DORA GARCÍA
WHERE DO CHARACTERS GO WHEN THE STORY IS OVER?
8 October 2009 – 31 January 2010
Curator: Eva González-Sancho
CGAC, Santiago de Compostela
www.cgac.org
Contrary to the idea that art is aimed at the general public, Dora García (Valladolid 1965) is interested in what attracts the attention of each individual, hence opting for radically conceptual forms, both accessible and elegant, and for projecting singularly codified messages or superimposing narratives to reality in a way that a specific relation with each of the spectators may arise.
Each of Dora García’s works clearly stresses communication between artist and audience: Art represents the world no more, it becomes a producer of realities, often on the verge of fiction, encouraging the experimentation within the unidirectional sense of everyday events and analysing social patterns of behaviour.
Where do characters go when the story is over? presents seven pieces, four of which have been entirely produced for the CGAC, that never attain a definitive form. What is really offered to the spectator are different “stages” of several works, whose definitive form is unpredictable. The pieces shown here seem to “pull the leg” of museum and audience in a variety of respectful ways, where every encounter is in a process of becoming; where every event is instantly fictionalized. All of which seem to converge into presenting the here and now in an endless array of possibilities.
The exhibition starts with a sentence written on a wall in gold leaf: Una buena pregunta debe evitar a toda costa una respuesta (2002) [A good question should avoid an answer at all costs], one of the many sentences that are part of the collection of gold sentences the artist started building in 2001. These aphorisms written in gold on the wall allow the artist to ridicule prejudices, clichés and conventions. La realidad es una ilusion muy persistente (2005) [Reality is a very persistent illusion] or El futuro debe ser peligroso (2005) [The future must be dangerous], are some examples.
A good question should avoid an answer at all costs (2009) is foreseen upon the same wall to that second sentence, this time in black vinyl which estates the exhibition title and with it, the premises of the artist’s project: Where do characters go when the story is over?
The exhibition title evokes the phenomenon of the work of art independence in relation to its author among other things. “I do not write my books, they write themselves” or “My work is much more intelligent than I am” are common statements by fiction authors. The characters and events of a story have a logic within that the author may only discover and obey. For instance, in the piece Steal This Book, produced for this exhibition, one of the actors who plays the part of Charles Filch, “The Beggar,” sole protagonist of The Beggar’s Opera (Dora García’s contribution to Skulptur Projekte Münster 07) blurts to the artist: ” I only think we should not give up the chance to turn it, at point 06, into something intimate, yet public, because the ‘showy thing’ is so much more conventional. If you really prefer it to be loud we can talk about it, but we should not do so simply because of being afraid of taking the risk of making it more unconventional. Samir.”
Where do characters go when the story is over? Is therefore a framework of contradictions, games and upsets; a series of impossible proposals which induce the shifting of the spectator’s behaviour. As stated by Dora García: “The work of art has no purpose in being comprehensible or revealing in any way, but rather to expose something about ourselves.” Possibly the best work of art effectively is the one about to disappear and it is therefore crucial that we do not know where characters go when the story ends.
For more information or images please contact
CGAC. Prensa e comunicación
Rúa Ramón del Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
981 546 632
cgac.prensa@xunta.es
www.cgac.org