Pedro Gómez-Egaña: Third Crescent

Podium Oslo presents Third Crescent, the solo exhibition by Pedro Gómez-Egaña, opening September 15, 2023. Pedro Gómez-Egaña builds objects and spaces that address the affective and psychological dimensions of saturated media culture and the uncanniness of our technological every day. Third Crescent, his new solo show and performative installation at Podium, Oslo, intervenes the architecture with sculptural, sound and light gestures, rendering a fragile, mysterious and porous space.  

A central question in this exhibition is the notion of interface. Traditionally an interface is a point where two realities meet, a term that speaks to the contours of interaction, a porous membrane between insides and outsides, integrity and vulnerability, technology and faith. A space for decoding, and for engagement. The notion of interface also presents a certain kind of eroticism, as an occasion for integrities to dissolve.    

The exhibition takes inspiration in the life and writings of Cuban poet Dulce Maria Loynaz. After the revolution of 1960, Loynaz went into what historians have called an “internal exile”. She stopped writing entirely and remained in Cuba, rarely leaving her home. The poems leading up to this period show how political and social realities enter the private to imbue the intimate and the mundane with anxiety and uncanniness. 

“…It’s sad to confess it,
but I already feel like its prisoner,
a stranger in my own kingdom,
dispossessed of the goods that were always mine.
There is no road for me that does not run into its walls; 
there is no sky that its walls do not cut through.

Making it the spoils of war,
the new structures have rationed my landscape: 
of the sun they have left me 
only a minuscule portion,
and since the first arrival
an orchestra of birds set on flight.”

—Fragment from Dulce Maria Loynaz, “The Last Days of a House”, translated by the artist

Pedro Gómez-Egaña was born in Colombia and lives and works in Oslo, Norway. Gómez-Egaña’s work addresses a concern with economies of attention by producing purpose-built, often large-scale immersive spaces that seek to modulate audiences’ perception. The relation between site and viewer is central to his work, making storytelling, music, the appropriation of historical and literary texts, and site-specificity some of his frequent strategies. Gómez-Egaña stages objects and images in motion as an investigation of, and reaction to, a world dominated by saturation and speed. His works problematise cultural definitions of time and temporality and explore the current and historical effects of technology. His recent work investigates the domestic space, the intersection of the industrial and the mystical, as well as the sexual and spiritual undertones of digital culture.

Gómez-Egaña studied music composition, performance, and visual arts at Goldsmiths College, the Bergen National Academy of the Arts. He finished his PhD in visual arts at the University of Bergen in 2012. He is currently a professor of sculpture and installation at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. He has led a variety of research artistic projects with partners such as Goldsmiths College in London, Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, The Laban Centre in London, Bergen National Academy of Arts, and Universidad Nacional de Colombia. His recent work has been staged at various platforms such as Kunsthalle Baden Baden, the Munch Museum, Oslo National Opera House, Yarat Contemporary Art Space - Baku, 15th Istanbul Biennial, Contour Biennial-Mechelen, Performa13-New York, Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Marrakech Biennial, Kunstnernes Hus-Oslo, Hordaland Kunstsenter-Bergen, Brussels Biennial, South Bank Centre-London, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, L’appartement 22-Rabat, Galeria Vermelho-Sao Paulo, Kunsthall Mulhouse-France, and Colomboscope-Sri Lanka amongst others.