Ana Mas Proyects presents at its headquarters in Barcelona Moncorps, mon esprit, a solo show exhibition by the Catalan conceptual artist Àngels Ribé. The show consists of a set of pieces that behave as a dialogue between his most recent work and the one produced between the 1970s and 1980s.
The work of Àngels Ribé (Barcelona, 1943) is framed within the international panorama as an essential part for the understanding of conceptual art. In this sense, it is considered a pioneer, whose practice ranges from the use of drawing to performance, passing through sculpture, photography and installation; Endowed with a constant sensitivity for space, form and the understanding of the world through her work.
Since its inception, Ribé's work sought through minimalist logic using her body and exploring nature through various ephemeral actions, contributing to the dematerialization of the artistic object and therefore, changing the established rules to create a place between the viewer and the work of art.
The works presented on this occasion began with her sculptural and photographic work in the United States and Spain between the 1970s and 1980s, including her most recent work as well. In Mon corps, mon esprit (2017), the artist crystallizes through photographic images, problems of the spirit and the body, a duality that manifests itself from the beginning of her career but now, in recent years, is projected using new expressive resources (digital image, color, among others ...).
Upon entering the room we will see a series of sculptures that, suspended from the ceiling or resting on the ground, allude to forms of nature, as well as its subtle relationship with the urban space and the human being. This theme, constantly researched by the artist, is manifested through a microcosm generating its own language through sculptures, drawings and installations in tune with the forms of the universe, light and silence. Ribé's works operate under a poetic logic of perception and in this sense the use of geometry in her works is frequent, as well as the encounter with different figures in space, which the artist isolate and decontextualizes. In her series Associations (1973) the artist photographs traces, irruptions, strokes and crevices, which without any relation of scale, can be formally related, producing a cartography as a constant witness of the relationship of space through her body and her thought.
We can see then, in the work of Ribé, a duality that manifests itself as a sort of internal rupture, a struggle between two forces, a dialogue of opposites, a poetic glaze at the world, a silence that observes and stops in order to find answers through small gestures and interactions. The expression of this duality through different forms if media is what generates a constant questioning of the place of the work of art, the spectator and the artist.