Rey & Maurí

Statement

Nathalie Rey and Enric Maurí, maintain their own independent projects, however, since 2018, they have crossed languages and artistic interests to address different issues from an aesthetic and discursive complexity. Nathalie Rey had a long academic career in the field of Humanities, with a Ph.D. in architecture, a degree in Literature and in Fine Arts, before dedicating herself to artistic creation. Currently, she works with galleries in Barcelona, Madrid and London. Her work, technically eclectic, has followed a kind of narrative thread for years, which oscillates between episodes of contemporary history and personal events. Thus a disturbing parallel is being generated between the dramas of Humanity and individual wounds.

At the same time, she adopts an anti-mercantile position, since she relates and expresses through an ironic pop aesthetic characterized by the artistic re-use of waste and materials of industrial origin, the attraction / repulsion that the human and ecological tragedies inherent in our society arouses in her. Enric Maurí works on different registers and makes free use of languages. He uses a variety of media, such as painting, drawing, sculpture, video, installation, photography or performance. His work is articulated around questioning and questioning as a mechanism for debate and thought. He looks at the world to contemplate it but also to think and think about himself, with others and with objects, and with the landscape. Rather than producing new objects, he creates unexpected interactions. Because the same way things generate space, space also originates situations and new interconnections, and can produce in a similar way the conditions for the appearance of new objects, spontaneous creations, deposits that reverberate and converse with each other and generate new articulations. He has participated in the creation of art magazines and artistic spaces and has also curated contemporary art cycles.

GlogauAIR Project

In 2018, we started a working process in which we cross languages and artistic interests to approach different issues from an aesthetic and discursive complexity. The refractive profile of our works stands out and meets with other productions from different disciplines and the artistic production, establishing connections and ties both in terms of thought and aesthetics. In some of them, different reflections on the exercise of power have appeared in relation to various issues, at the same time that questions have arisen about the practice of art and different creative strategies. Thus, debating these questions, a new project has emerged, Clash, which focuses on freedom of expression and censorship in art. It is raised from a theoretical point of view but is fundamentally creative, visual and plastic. The position before the phenomenon of censorship is presented as an observation and study of how other artists and thinkers have approached the issue. Among the references, it is worth mentioning The File Room, in which Antoni Muntadas examines the rich history of censorship and introduces a new dimension to his work. There is also an historical look at the power of images and the deprivation of access to their contemplation. As David Freedberg argues, we may be interested in removing all the distinctions and barriers that have overshadowed Western thought about iconography, but until we admit the full extent of our love for images, the activity of censors will show the way of iconoclasm. However this verdict should not put an end to the analysis. With this intention, then, to continue analyzing these relationships and finding new perspectives in order to deepen them, we will also delve into the current role of art, associated to the definitions of objectivity or truth, or the notions of truthfulness and sincerity.

Taking as a reference Pandora’s hope, by Bruno Latour, and moving his theories on the study of science to the studies of art, we penetrate into the relationships between art and society, not so much as an alternative or an opposition, but as the reaction which generates this separation and determines the way of being in the world and of interpreting it. For Priscilla Frank, in the art world, freedom of expression collides with standards of decency and good taste. Thus, throughout history, works of art have been altered, silenced, and even eliminated, while artists have always pushed the boundaries of what is “offensive” through the symbolism and content of their works. This tension is the heart of the project and, beyond censures and prohibition, we wish to delve into the relationships that explain these shocks and their meaning for the progression of the social field. The nude is one of the relevant subjects of censorship, from the frescoes by Michelangelo for the Sistine Chapel, through the Olympia (1865), by Édouard Manet, or The Origin of the World (1866) by Gustave Courbet; and in its development, images with erotic content, such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s Perfect Moment (1989). Religion also opens a long list of censored works, among which Piss Christ (1987), by Andrés Serrano; The Holy Virgin Mary (1999), by Chris Ofili. And obviously the political or patriotic content, such as the presentation of the US flag by Dread Scott Tyler (1989), which forced visitors to step on it to see other works in the exhibition; or more recently Pussy Riot’s Rezo punk (2012). However these works are not just about provocation but, as Brett Bailey expressed as a result of the protests for his Human Zoo (2014), about the challenge to perception and the history that they imply. Art is the place where we can think of the world in a different way, where other experiences and other stories are proposed.

The project CLASH: Perspectives for a new interpretation of Art history consists of crossing the great issues of censorship and how they coexist with the growing acquisition of freedom of artistic productions in order to generate new works based on these encounters, and these cultural clashes between opposing forces. We have chosen Berlin to develop the project for a main reason, because in this city different artistic moments of great expressive freedom crystallize in the contemporary era and at the same time it has also been a scenario of repression and censorship in one of its highest degrees. Berlin was one of the most outstanding centers of European culture between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, a few years later it was the setting for one of the exhibitions of Degenerate Art, and today it is once again one of the most vital centers in the world in which the most diverse artistic expressions coexist. These poles are very interesting for the narrative of the project, as they mark extremes and oscillations in the balance of censorship and freedom of expression in art.

CV Summary

Common projects of Nathalie Rey and Enric Maurí

In 2019 they have designed the Friction, Fraction, Fusion project, a radical perspective on climate change. In 2020 they received a secondary award from the REDDIS Foundation for Contemporary Art and have been selected to exhibit the winning project, Atlantis, in 2021 at the Reus Reading Center. They have also developed other projects such as The Philosopher’s Stone and Peau de Vache.

Enric Maurí

• Museu d’Art, Girona
• Artssantamonica, Santa Mònica, Barcelona
• Espai d’Arts Roca Umbert, Granollers
• Museu Abelló, Mollet del Vallès
• El Roser, Lleida
• Centre d’art La Rectoria de Sant Pere de Vilamajor
• Sala d’Exposicions de la Facultat de Belles Arts, Universitat de Barcelona
• Centre d’Art ACVIC, Vic
• Centre d’Art Tecla Sala, L’Hospitalet
• Centre d’Art Can Palauet, Mataró
• Centre Cultural de Terrassa
• Centre d’art Espais, Girona
• Centre d’Art Les Hacs, Vic
• 72 Gallery, U.S.A.
• Axe Actuel gallery, Toulouse, France
• Studio Oggetto, Italy
• Artual, Fidel Balaguer, H2O, Eude, Antonio Barnola and 44 galleries, Barcelona.

• Participated in “Panoramic Festival”, “25hrs Art Foundation International video Festival”, Barcelona and London
• “Le Sud Attaque” festival, Sette, France
• ” Cannes International Biennial”, France
• “Sarajevo Winter festival”, Sarajevo
• Loop Festival 2014/15/18/19… and several editions of Arco fair, Madrid, and Art Basel.
• Author of two permanent public installations in Barcelona: Metamemòria and Bon Viatge.
• Received five grants from the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya, for his research and innovation in visual arts.
• In 2020 he received a scholarship from Vegap.

Artistic residencies

• 1990 – Omaha. EE.UU.
• 2000 – Bow Arts Studio, Londres
• 2001 – Sarajevo y Berlín
• from 2016 on Fàbrica de les Arts, Roca Umbert, Barcelona.

Nathalie Rey

• 2013 – 2016. Massana School, Barcelona, Spain. Degree of Fine arts (sculpture as a specialty)
• 2007 – 2013. Barcelona University (UB), Spain. Degree of Literature and Modern languages
• 2002 – 2004. The Technology Institute of Wood, Paris. Degree of Carpentry
• 1993 – 2000. Versailles Architecture School, France. Ph.D. in architecture
• Scholarship at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA

Solo shows

• 2021 CACIS Contemporary Art Center for Sustainability, Calders, Spain. The philosopher’s stone. Duo with Enric Maurí TPK Contemporary Art and Thinking, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain. Sans trêve sans merci. Duo with Francele Cocco. Curated by Mercè Alsina Fine Arts Academy of Sabadell, Spain. Apocalipsis Now. Curated by Mercè Alsina Centre de lectura, Reus, Spain. Atlantis. Duo with Enric Maurí
• 2020 – 2021 Alalimón gallery, Chiquita Room, Esther Montoriol gallery, Espronceda Center for Art and Culture, Ideograma Foundation, Pol & Grace Hotel, Bcn, És-Fera 72 gallery, Sant Cugat, Fine Arts Academy of Sabadell, Roca Umbert, Fàbrica de les Arts, Granollers, Santcorneliarts2, Cardedeu. “Reconstruction” project. With J.L. Tercero. Curated by Sara Catalán
• 2020 Espronceda Center for Art and Culture, Bcn. . Curated by Olga Sureda Woldt gallery, London @ The Exhibitionist Hotel. Stuffed animals – Sculptures and installations Alalimón gallery, Bcn @ Pol & Grace Hotel. Shipwreck. Collaboration with The Over

Last awards

• 2021 Selección. Panoràmic cinema, photography and video festival, Bcn. Short film “The Philosopher’s Stone”, con Enric Maurí Selection. Arts FAD prize
• 2020 Selection. 6 th Sabadell Emergent Art prize Accesit prize. Prize and grant of contemporary art Reddis private Foundation. “Atlantis” project with Enric Maurí XAL Xarxa Audiovisual Local. Outright sale of copyright of the video work “Shipwreck III, Vilanova de Sau”

Gallery