Sebastián Díaz Morales : Talk With Dust

The mind was dreaming. 
The world was its dream.              
–Jorge Luis Borges

A film is—or should be—more like music than like fiction. 
It should be a progression of moods and feelings. 
The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.
–Stanley Kubrick

STUK is delighted to present the work of visual artist Sebastián Díaz Morales (°1975). 

In his practice, Díaz Morales creates a quasi-magical visual realm focused on a subtle yet relentless questioning of our conceptions of reality. He plays with time and space, exchanges narrative for ideas and concept, giving leeway to the associations and interpretations of the viewer. His often explicit references to the (film)camera, perspective and point-of-view question how we see, experience and understand the world around us.

For his solo exhibition in STUK, Díaz Morales will show for the first time his most recent work  Talk with Dust (2018-2019) in its entirety. In a succession of projections and screens, Díaz Morales presents eight fragments or sequences. The sequences in and of themselves do not constitute a straightforward narrative or plot. There is no story, only singular details, movements, shapes, sites that create an atmosphere, a succession of different sensations. Through his fragmented narrative, Sebastian Díaz Morales intends to explore an idea of the fantastic:

“This fantastic is not the one that interrupts the ordinary course of things but rather that which is at once strange and present, at the same time its contradiction and its confirmation. For something to be fantastic, it is not enough to be different from the real: also (and above all) it is necessary to mix inexplicably with the real thing. In more philosophical terms we can say that the fantastic is not the other of the same but its alteration: not the contradiction of the real, but its subversion.” 
-Clement Rosset, El Objeto Singular, Editorial Sexto Piso, 2007

Given the above understanding of the fantastic, it comes as no surprise that also the term “uncanny” seems quite apt to describe one’s sensation in relation to Talk With Dust. It is precisely the interplay between that which looks familiar, but seems at the same time beyond reach and is beyond our understanding, that generates this fruitful ground for the fantastic to flourish. The sequences in Talk With Dust present both material as well as mental territories, spaces which function as a mirror upon which an image of our world can surface. 

Throughout the STUK building, a second series of works titled Pasajes completes Díaz Morales’ solo show. In this series, a character is seen walking through gateways and doors, up stairs and across roads, navigating a labyrinth of otherwise spatially disconnected places. Walking along with this protagonist, the seemingly documentary style visuals are turned into an alternative map of Buenos Aires (Pasajes I & II), Jakarta (Pasajes III), Patagonia (Pasajes IV), and the Koepelgevangenis/prison Haarlem (Pasajes V). 

Curator: Karen Verschooren

  
The exhibition Talk With Dust is part of a series of solo exhibitions in STUK by contemporary visual artists who have a particular affinity for the moving image and spatial video installations. Previous exhibitions in this series include Mika Taanila - The End; Nevin Aladağ - Rollin’; Omer Fast - Appendix; Joachim Koester - Maybe this act, this work, this thing; Emre Hüner - Neochronophobiq; John Akomfrah - Auto Da Fé; and Bjørn Melhus - The Theory of Freedom.

Sebastiàn Dìaz Morales (°1975, Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina)
Sebastián Díaz Morales is a visual artist working mainly in video and film. In his practice, he shifts time and space to question the way we continuously construct and understand reality. His works simultaneously have a documentary and dreamlike feel to them, which in essence, transports us to another uncanny dimension from which we can observe/scrutinize the world known as our own. Sebastián Díaz Morales’s work is part of major permanent collections and has been shown world-wide, a.o. in Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen; Le Fresnoy; CAC Vilnius; Tate Modern; Centre Pompidou; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Ludwig Museum Budapest; 57th Venice Biennial; Bienale São Paulo; Biennale of Sydney; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; MUDAM Luxembourg; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. Sebastián Díaz Morales is represented by gallery carlier | gebauer, Berlin. He lives and works in Amsterdam. 

Works in the exhibition:

Talk With Dust

#1 Candle 
1-channel video / HD format / 20min / 2018

#2 Into a Silent World (Drummer) 
#6 Into a Silent World (Spinning Car) 
2-channel video / 4K format / 12min / 2018-19
Drums Onno Govaert / Sound Ron Ruiten / Cameras Maya Watanabe, Sasa Karalic, SDM 
Car Gustavo Fernandez/ Production and Drone Emanuel Díaz / Assist Joaquin Ergas, Matias Ugrina, Gustavo Koszel, Martin Caligiuri

#3 Multiverse 
1-channel video / 2k format / 10min / 2018
Soundscore Berend Dubbe & Gwendolyn Thomas / Photography Niels Boon / Special effects Arjan van Drunen / Production Bart van Dam / Post Production Maya Watanabe

#4 Route 26 
1-channel vertical video projection / 4k format / 10min / 2018
Soundscore Berend Dubbe & Gwendolyn Thomas / Production Emanuel Díaz

#5 Multiverse (Globe) 
1-channel video / HD format / 10min / 2018
Soundscore Berend Dubbe & Gwendolyn Thomas 

#7 Sunrise 
1-channel video / 4K format / 1hr / 2018 / Silent
Production Emanuel Díaz

#8 Talk with Dust 
1-channel video / 4K format / 16min / 2018
Soundscore Berend Dubbe & Gwendolyn Thomas / Post Production Maya Watanabe / Production Panoramica Productora

All works courtesy of the artist and gallery carlier | gebauer, Berlin. 
All works produced with financial support of the Mondriaan Fonds

Pasajes I-V

Pasajes I-II
digital video / 12,30 min & 15 min / 2012 & 2013
Character Federico Zukerfeld
Photo Pasajes I: Juan Francisco Sanchez

Pasajes III
digital video / 12,30 min / 2013
Character Gentong
Produced with the financial support of the Jakarta Biennale 2013

Pasajes IV
digital video / 22,40 min / 2014-2017
Character Maya Watanabe

Pasajes V
digital video / 16,30 min / 2018
Character Wilfred Kols

Produced with the financial support of the Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

All works courtesy of the artist and gallery carlier | gebauer, Berlin.

Please contact Caroline Henderickx for press inquiries or Karen Verschooren for further inquiries regarding the exhibition.