Eriz Moreno artistic practice is mainly related to historical-political contexts and their effect on a specific population or landscape and with a work format based on the creation of files (of photographs, videos, books, objects, etc.). The sum of these conditions gives him the method to face creative decisions individually in each project (taking into account: what, how, where and why) and its subsequent exhibition, usually in the form of an installation and/or publication.
Because of his interest in creating artworks related to the territory he has received several grants and awards to carry out projects in Armenia, Austria, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iran, Macau, Poland, Romania, Russia, Turkey, USA and former Yugoslavian republics… but not in Spain. Because of his personal connection to Spain, he cannot take a “safe distance” to its historical background. In relation to his interest in the publications related to the territory and landscape in September 2020 he defended his PhD: The road trip and the photo essay as place experiences (United States of America, 1958 – 2012). Although he focused the research on the USA, the investigation is a reflection of his own practice. As an example of this method and as precursors to the presented project, he would highlight his previous projects (attached in previous works dossier): “Projekt Beton” (2011 – 2017), “18/19/2013” (2013 – 2014) and “Fest der Millionen / Werk der Millionen” (2013 – 2018). All of them are related to history and the display is based on a collection of chosen archive objects and images. At the moment he is finishing a publication titled “Berlin (America),” where he shows the photographs taken on a road trip with the objective of visiting and cataloguing all the USA communities called “Berlin,” there are thirty Berlins in total.
Among the exhibitions held after 2013 stand out the individual exhibitions: “Projekt Beton” at the Żak Gallery in Gdańsk (Poland, 2013), the Regional Museum of Szczecinek (Poland, 2013), and Ariz Culture Center (Spain, 2018); “18/19/2013” on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations made in the public space of Leipzig (Germany, 2013) and at BilbaoArte Foundation (Spain, 2014); “Bratstvo/Jedinstvo” at Sala Rekalde (Bilbao, 2016), Torrene Culture Center (Spain, 2017) and Noáin Culture Center (Spain, 2018); “Du – Dein Leben – Deine Zeit” in Kultur Leioa (Spain, 2020) a cooperation project about comparing the image of women in “women’s magazines” from the 1960’s in Spain and the German Democratic Republic; and Transfăgărăan in Cervantes Institute of Bucharest (Romania, 2020), where he exhibited the photographic analysis of a road trip.
Remarkable collective exhibitions include: “Horizon” (2013) at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (Spain), “9.980 km. El horizonte que nos separa” (2014) at DA2 Center of Contemporary art of Salamanca (Spain), “Wo wir sind (Donde estamos)” (2015) in D21 Kunstraum Leipzig (Germany) and “…at least a provisional way to settle somewhere” (2017) at Montehermoso Cultural Center in Vitoria (Spain), an initiative of San Sebastian 2016, European City of Culture; and the participation in the following art festivals: “Meeting Point” (2015) at the Kunstverein Konstanz (Germany) and Kunstraum Kreuzlingen (Switzerland), during the 600th anniversary of the Council of Konstanz; and “Home Sick Home” (2018) in Kitzscher (Germany).
Exhibition “Beograd?” Ostavinska gallery, Belgrade 20-26. November 2020.
Eriz Moreno Aranguren (*1982, Bilbao, Spain), Spain/Finland-based artist, at the time at an artistic residency in Belgrade. He shows his new project which continues in his long-term focus on documentation and interpretation of his own experience with the territory, history, and also present situation and its reflection to public space.
During the last six years, he has been traveling around former Yugoslavian countries taking photos and collecting archive materials that then used for his final artworks resulted in several exhibitions in Germany, Slovenia and Spain. He purposely works with contexts that have very different meanings for different people and he presents them in their neutral way letting people read them by themselves. In this sense, he is not trying to let the audience see what he sees (as an author with a distant view), but he provides the outputs and lets the audience form their own opinion: a combination of symbols referring to different visions of reality.
In his new project for Magacin, Eriz Moreno presents a series of photos taken around Belgrade which could be seen as distorted reflections of places that could exist in the imagination of the audience very individually, strongly as well as neutrally.
This time the author intends to be as distant as possible with the territory. But is it even achievable to find a place without memory?
Curator: Kateřina Lenzová
Belgrade Artist in Residence 