20.08.–19.09.2016

 

Mountain / No Mountain
When the viewer stands before the current exhibition by Ralph Bernabei you may believe it is only the result of a process, but it is actually the pictorial depiction of a deep and sudden emotion. He encountered the powerful presence of the Niesen mountain in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland for the first time in September 2010. The image of the mountain has haunted him since then and has been in and out of his memory. What is now being shown is the result of a slow process.

The photograph of the mountain reflected in the water allows us to guess the strength of that first emotion. The series begins in an attempt to work with the presence of the mountain and gradually seek its absence by superimposing paint, graphite and overlays.

Everything and nothing.

The exhibition reflects the territory of dualities by showing a photograph of Christoph Müller with paintings by Bernabei. The photograph of the mountain sets the tone of duality necessary when we see the great summit and its reflection.

The great oriental tradition is full of paradoxes and apparent contradictions. We are told that everything is and at once is not, and that understanding this essence allows us to find the true reality of things through emptiness and denial. Fullness and silence are alternated as an exercise in finding the synthesis between the two.

The works in this exhibition show the artist unconsciously making a clear plea to this ancient tradition. On the one hand it offers the possibility of experiencing a feeling, a perception, even an intense thought specifically about the shape of the mountain, but then denying it. It makes a vacuum, makes it disappear. In doing so it tells us something so important for an artistic creator: Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Phenomena become empty, but emptiness becomes phenomena, which we can perceive. When everything is the nature of emptiness, there is no birth and no death, no knowledge, no ignorance ... From everything to nothing. Better understanding or even awareness of emptiness will help us to eliminate the anxiety generated by dualistic thinking.

Mountain / Not a Mountain goes beyond René Magritte’s surrealist language game of placing a negation text before the image of a pipe: "Ceci n'est pas une pipe”. Much has been written about this absurd game, but Ralph Bernabei’s proposal goes further, affirming that the mountain is and is not.

Jesús Martínez Clará
English translation by Helen McNally
Ralph Bernabei & ‏Christoph Muller

 

Inauguración Sabado 20 de Agosto a las 19:30h.

 

TINAM Series Ralph Bernabei 2016

TINAM Series Ralph Bernabei 101 x 142 cm paint and graphite on paper / wood 2016

TINAM Series Ralph Bernabei 31 x 45 cm gum print, silkscreen and paint on paper 2016

TINAM Series Ralph Bernabei 51 x 71.5 cm paint, graphite and collage on paper / wood 2016

TINAM Series Ralph Bernabei 31 x 45 cm gum print, silkscreen and paint on paper 2016

TINAM Series Ralph Bernabei 31 x 45 cm gum print, silkscreen and paint on paper 2016