Mariona Berenguer

Statement

Trained at Massana School in Barcelona in the speciality of sculpture, she concludes this stage with an honourable mention in the project “La Grieta. Espai Entre” which will be exhibited later in a solo show (Mutuo Gallery, Barcelona). She then teaches sculpture, drawing and moulds in different art centres and graduates in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. She takes part in group exhibitions at LafuturA gallery (Barcelona), Fine Arts Academy (Sabadell), History Museum (Sant Feliu de Guíxols), TEDxBarcelonaWomen, San Salvador Monastery (Burgos), Maristany Art Centre and Es-Fiera 72 (Sant Cugat). In 2018, his work is selected for the XXI Biennial of Catalan Contemporary Art, where he presents Metástasi(s), an audiovisual installation with a performative extension in the company of the pianist Lucía Fumero. In 2019 she takes part in the Loop festival in Barcelona with an audiovisual installation in collaboration with the sound artist Juan Segura and a group exhibition in Kunsthaus Bethanien, the historical centre of art in Berlin. This last year she has been selected for the Felicia Fuster Foundation grants with the interactive installation About desire, a project with which she starts in the field of robotics and which she has exhibited in Monopol during this year’s BerlinArtweek and which is on show at the catalan foundation until February next year.

GlogauAIR Project

THE EMPTY NEST

The project presented at GlogauAIR is part of an ongoing investigation into the subject of desire. Following this continuing line of development, the exhibition is comprised of a series of works that explore the notions of need and longing, and the complex emotional, philosophical, and conceptual positions surrounding these topics. In many ways, the works consider this theme from various perspectives, from the quietly personal to the ostensibly physically detached, allowing for an examination that encompasses or takes into account both our inner and outer environments. Buying flowers in the Berlin underground to bring “life” inside your home, simulating natural sunlight, or observing flocks of animals in the countryside through the use of a drone are some of the various actions that activate and inform the works included.

Taking into account a diversity of positions, the presence of both natural and technological elements act as a conductive thread throughout the exhibition. The use of animals or plants is presented as a symbolic resource to address the most basic needs—emotions and instincts in it’s most essential state, with no other pretension other than survival. Technology, on the other hand, appears as a substitute tool that forces processes, creates rhythms and palliates impossibility. Animals, plants and technology are all elements that are part of us, but can appear as extreme otherness. This challenges us in terms of what we identify with most, and that which begins to define us. Nature and artifice lose strength as dual elements, but they create duality in our own position. This classically understood or intrinsic tension between these “worlds” provides a foundation or framework in which the viewer can reflect on their own perspectives of need and longing, and how we as cultures or individuals understand and rationalize that which brings about these feelings. But in the end, and returning to the first impulse, this becomes an intimate reflection on life in the city, of strategies for solitude and the inherent melancholy connected to lack of light.

Installation and Sculpture.

CV Summary

Education

• 2015 – 2020. Grade on Fine Arts. Autonomous Univerity of Barcelona (UAB).
• 2012 – 2015. Graduated in el Higher Cycle in Applied Arts in Sculpture. Massana School. Honorable mention in the final project “The Crack. Space Between“
• 2010 – 2011. Anathomical drawing course. EASC School (Sant Cugat’s school of Arts)
• 2008 – 2010 High School of Art. Massana School.

Artistic residences

• 2017, August. Artistic residence of drawing and sculpture. Can Murtera, Ibiza.
• 2014, Artistic residence of sculpture, Contemporary Art Center of Ifitry, Morocco

Individual Exhibitions

• 2019, November. Western Loop. Installation for Loop (Videoart festival of Barcelona). Center Grau-Garriga of contemporary textil Art. Sant Cugat del Vallès.
• 2016, April – May. Individual Exhibition of Sculpture, “The Crack. Space Between”. Mutuo Gallery. Barcelona.
• 2012, September – Genuary. Individual Exhibition of drawing and painting. Factory of creation of live Arts. Sabadell.

Collective exhibitions

• 2020, December – February. Poètiques del desig i la memòria. Felícia Fuster Foundation. Barcelona
• 2020, December. Sense títol 2020. University of Fine Arts. Barcelona.
• 2020, September. Site Unseen. Berlin Art Week. Monopol, Berlin.
• 2019, October. CHIMERA. Kaleidoscopic Journey, curated for Semra Sevin.Kunstquartier Bethanien. Kreuzberg, Berlin.
• 2019, February. “The Internet of Animals”.Mutuo Gallery. Barcelona.
• 2019, February. “Fake Paradise”, curated by Nathalie Rey. És-Fera72 Gallery. Sant Cugat del Vallès.
• 2018, Sept. – 2019, Dic. “XXI Biennial of Catalan Contemporàni Art”. Itinerant by: Centre d’Art Maristany (Sant Cugat del Vallès), Biblioteca pública de Lleida (Lleida), Espai Eat Art de la Fundació Lluís Coromina (Banyoles), Tinglado 1 Port de Tarragona (Tarragona), Centre de Lectura – Sala Fortuny (Reus), Centre d’Art Contemporani LA SALA (Vilanova i la Geltrú), Aula de Cultura Fòrum Berger Balaguer (Vilafranca del Penedès).
• 2018, July – 2019, February. Installation “Opus II”. Contemporary Art Exhibit. Benedictine Gardens of the monastery of San Salvador. Burgos.
• 2017, November. “The Brave You”. TEDxBarcelonaWomen. Mazda Space, Barcelona.
• 2017, June. Oppening exhibition. Gallery És-Fera72. Sant Cugat del Vallès.
• 2017, December – February. Collective eshibition AES. Sabadell Academy of Fine Arts.
• 2016, August. “Women’s Visions”. (Barcelona gallery weekend) Mutuo Gallery. Barcelona
• 2015, March. “Endogen/ Exogen”. lafuturA Gallery. Barcelona.
• 2014, July. Collective exhibition of black ceramic. History Museum of Sant Feliu de Guíxols.
• 2014, June – July. “Instints”. Limited Editions Gallery. Barcelona.
• 2013, October – December. “Techné, la mà que pensa” Escola Massana.

Prizes and grants

• 2019. Selected for the VI Edition of the Felicia Fuster Visual Arts Young Creation Grants.
• 2018. Selected for the XXI Bienal d’Art Contemporàni Català. Canals Gallery. Sant Cugat del Vallès. Barcelona.
• 2017. Finalist II Sample of AES. Academy of Fine Arts. Sabadell.
• 2015. Honorable mention in the final project “La Grieta. Space Between “. Massana School. Barcelona.
• 2014 – 2015. Responsable of the casting and molding workshop. Massana School.

Assistance in artistic production workshops

• 2018, Sept. – Acc. Head of production for the artist Michael Sailstorfer. Studio Sailstorfer. Weissensee, Berlín.
• 2017, June – 2018, July. Workshop assistant for the artist Gerard Mas. Workshop of the artist. La Floresta, Barcelona.
• 2014 – 2015. Scholarship of the artistic casting and molding workshop. Massana School. Barcelona.

Teaching

• 2018, January June. Classes of artistic enamelling. “Initiation to the moulds” and “Moulds II: Obtaining bronze pieces”. Casa Aymat. Sant Cugat del Vallès.
• 2017, November. Masterclass “Object and metaphor in sculpture”. December. Masterclass “Introduction to moulds” Casa Aymat. Sant Cugat del Vallès.
• 2017, January. Masterclass of experimental drawing with live model. Centre d’art Maristany. Sant Cugat del Vallès.
• 2016, November – 2017, July. Classes of experimental drawing with live model. Dterra Gallery. Sant Cugat del Vallès

Publications

• 2017, December. “presència-executor-absència” Lithography, series of 20 copies. Work in public collections: Fine Arts Library. University of Barcelona.
• 2014, April. Transfer of photo of own work. Calendar of the 100th anniversary of C.I.B. Italian Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona.

Others

• 2018, December. Performance “Blind Birds”. Rummels Klubnacht, Berlin.
• 2018, September. Performance “Metastasis” with the piano Lucia Fumero. On the occasion of the Biennal. Center d’Art Maristany
• 2017. Realization of the prototype for the project “IAgotchi”. Art and technology company PulsoPulso. Paris
• 2016, October – May 2017. Graphic designer in fashion publicity. MAAMUUT. Barcelona
• 2013, April. Design and montage for the stand of Ediciones La Cúpula; “El Vivora”. 31st International Comic Fair in Barcelona. Montjuïc

Gallery