Location: Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Madrid

Dates: Feb - Sep 2022

Connecting entails activating the associations machine; the triggering of spontaneous or deliberate encounters between objects, ideas and abstractions. Fundación Telefónica has a major collection made up of works of art and documentary and technological resources. The exhibition presents these three areas together.

The exhibition design reflects the central concept of the project, “connections”, through a system of contiguous and interrelated spaces with a similar geometry and openings. The goal is to ensure visual links between all the spaces.

The exhibition immerses us in a network of relationships that allow us to take in the pieces on display in the manner of a hypertext rather than by using traditional historiographic resources; such codes are also integrated into the spatial design, which deconstructs traditional compartmentalisation and its use of bulky walls, favouring instead independent cells with extremely thin, almost virtual separations. In terms of both content and architecture, the system makes it possible to establish fluid thematic relationships that move beyond mere chronology.

The repetitive system of spaces and connections on various sides undermines learned orientation mechanisms as there is no evident direction, and takes the visitor back to a more primitive means of finding connections between spaces and pieces based on their instinct and curiosity.

The other element determining the spatial design is colour. It is employed as if it were another construction material, with a physicality that generates specific spaces and emotions. Recent research has sought to produce the scientific evidence behind such associations between tonalities, feelings and behaviour. Based on Goethe's theories and recent neuroscience research that attests to the link between certain colours and moods, an appropriate colour palette was used in each area to generate an adequate atmosphere that might best transmit the ideas evoked by the exhibition.

The format of superimposed and interconnected layers on all sides of the space aims to make us reflect on alternatives to the neutral and open-plan container associated with contemporary art; an imperative of the modern movement.

Curator

Fundación Telefónica

Graphic design

Tres tipos gráficos

Pics

Javier de Paz