/en/projects/tiensestraat
La Quiñonera
Santa Cruz 111 Col. Candelaria, Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico
July 2011
Mural commissioned by Anonymous Gallery
On June 30th, 2011, the exhibition, Antes de la Resaca opened in the MUAC (Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo de México DF). The curators organized a retrospective of the spaces created, and innovative proposals put forth by Mexican artists during the 1980’s and 90’s such as La Quiñonera, Temistocles 44, and La Panaderia. The exhibition is a review of projects and artists who passed through those spaces and the work they produced. In conjunction, Nestor Quiñones organized the exhibition Espacios Flexibles in collaboration with Anonymous Gallery (New York) and La Curtiduria (Oaxaca) to give continuity to La Quiñonera as an exhibition space in parallel with the MUAC program.
Taking advantage of the fact that I was passing through Mexico on my way to the US and that Anonymous Gallery (the gallery that supported my PLAF project in 2008) was about to open a new space in the capital, they invited me to be a member of the exhibition “Espacios Flexibles”.
In the 1980’s, La Quiñonera was very important to Mexico’s national art scene and many well known artists who I admire passed through there as they began their career. It was a great honor for me to present my work in a space so beautiful and so meaningful. Hector and Nestor Quiñones, two distinguished brothers who have worked hard to make this project happen, took me in for four days and, with the help of all, I painted a wall in one of the terraces on the second floor.
Thank you very much Nestor, Hector, Rodolfo, Laura, Joseph, Paola and Zapata.
Art Re-Public Festival
Yoyogi Park, Harajuku,Tokyo, Japan
May 5th 2011
My last visit to Japan coincided with the Art Re-Public festival organized by my friend Yusaku. Over the past few years this festival has taken place in the streets of Tokyo to celebrate “Kodomo No Hi” or Children’s Day, an annual celebration throughout Japan. This year however, the festival took place in Yoyogi park in Harajuku.
I was offered the opportunity to do an installation at the event and decided to take advantage of the presence of so many children to do an experiment with one of my automatic painting projects. Four stations were prepared where people (mostly children) could choose randomly between 9 figures, 6 colors, 8 orientations and 289 positions. This choice was determined through a series of simple games. The experiment lasted 5 hours during which 85 people participated and 86 figures were painted.
This project would not have been possible without the help of Sierra Forest and the invitation and hospitality of Yusaku and his family. Thanks!
Updates 2011
Złota 73, Wola, Warsaw, Poland
April 26th – May 6th 2011
Project organized by the Vlepvnet foundation
At the end of May 2011, I went for a couple of weeks to Warsaw to paint two big murals on the facades of an old building that was constructed before World War II (very few of these buildings are still intact because of the intense bombings). The project was part of update 2011, an event organized by the Vlepvnet foundation. Every year they invite local and international artists to work in the city. The building is located on Zlota street in the Wola neighborhood, close to the central station. Thanks to the help from the guys from vlepvnet, the volunteers and the support of the neighbors, we managed to finished the two murals in only seven days.
As I was working more than 10 hours a day everyday during the week, I developed a very special relation with the neighbors who, as you can see in the pictures below, took very good care of me…
I would like to thank all the guys from Vlepvnet, the neighbors (particulary Antoni, Marta and Maciek and Joanna and Chris for taking so good care of me) and also all the volunteers who helped us painting.
Dziękuję!!!
