Artist: Aggtelek
Dates: January 27th to February 9th

“The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible” – Allan Kaprow

With a simple sentence like the one of the quote, Allan Kaprow – U.S. artist known by his work at the 50’s – established the funds of the happenings and the performances. His artistic actions, breaking with the past pictorial tradition, were focused in the daily space and the actions developed inside it. Keeping always the rule of the “less is more” he created a tendency in the action art, the anti-art and the anti-artist, which influenced in such important artistic tendencies as the Fluxus, or the well known as the shaman-artist of the performances Joseph Beuys. With the mythical sentence which prayed “A walk down 14th street is more amazing than any masterpiece of art” he gave way to tendencies like sweeping a forest or just to cook as action art, breaking off the tradition of years and years of heavy statements of what the art should or should not be.
Similarly the Aggtelek artistic duo, formed by Xandro Vall’s and Gema Perales, introducing their new show at the Ponce+Robles gallery from Madrid, inherit a rule that for some people is as valid as the first day it was established, since for others responds to the past century, full of an innovation that has been left behind. “Now a day governs the rule of the art market, and that cannot be. We all have to participate of some tendencies, but do not have to surrender before them” tells as he is thinking about the idea of the show “Happy Palace Restaurant”.
Keeping the tradition of some of their videographic Works with paperboard boxes, in which we could assist through the screen to the construction of an space made to be destroyed. Now they take the idea one step forward “or one step back” as he says so, making the public participant of their living sculpture, creating a space where the traditional concept of art and the white cube has been obliterated. With this sardonic intention, which we could also watch at their last paintings and drawings – works with a powerful contra cultural and a soft contra market message – they transform the gallery into a noodles stall, bringing back to us some of the rebel notions which made the art of the second half of the twentieth century so great.
While to some might be an expression that falling into an almost absurd humor, it does not mean that is logic less. Highlighting once again messages as the one of their painting titled Buy, of 2017, without noticing their conceptual evolution, “Happy Palace Restaurant”, moves us to a place where the art and life mix. Inviting us to enjoy the Asian food Aggtelek speaks about the cheap mercantilism that the art market is in fact, Talking and shooting of everything and everyone as shooters from the position the artists enjoy.
With the challenge “come and see – if you dare to” the Aggtelek wobble the conceptions of the public, moving to a show that won’t leave anybody indifferent.