Juan Nazar

HEY! YOU HAVE JUST RUINED EVERYTHING

GALERIE MOMMSENSTRASSE 35, BERLIN

Nazar presents a series of photographic and volumetric works, in which we can observe an interest in architecture, archaeology, and ruin as a representation of the passing of time and obsolescence, but also of existence and human intervention.

By assembling fragments from objects both found and recreated by the artist, a new imagery is constructed, which talks about contradictions with respect to the new-old or original-copy; past-present-future.

The title of the exhibition faces us with the great social disconformity present in the world today, prevailing the feeling that the planet, our home, is in imminent collapse; and at the same time, it refers to a simple and colloquial statement, used at that precise moment when we realize that a certain plan is being ruined. It is there, through a play on words, that the artist thinks about ruin through an image that fascinates and thrills, but it challenges us to think of our own decadence as civilization.

The exhibition consists of a series of intervened photographs, showing fractions of decorative elements from an Italian palazzo from 1700. The pieces seem to levitate, although they rest like ruins on the terracotta floor of the main hall.

On the other side, the artist presents plaster cast objects moulded by himself in the streets of Berlin. These are simple everyday devices with a utilitarian imprint, which have been printed (cast) on clay, then turned into plaster cast and gathered in containers with other materials. As a whole, the compositions resemble cabinets des curiosités; but at the same time, they could be files or shipping packages.
The work alludes to remote times, ancient civilizations, and the archaeological discoveries of the XIX century, but it also confronts us with an uncertain future, and it plays with the idea of a future archaeology, subtly placing us in a future perhaps already past. (or at the wrong time).

Exhibition view. Photo by Trevor Good.