Monday, April 22, 2013

FPDV N°38 PRESENTE SANTIAGO MORILLA / Espagne


Santiago Morilla. Madrid, 1973.
Working worldwide as an artist since 2001. 

Living between Madrid (Spain) and Rome (Italy)



WATERBEACONS: A warning to navigators
Site-specific project: 4 aerial interventions placed on rooftops. Gyeonggi Creation Center, South Korea.4 video-artworks + 20 medium / 9 small sized drawings + 5 Large format photos


Nov. 2011

OFF THE ROOF


“Santiago Morilla takes on the museum space as if it were a swimming pool where one can enjoy bathing or simply ‘play dead’ and leave just one’s head to float, supported by a shamanic float (in the shape of a fox, duck or bear)… in a strange way I feel that I am including these local stories in a– more extensive and public- emotional map, which saves them from the dark depths of their obscurity. Also, where better for hiding the bald backside of an innocent bather below the surface of the water than an art centre? I estimate that their privates would be about where the admin offices are”. In his work on contextual immersion, Santiago Morilla does not overlook the fact that the island of Daebu, where the GCC is situated, was the site of the Seongan orphanage during the 35 years of the Japanese invasion. In reality, this orphanage was a concentration and forced labour camp. Some of the children who tried to escape by swimming away from this cruel imprisonment only found the quickest route to death: their drowned bodies are laid to rest in the surrounding woods. In Santiago Morilla’s imagination, there is no hint of a desire to make explicit the stories that have fed it, but neither does he want his piece to be treated as a mere “aesthetic” effect. On the contrary, it leaves the meaning open but also condenses narratives and metaphors that reveal a worrying background.”

(Fernando Castro Flórez)





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