PABLO ECHAURREN

Collage

Having an exhibition is a good excuse to take a trip and visit a city or town, but not as a tourist. For me it involves getting to know the residents, especially those interested in the art, and the area.

Once I reach my destination I enjoy collecting local materials such as maps and information to build my psychogeographic maps that show the places where I have been, which illustrate my physical and mental paths as portolans.

They are paper proofs of my movements, of my observations, of my casual encounters on the walls or on the ground.

Layers of feelings.

Alluvial layers on which the gaze has settled.

This time, however, it will not be so.

In the virus age of Covid 19, exhibitions travel without the accompaniment of the author. The author stays at home, on the sidelines, as if he had already died.

It's a shame because I would have been happy to have a short holiday in Madeira, in Funchal. But now I have to look at it on the internet, at least to realize it roughly.

Just as visitors to the exhibition will look at it on their computer screen or Ipad or smartphone or standing beyond the windows, aseptically, safely, without risk of contagion. It is social and artistic distancing.

There is nothing that can be done, but it will still be as if I had been there.

And in truth I have been there, through interposed collages.

They will be able to tell me.

Pablo Echaurren