Under the conceptual project “Sincerely”, Xènia Magraner invites us to think about what will happen if some morning, when we wake up we are not able to answer the simplest question ¿Who are you?
INTRODUCCIÓN;
It’s not easy for anyone to talk about themselves, especially if it hurts. No one gets to know us better than we do, empathizing costs more and more if we are not the main character. Our problem is that we don’t appreciate anything we have, we live in a materialistic, forgetful and carefree society. We cheerfully dance with our overflowing ego, waiting for popcorn to see our life runs in front of us, we don’t invest our time, we waste it. We put so much information into our heads that we leave no room for anything else. Then we think about ourselves as intelligent beings. Nothing we have lasts in time, not even ourselves.. I do not pretend to judge you, I was like this as well, until I lost the most valuable thing I had, and I had never appreciated. I lost myself. I tied with that grandfather who does not remember because he fell in love with the mother of his children. I saw on me the reflection of a child who still does not know how to ride a bike. I was shipwrecked from my own memories. No one understands anything until they live it, but art leads us to imagine, to tell any story, without expecting them to believe us. Between these walls you will not contemplate detailed portraits made with charcoal, you will not delight in detailed landscapes painted with oil, nor will you admire the body of a woman carved in marble. I don’t want you to put yourselves in the shoes of anyone but yourself. I want you to strip your mind of any social influence and stand alone before yourselves. I invite you to understand what you want to understand, this is art, free from judgment, as we should be. I’m just asking you when you get out of here, to make him aware that you have more than a wallet, a key or a cell phone.
Xènia Magraner.
KINTSUGI
Serie of photography
“I have been with you all this time. I am the nose that you stare at constantly but ignore. Observe me. I’m all that you are. I’m in your history, because you wanted or maybe it was by accident, even it’s possible that you have hated me always.. Anyway, the case is since I know you I haven’t separated myself from you ever. Everyone of your memories I also have lived. some directly and others in directly. I’m sorry if I’ve damaged you at times. I never wanted to make you cry and for that I will always be eternally grateful to you because you took care of me when I needed it. I am made to your measure.”
Here you can find the PDF with the photografies >> KINTSUGI
PORTALS
Intervention of wood and crystal
“Once someone very similar to you was exactly where you are right now. He got locked up in a dark room and sometimes he even seems to know how he had got there. He took a while to realize that what he was looking for, was just in front of his nose. Like most people, we search for an emergency exit behind a door. You were a jugde and also the accused. Carrying both the scale and weight, forgetting that you always were beautiful. You never looked to you yourself, you never looked whom you are and what you are. Do you think that someone has judged you? No way! Only you upon your actions and the opinions of others have judged yourself. Where would you hide yourself, if you had lifes essence? And more importantly, with what eyes would you look through? You will never understand the answer if you don’t formulate well the suitable question. Remember that I always have been your only exit. Find me again.”
“I am that ‘what a asswhole’, the blood running angry in your veins. To persuade you always was easy, but don’t tell it anyone. Take drugs and fly. You can’t avoid me. I’m the curiosity that killed the cat. You are going to fail. I’m the demon laughing on your right shoulder.Don’t do it, it’s a loss of time”
“You just blame in people that you can not accept about yourself. You have been slave and jailer of your own life all this time. I am just impulses”
TIME OUT
Oil on canvas
“You never appear too soon, as neither you arrive too late. You depend of me, because you have wanted it. Stop blaming me. I don’t have the power to control all of you movements, neither to limit your acts. I am not who has stolen your precious moments, I do not rule what happen. I never was able to choose anything what has happened and I will not able to avoid what is coming. I have just gave you a date, an hour, a number marked in history. That is all.
You have created the need to think about me constantly, and the truth is that you do not need me like I do not need you either, I have attended all your ‘evolution’, as you call it. Over the years I have grown witness to your births and deaths I have settled within each of your sighs, and in all your lives. When you created me, you gave me the immortality which you lack. I’m just an idea that the man has invented and, for this reason, I will never die. You will.
I can not help you, nobody can go back, even not me. I can not ease your pain, how long the suffering lasts only you decide it. I can not give you more than I do, because if you would more, you would not need to ask. You do not owe me anything.
I am the lord of the last row, the silent guest of your eternities.”
REMEMBER ME
Short film
Music: Jocelyn Pook – “Hallelujah”
“Is true that you never appreciated me, you never looked straight away to my eyes. I always was that friend who observes all your movements in your ego’s shadow. You were my puppeteer. You gave me trash, maps and maps filled of places in ruins. Damn dictator of memories! I do not owe you anything! Without me you are lost.
But I always was with you.
I know I failed you thousand times, puting you at a disadvantage more than once. I know a lof of nights I made you cry, playing with those hugs I swore to keep locked. Even I betrayed you, saying that name that one day we decided to forget. I was the threads you never tied. You do not owe me anything. Without you I do not exist.
But you always was with me.
We have share everything to each other. You have given every single moment of your life. We have been hell, purgatory and paradise. We were the monozygotic brothers, the best friends, the perfect couple, the dog and the cat. We were dejavu, wakefulness and lethargy. Without us we are no one.
I am with you.”
ETERNITIES
Silicone and resin molds, acrylic paint
To Antonio, because looking for him in heaven he taught me to keep my head high.
To Emilia, because her laugh is still alive.
To Eulalia and Mariano, because they should be eternal.
INTERVIEW
Everything always has a meaning, even what does not.
50% of the time we do not perceive it and the rest we question it, just because we do not understand it.
What is in these sheets will only interest the curious of art, the mind addict, the social critics, theones who invests in mysteries, the hunter of stories, the thief of secrets, the restless explorer of spirit, the philosopher, the psychologist, who has been having questions while walking these walls, who wants more, you. You are looking for answers. Maybe the “how”, the “why” or maybe the “for what”. Whatever your question is, there will be no ellipsis.
Lets start from the beginning..
All roads lead to Rome, as all letters go to the same mailbox, they are addressed to the viewer, or rather, to each of the viewers who have read them, and therefore to him, to her and to you.
¿The sender? It is not “who” wrote it, but rather “what”.
The letters accompany the pieces and give us clues, they help the viewer to connect with each of those parts that we do not value what we have, and that are really, who we are.
It is complex and risky to speak on their behalf. Think about it. If you had forgotten who you are and a part of you, of everything you are, of your body, your mind.. it was personified. If it had name, body or even Facebook. What would your thoughts think? What would your scars tell? What would your memories confess?
1. KINTSUGI Photography. 20cmx25cm, 18cmx15cm, 10cmx15cm.
Photographies are stories. Thousands and thousands. They are portraits, and memories. Each of the people who posed in front of my camera delighted me with a story; some with dramatic content, others with comical anecdotes. But paradoxically, I did not want to put any of the narratives on paper, instead, I personified those details, contemplated the possibility that, through them, the viewer would be able to pay attention to the story that his own skin tells to the memory of each of the pores that form it. Scars assure us that the past was real.
We wear clothes that do not represent us, and we forget the suit that constitute us.
2.PORTALS Intervention of crystal and wood, 100cmx70cm.
It is the exit door when we need to escape, and the window of the soul when we want to return. When we are facing a problem or a decision, it is with ourselves who we are really facing who. There are no back doors. We strive to seek solutions in other land, when it is in ourselves where we always find the answers.
Cuando nos encontramos frente a un problema o una decisión, es con nosotros mismos con quien nos enfrentamos realmente. No hay puertas traseras. Nos empeñamos en buscar soluciones en otras tierras, cuando es en nosotros mismos donde hayamos siempre las respuestas.
Discovering it is a matter of putting aside what prevents us from seeing and risking looking ourselves directly in the eyes.
3.DEAD TIME Oil on canvas. 45cmx36cm
ETime is another of the absurd creations of the human being. A watch only has power if it has arrows, without them, it would just be a bunch of numbers arranged in a circle. A painting can be anything, as long as you wish.
The colours and shapes that make up the work were a dilemma. How could I determine if what happened was beneficial or detrimental to me? Was it a blow or a lesson? It was and is so nebulous, so ephemeral everything..
The time it marks is one of the few autobiographical elements implicit in project and is therefore the nucleus and starting point of this story, it was the exact moment when I lost my memory.
4.REMEMBER ME Short Movie.
When I lost my memory and I tried to explain to a friend how I was feeling, I could not find a more suitable example than the loss of an accomplice, loyal and romantic love. I imagined what type of relationship we would had at that moment if my own memory had a physic body. Maybe losing her in such an intermittent and precise way made me connect with her. I felt like the child to whom you offer a piece of candy and take it away later. I could see how I were like without her and.. I idealized her. The main reason for me being the actress was only matter of budget and, since I never intended to explicitly tell me story, I gave my role to him. I would give life to my memory; fragile and powerful. He, the desire to recover a unique romance, the ruins after the storm. He would be the channel, the conducting body, the shoes in which I want you to imagine wearing. The story is not the trailer of a Shakespearean heartbreak, it is the review of a chapter in any body, it is a brief summary of what I personally came to feel.
The song is “Halleluhaj” by Jocelyn Pook, it was the last song I heard when I fell to the ground, the melody in which I lost my memory.
5.ETERNITIES Resin and silicone molds, acrylic. 15cmx15cmx12cm
There is an oriental animated movie titled “Princess Mononoke”, in which these magical creatures called “kodamas” appear. These beings are spirits of Japanese mythology known as the guardians of the forest, and they only show themselves when a place is pure and safe, familiar.
Their presence here is the cry of empathy, the security that we, sometimes, doubt we have. The purity of the feelings and thoughts that have been told here, but above all, they are an allegory to the memory of the lost. In Eastern philosophy it is said that the ancestors themselves observe and accompany you on the way, they never abandon you, granting you protection and good luck, and for this reason, they deserve to be venerated and honored. That is why there are two of them and they do not carry a letter, because I could not speak on their behalf. They are my grandparents, Antonio and Emilia.
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