Artium, Basque Museum of Contemporary Art, presents the exhibition Gure Artea, a display showing the most recent production of the awarded artists in the contest bearing the same name, and which is promoted every two years by the Department of Culture of the Basque Government. Paintings and drawings by José Ramón Amondarain, murals by Jon Mikel Euba, and video installations by Pepo Salazar, constitute the display of the artistic investigation carried out by each of these three creators. It is the first time that Artium exhibits the work of Gure Artea awarded artists aiming at being the permanent head venue of future exhibitions. The exhibition will travel abroad, also for the first time, to Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, during the months of February and March 2004.

Gure Atea occupies, in the Northern Gallery of Artium, as many as 900 m2; there, each of the three artist have their own space to display their work. The show starts with a series of small size figurative drawings by José Ramón Amondarain (San Sebastian, 1964), advancing further on in his exploration on the painter and his work, thus, preparing the execrator for the six huge paintings round the corner.

Keeping within Amondarain's characteristic eclecticism, this work ranges from the abstract (always with the reference of a “real“ image, as a background) to the figurative with personal references (a guitar), or even alluding to the museum itself as an exhibiting space (an enormous stool, a distinctive item in Artium galleries). Finally, the artist follows on with his meditation over the creative process by means of two paintings depicting a sculpture previously made on a mass of oil (the primary element of paint), where realism plays with abstraction.

After this, Gure Artea presents a huge luminating piece, by Pepo Salazar (Vitoria, 1972), inspired by the name of the musical group Iron Maiden, followed by a great video installation consisting of three different projections (two of them filmed in the premises). Salazar follows on using the codes relating to his generation and to the current artistic activity: he represents young characters in situations where violent attitudes and creative features mix together.

Finally, Jon Mikel Euba (Amorebieta 1967) has composed for Gure Artea a set of big scale drawings, a sort of “story board” about one of his latest videographic production, Gatika doble final. This composition in the way of a great installation entitled Gatika, una doble accion final colectiva, is complemented with two videos and with the above mentioned Gatika doble final and Good Dog. Euba presents images and dialogues which, placed out of contest, try to provoke the spectator's uneasiness. This is achieved by means of ambiguous messages and the nearness of the situations, which seam likely to have a violent endings.

Profiles
Amondarain, Euba and Salazar, were the awarded artists in the last edition of Gure Artea, a contest summoned every two years by the Department of Culture of the Basque Government. Its aim is to promote and stimulate the development of the different subjects relates to plastic arts. It also aims at helping Basque artists and their work to be known by the general public. The three of them are well known artists who recently exhibited in many countries. Jon Mikel Euba at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Pepo Salazar at the Biennial in Venice, and Jose Ramón Amondarain at Art Forum in Berlin. Since his first individual exhibition in 1998 in Bayonne, Jose Ramon Amondarain has displayed his work in Berlin, Frankfurt, Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza and Bilbao, among other cities. His oeuvre in present in many public and private collections such as Artium in Álava, Reina Sofia Museum, Marcelino Botín Foundation, La Caixa Foundation, and Peter Stuyvesant Foundation in Amsterdam.

Jon Kikel Euba studied arts in Bilbao, Arteleku and Berlin, and has, since 1996, displayed his work in many individual and joint exhibitions in Berlin, Brussels, Venice, Salamanca, Madrid, San Sebastian and Bilbao, among other cities. Artium and Tapies Foundation have co-produced one of his latest exhibitions, K.Y.D. Kill'em all , which was on at Artium until last February.

Pepo Salazar started his artistic career with installations, videos and performances in 1989. Since then, his work has been shown in Duisburg, Florence, Venice, Madrid, Barcelona, Santiago, Bilbao and Vitoria.