The Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York presented a two weeks exhibition, with an opening as part of the Armory Show, in which an anthology of Luis Bunuel movies was interlaced with Orensanz’s films and sculptures.
The soaring spaces of the Orensanz Foundation in New York were bathed in a dense, hypnotizing red. Both artists are natives of Aragon; they became friends and though working in different medium they closely followed each other’s activities.
For more than 10 years “Razor in the Eye”, the sculpture by Angel Orensanz commissioned by the city of Bunuel’s birth place for his centennial stands as a prominent public art piece in Calanda, Spain.
The exhibition “Angel Orensanz/Luis Bunuel: reProjections” was on view at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, 172 Norfolk St. New York, NY 10002 between March 6 and March 18th, 2011.
Read full press release here
RePROJECTIONS – Angel Orensanz and Luis Bunuel
The clue lies in the title: rePROJECTIONS. Indeed, it is not the first time Bunuel or Orensanz’s films are shown and it could look as another projection. It is not.
As visitors enter the Angel Orensanz foundation space, they are not welcome into a movie theater where they could sit wherever they want to, trying to find the right spot. Instead, they have to face random chairs, four side screens at different heights featuring different films, John Cage’s experimental music, Orensanz’s portly sculptures and an instantaneous feeling of confusion occupying their minds. Wavering between vacuity and overloaded information, the spectators’ reaction is to establish a distance between what they see – the actual installation –, and themselves – their bodies as part of the installation -. Because of this very distance, they become active spectators, “spectactors” projecting themselves – their feelings, interpretations, experiences – into the filmic installation, becoming thus a REprojection. By making the visitors uncomfortable and ordering them to lose their landmarks, rePROJECTIONS builds a camera obscura where one has to print his own projection.
Bunuel and Orensanz are both surrealist artists who influenced each other, dialogued and fostered surrealist concepts. By projecting them together and inhabiting the space with their films, the installation also creates a surrealist echo that the spectators are encouraged to take away and reProject in the real world.
Lara Sebdon, Intern
Curator/Exhibitions Assistant
Angel Orensanz Foundation, NYC
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