REPRODUCTION AND APPROPRIATIONISM IN ÁLVARO BARRIOS, AT FERNANDO PRADILLA
The Fernando Pradilla Gallery presents The Multiplication of Paintings, the second solo exhibition of Álvaro Barrios (Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 1945) at the space. The project gathers a selection of canvases made between 2013 and 2025, highlighting the artist’s interest in the possibilities of mass reproduction of images and in appropriation.
From a perspective extraordinarily marked by pop language and iconography, the Colombian artist approaches art as an element that must also be seen from superficiality, even if its message may reach a deeper level. Starting from the appropriation of Antonio Caro’s Colombia Coca-Cola, the oils replicate the work, but they also incorporate it as a fundamental element in the meaning of the reinterpretation of The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, with a social gaze and critique.
The selection of pieces pays homage to some of the great masters who have influenced his work, from Caro himself to Marcel Duchamp or Picasso, also including the recognizable iconography of Lichtenstein or Pollock. The reproduction of the image—always carrying the imperfect character of inaccuracy as a banner—or the irony behind the panels that make up the homonymous polyptych giving the show its title, reconstruct the need to create new conceptual perspectives and to endow the popular and the recognizable with new semiotic interpretations.
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Vista de instalación de Álvaro Barrios: La multiplicación de los cuadros, en Fernando Pradilla
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Vista de instalación de Álvaro Barrios: La multiplicación de los cuadros, en Fernando Pradilla
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Vista de instalación de Álvaro Barrios: La multiplicación de los cuadros, en Fernando Pradilla
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Vista de instalación de Álvaro Barrios: La multiplicación de los cuadros, en Fernando Pradilla
Álvaro Barrios. The Multiplication of Paintings can be seen until October 11 at the Fernando Pradilla Gallery, Claudio Coello 20, Madrid (Spain).
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