There is Nothing in the Middle

Patricia Domínguez and Beatriz Olabarrieta
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21.02 - 24.05.2020

Tuesday - Sunday, 10 am - 20 pm

Planta 5

Rafael Barber Cortell is in charge of CentroCentro’s second annual curatorial project, Absolute Beginners, in which he has invited six artists to put on three exhibitions working in pairs: Tai Shani and Florence Peake; Beatriz Olabarrieta and Patricia Domínguez; and Ludovica Carbotta and Diego Delas.

The second episode of this series, There Is Nothing in The Middle, endeavours to echo the present day, the way in which we set out and narrate our story today. For this reason, it distances itself from the collaborative format of Andromedan Sad Girl to present two individual exhibitions, which coexist in the same space and together construct a place of encounter with the visitor. Beatriz Olabarrieta and Patricia Domínguez propose two independent projects, one on either side of the 5th floor of CentroCentro. While Patricia Domínguez’s work investigates the encounters and clashes between cultures that take place in the global world by looking at the different ways of understanding healing and care, Beatriz Olabarrieta's practice navigates the space of communication and its discords, trying to find rebellious forms of translation that she transforms into tools capable of creating other narratives. This exhibition enters into a dialogue with two ways of making the world, two ways that exist in the now but never actually touch each other; two narratives that, as happens in the present, are constructed sideways, leaving the space in between as a place from which to take a position. 

Combining experimental research on ethnobotany, curative practices and the corporatisation of wellbeing, Patricia Domínguez's (Santiago de Chile 1984) work focuses on tracking relationships of work, affection, obligation and emancipation between living species in an increasingly corporate cosmos. Her main projects have been exhibited at the Gasworks (London); Momenta Biennale (Canada); Pizzuti Museum (Ohio); El futuro no es lo que va a pasar, sino lo que vamos a hacer (The future is not what is going to happen, but what we are going to do), ARCO, Solo Projects Focus Latinoamérica ARCO, and Twin Gallery (all in Madrid); Seoul Museum of Art SeMA (Seoul); Museo del Barrio, Bronx Museum, The Clemente (all in New York). She recently received the AMA Foundation Grant (2017), the Media Art Award from the Telefonica Foundation, and 3rd Prize in the Norberto Griffa Awards (both in 2014), among others. She holds a master’s degree in Studio Art from Hunter College, New York (2013) and a Certificate in Botanical and Natural Science Illustration from the New York Botanical Garden NYBG (2011). She is currently the director of the ethnobotanical platform Studio Vegetalista.

Beatriz Olabarrieta (Bilbao, 1979) lives and works between London and Berlin. She holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Deusto, another in Sculpture from the Wimbledon School of Art (London) and a master’s degree in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art (London). Her solo exhibitions in 2019 include: Bielefelder Kunstverein, (Bielefeld), 2019; Espai 13, Joan Miró Foundation, (Barcelona). Previous solo exhibitions include: Ask the Dust, Museum of Contemporary Art of Santa Barbara, California, 2018-19; New Clear Family, Frankfurt am Main, (Berlin, 2018); The only way out is in, The Sunday Painter, (London) 2017; Book! Don't tell me what to do, Parallel Oaxaca, CDMX (2017); Dumb Bells, Saturdays Live, Serpentine Galleries, (London), UK, 2016; Cosmic Clap, MOT International, London (2015).

See Madre Drone, by Patricia Dominguez, on Flickr
See Medium, by Beatriz Olabarrieta, on Flickr