SCANNER
DANIEL CANOGAR
Curated by Carolina Hoffmann
19 March – 30 April 2010
Preview 19 March 2010
Oonagh Young Gallery
1 James Joyce Street
Liberty Corner
Dublin 1
Ireland
http://www.oonaghyoung.com
Oonagh Young Gallery is pleased to present acclaimed artist Daniel Canogar in his first Irish exhibition entitled “Scanner”. Constructed from television, telephone and computer cables, this installation underscores the idea of mortality in relation to technologies, which become obsolescent with increasing rapidity and reflects on our own relationship with these technologies. This elegiac installation can be viewed as a meditation on despondency and disappointment prevalent in recent times.
The artist’s interest in these materials is inspired by his “Photo Safaris” – bike excursions Canogar makes around the city with his camera. Through this process of photography, which he uses as sketches, Canogar’s attention was drawn to an emerging landscape of redundant technologies. Urban scenes form the point of departure for much of his work with an increasing interest, developed in recent years, in images of rubble from demolished buildings and the general detritus of modern life. These scenes encapsulate the artist’s interest in the excesses of mass media in today’s society. Canogar expresses his preoccupation with the tension that exists between technology and the human body through the use of light in thematic narratives. Combining found remnants of ‘new media’ with light, the artist seeks redress for the dematerialised body in this ‘society of the spectacle.’
Memory is immanent in Canogar’s work. Waste materials from our everyday lives retain memories; the electric cables preserve traces of the life they once had and voices they once transmitted. With his use of discarded materials, the artist reflects on how to deal with the past through individual and collective memory; seeking to reveal secrets, mysteries and lost stories.
Daniel Canogar lives and works in Madrid. He has been recently appointed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture as the artist representing Spain in the Atrium of the European Parliament. His public art interventions have been seen in Naples, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Segovia and Madrid. He earned a Masters Degree specialising in photography from New York University in 1990. Since then he has exhibited his work at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Centro de Arte de Santa Monica, Barcelona, Wexner Centre for Arts, Ohio, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfallen Museum, Dusseldorf, Hamburger Banhof Museum in Berlin and Matress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh among others.
ARTIST TALK: 5.30 in the gallery on the evening of the opening.
Opening Hours for the duration of the Exhibition:
Thursdays – Saturdays: 12pm – 6pm
or by appointment