Farsa y artificio: Melanie Smiths exhibition at the MACBA
Melanie Smith's exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) is a monographic exhibition organized around seven juxtaposed thematic nuclei that record the trajectory of Venezuelan British music from the early nineties to the present. The rooms have more than 120 works by Smith, thus becoming the largest exhibition dedicated to the artist's career.
The exhibition examines Smith's career in depth and includes works from his new production, including María Elena (2018), exhibited for the first time. The sample, production with the MUAC of Mexico City and the Museo Amparo de Puebla, will travel to Mexico in 2019. In conversation with Tanya Barson, Melanie Smith explained: "Comedy depends on the break with rational order, it dislocates perspectives and juxtaposes separate actions as if they correspond, disoriented sensation creates random mosaic patterns and disquieting layers. can deconstruct".
Farsa y artificio (Farce and Artifice 2006) takes its name from the work of Smith, an installation that incorporates several paintings placed facing each other. This work raises recurrent themes and interests in his work, especially the relations between modernity and its reclassification. In his work Smith displays a continuous game between farce (in the sense of the absurd, mockery or parody) and artifice (understood as artificiality and deception, ultimately, as the article of reason) and applies these concepts to contemporary society and what has been called "baroque modernity".
Until October 7th , Farsa and Artifcio take the rooms of the MACBA.
