Simeón Saiz Ruiz. J’est un je

Simeón Saiz Ruiz. J’est un je

From May 29th to August 31st 2008
 

Martínez Guerricabeitia exhibition room - La Nau

From Tuesday to Saturday, from 10 to 13.30 and from 16 to 20 h.

Sunday, from 10 to 14 h.

“Matanza de civiles en Sarajevo por proyectiles caídos junto al mercado principal el lunes 28 de agosto de 1995. Víctima en la barandilla (A partir de imagen aparecida en Tve-1)”, 1998

The first exhibition by Simeón Saiz Ruiz, the winner of the Biennial Martínez Guerricabeitia in 1999, entitled J’est un je, dates back to 1996. The series was started in the last period of the Bosnia-Herzegovina war, when violence was extreme in the region, and continued with the outbreak in Kosovo. Conflicts still remain today, as shown by negotiations about Kosovo's independence process.

At the beginning, the pictures copied the illusions of photography and video from procedures typical of painting but then shifted, in a logical and natural way, towards the imitation of television pixels. This change was prompted by the emphasis placed by the author on the documentary nature of the sources.

“Error de la OTAN en Grddelica Ravino (Yugoslavia) al atacar un tren de pasajeros (A partir de imagen aparecida en Tve-1)”, 2007

Jointly produced by the Universities of Salamanca and Valencia and the Regional Board of Castilla-La Mancha, the exhibition displays the series in a much broader way than ever before. The latest paintings in the series will be exhibited at the Salamanca and Valencia sites. Due to their very laborious production, these works have never been exhibited together. The paintings that currently make up the series will be shown in Toledo. The sequence of the images in ten different positions will be seen for the first time.

“Víctimas de bombardeos serbios a zona croata por encima de las posiciones bosnias en Mostar (A partir de imagen aparecida en Tve-1)”, 1996

Press and television photographs have been re-photographed in each of the ten possible lens angles, from an almost skimming vision to a frontal view. This method offers a wide range of picture deformations, from extremely compressed, almost unrecognizable forms to totally un-deformed images. This procedure arranges the series into an unveiling sequence that leads the audience from abstract images to more clearly recognisable ones.

“Mujer croata muerta sobre alfombra, víctima de comando bosnio (A partir de imagen aparecida en Antena 3)”, 1996

The difficulty in recognising them and the impossibility of forgetting images once they are recognised become the subject of the works. On the basis of this resource, the author makes it difficult for the audience to forget the images and the victims of the conflict. The possibility of seeing all the images together allows the viewer to check whether the repetition of scenes inhibits their traumatic effect or if what is not shown by the picture of these despicable crimes can appear in their minds.

The series does neither judge the players of the conflict nor distinguish the victims -all of them civilians. Rather, it draws attention to our reception and how our reception questions our ideas as to how, when and where violence can be generated. The series aims to condemn the horrors of the civil war and to dissuade people from using violence in the name of identity which ever its grounds may be: the state, the nation, culture, religion, race, a social class or gender.

“Dos niñas, víctimas de proyectiles de mortero el sábado 22 de enero de 1994 (A partir de fotografía de Corinne Dufka, Reuter)”, 1995