Vida de O. (Life of O.), by Lúa Coderch, is an exhibition that stems from an attempt to rethink how we understand human nature through the objectuality that surrounds us, which affects the construction of our identity. In contrast to strategies that attribute human traits to objects in an attempt to bring to life what is supposedly inanimate –a legacy rooted in the anthropocentric prerogative–, here we aspire to an inverse, albeit complementary exercise: a transposition of attributes, perceptions and feelings from the object to the human.

This transposition is undertaken –it couldn’t be otherwise– with an ironic approach. If, as Michel Serres says, the subject is born of the object, what are the different types of subject that we can define through our social relationship with objects? Which attributes of the inanimate appear in us? What similarities are there between object and human? How do these attributions work and what are the ideological manifestations that drive them? Could objects develop an empathetic relationship with us? Can language and speech lose their human connotations? Is it possible to resist the authority of discourse and, consequently, truly rethink based on a paradigm other than “ours”? With respect to these questions, Life of O. seeks not so much to offer an answer as to invoke a grey area wherein the distinction between subject and object, between presentation and representation, abandon the dialectical habitat with the aid of an intermediate and thus deliberately blurred space.

This exhibition is part of Mirror Becomes a Razor When It’s Broken, an annual curatorial project shaped as a process of collective sedimentation, in which the various artistic practices comprising the project act as layers of speculation regarding the materiality that makes up the world. Through four solo exhibition projects, this series seeks to literally materialise the various possibilities, reflections, itineraries and deviations that will arise during the work process with each of the guest artists: Lúa Coderch, Rubén Grilo, Josu Bilbao, Eva Fàbregas, Siegmar Zacharias, Agata Siniarska, Ariadna Guiteras and Claudia Pagès.

Lúa Coderch combines narrative and objectual practices in videos, performances and installations which she configures as research devices. Economic value and charisma, the relationship between the body and the voice, the desire to believe and the narrative of the memorable instant are some of the issues she deals with, displaying them both as material and fiction. Her work focuses on the superficial, aesthetic and phenomenological dimension of our shared life and its latent philosophical and political implications. Among her exhibitions it is worth noting [Shelter], Fundación BBVA (Madrid), 2018; The Girl With No Door On Her Mouth, Àngels Barcelona, 2018; [Shelter] As long as summer lasts, The Ryder (London), 2018; Souvenir (Onyx), Art institute Vienna, 2017; The Rainbow Statement, BGW (Barcelona), 2016; Night in a Remote Cabin Lit by a Kerosene Lamp, Àngels Barcelona, 2015; Oro, Fundació Suñol (Barcelona), 2014; La parte que falta, Bacelos (Madrid), 2014 and La montaña mágica, Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), 2013. She has also taken part in exhibitions such as As if we could scrape the color of the iris and still see, Twin gallery (Madrid), 2018; Imbalance, LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art (Gdańsk), 2017; Cambio de rumbo, Tabacalera (Madrid), 2017; TMRW, LACA (Los Angeles), 2017; Materia Prima, Fabra i Coats (Barcelona), 2017; Vacío perfecto, MUSAC (León), 2017; “…al menos un modo provisional de asentarse en un lugar”, Centro Cultural Montehermoso Kulturunea (Vitoria Gasteiz), 2017; Night in a Remote Cabin Lit by a Kerosene Lamp, Koroška galerija likovnih umetnosti (Slovenj Gradec), 2016; Archives and Power II, MSUV, Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina (Novi Sad), 2016; Especies de espacios, MACBA (Barcelona), 2016; The Air Was Full of Anticipation, La BF15 (Lyon), 2015; ¿Por qué no lo llamas entropía?, Encuentro de Cultura Contemporánea de Guadalajara (Mexico), 2015; El futuro no espera, La Capella (Barcelona), 2014; Divide & Conquer, SMART Project Space (Amsterdam), 2012; El espacio cósmico estaba ahí, en dos o tres centímetros, Bacelos (Madrid), 2013; Critical Botox in Times of 2.0 Feudalism, Pavilion, (Bucharest), 2012. She lives and works in Barcelona.

See the exhibition on Flickr