Fear

From: Saturday, 02 October 2010

To: Thursday, 30 June 2011

Place: Anteroom

Fear of the darkness, of water, of others, of love, of life, of animals, of oneself, of fear itself, fear of others, of one's thoughts...

ARTIUM presents the exhibition Fear, containing works from the Museum's Permanent Collection, organized by the Education Department. Among other objectives, the exhibition aims to support the pedagogic activities and workshops developed by Artium together with a number of different groups, ranging from the school community to the most elderly of our visitors. On the other hand, the exhibition aims to define fear, by creating a space for dialogue through activities and workshops that will allow each individual to express and materialise the feelings it arouses. Fear consists of six works, including paintings, drawings and sculptures.

The exhibition created by the Education Department of ARTIUM follows the same methodology applied on previous occasions, in other words, it poses both general questions: Where do fears come from? Are they something we learn? Are they cultural?; and particular questions which relate each specific work to the subject under discussion.

The thesis of Fear is that this is a universal feeling: everyone has their own individual fears, Fear of the darkness, of water, of others, of love, of life, of animals, of oneself, of fear itself, fear of others, of one's thoughts, and so on. All these fears begin during infancy and manifest themselves in different ways throughout the life of each individual. What is true is that the collective imagery of the childhood of each individual is full of stories of bad witches, ogres who, disguised as good people, take advantage of the trust they inspire to terrorise princesses, children and good fairies.

The central space of the exhibition contains a large triptych by Ignasi Aballí –Listados (violencia I, II y III)-, a kind of collage of newspaper clippings containing news of tragic events that on many occasions occupy the attention of the mass media. The question "Where can we find these words?" gives rise to a discussion of the presence of fear in people's day-to-day life. There are other more specific situations of fear present in this exhibition, such as pain –an aquatint by Elena Blasco, Sin título 6, or a sculpture by Mayte Vieta, Cicatrices-; the phobias about certain animals –Cotton mouth, by Charo Garaigorta-; disease –Marina Nuñez, Sin título, from the series La locura-; death –a photograph from the series La Morgue, by Andres Serrano-or the fear of the unknown and the supernatural – Pedro G. Romero, Angel-.

Following this series of questions, it is now the turn for action in the workshop space. A number of skeletons hang from the ceiling at the end of the anteroom: “los esqueletos salen de la tumba. (the skeletons emerge from the tomb. Tumba, tumba, tumba, catatumba”. From that point on, visitors will take part in a number of different activities and workshops, each in accordance with their own interests.

Fear belongs to a series of exhibitions initiated eight years ago by ARTIUM to provide pedagogic support for a number of specific groups. Designed initially as exhibitions for children (for this reason the works and the texts were installed and processed in the gallery under special conditions) they have developed rapidly for use as an educational vehicle in programs such as those developed by the Education Department incentives for the elderly, with the Psychiatric Hospital of Alava and addiction treatment centres, among others.

In this sense, these small format exhibitions consisting of works from the ARTIUM Collection are designed to increase the accessibility and dynamics of contemporary art and in each case revolve around a specific theme, in order to teach visitors how to look, analyse and interpret the different meanings contained in works of art.

This site uses cookies and similar technologies.

If you not change browser settings, you agree to it. Learn more

I understand