Descarga el catálogo de Inéditos 2012. - Obra Social Caja Madrid

surfeit of success, relating to others through the role of a person doomed
to failure: the idiot. Beckett’s literature repeatedly describes a continual
progression towards the indeterminate, crawling on all fours or mired in
the mud but a continual progression all the same. Meanwhile, the artists
Bas Jan Ader and Francis Alÿs are paradigmatic in this respect because
they decode the way in which we construct reality through its failures.
In terms of the relationship between failure and art, this idea of failure
contains a specific idea about art, an aesthetic category closely associated
with contemporary art. The nature of art and the nature of failure are very
similar. Both are categories that are perceived. Both are dependent on a
specific moment—indeed, they are not only dependent on the moment
and culture that produce them but are the very reflection of those things.
Failure, like art, reveals and analyses the way things work. Ultimately, failure
broadens the horizon of the possible.
The Making Failure show does not explore this theme as a concept but
as an attitude. It is not an exhibition about failing per se but an exhibition
about actively “making failure”, about “performing failure”. Thus, its purpose
is not to showcase models that have fallen short of their goals, but to
exhibit those that have failed the model in one way or another.
The show attempts to shed light on the importance of this idea of
failure in the artistic imaginary of Spain today, and therefore features a
heterogeneous group of artists connected in some vital way with Spain.
Some of the artists are virtually unknown, while others have already earned
international acclaim. At different stages in their careers and from different
generations, the artists offer a multiple, polyvocal vision of the idea of
“making failure” within the context of contemporary Spanish thinking.
The strategy of failure is always different. As opposed to the rigidity of the
norm, failure is multiple. The exhibition discourse charts the rich variety
of attitudes that pursue failure, from Guillermo Mora at one of the end
spectrum to Isidoro Valcárcel Medina at the other. The result is a diverse
array of attitudes ranging from aesthetic failure to social failure.
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D A N I E L C E R R E J Ó N • H A C E R E L F R A C A S O