Santa Cruz de Juarros,
He conceives the book (recurring and almost unique reason in its production) as an element subject to multiple subjectivities: as an artistic object to represent in photographs, sculptures and videos; as an ergonomic and anthropological object; as a container of the passage of time; and as a symbol of man’s thought. Also as a way of occupying a space, as a metaphor for the physical volume of knowledge. But not any specimen serves Alicia Martín, who thoroughly selects those he uses, stopping to define those that in his compositions the viewer can see and those who do not, those who are better to have open or, on the contrary, showing its cover.
In some cases these books portray us and, very often in their creations, are part of a equilibrium game, especially in those facilities that seem to challenge the strength of gravity. Balance is also the axis of the proposal Site specific That this Madrid author offers this summer, by the hand of the Rafael Pérez Hernando gallery, in the Burgos Monastery of Santa María de Bujedo de Juarros, where that room has been presenting summer projects for four years.
His work is called Counterweightbut this time the harmony of forces alludes is both symbolic and material and is established among the architectures of this place, with eternal religious and spiritual implications, and the artistic gesture (fleeting) that mandate Martin’s creations. He has also sought to link, in the first land, two elements that carry with them different forms of permanence: on the one hand, their books, the support that makes knowledge endured; on the other, the stones of the monastery, which was restored. We said that the texts used in their case are carefully chosen: for this Burgos exhibition he has taken the complete works, in two volumes, of the French monk Bernardo de Claraval, which was fundamental in the configuration of the spiritual principles of the Cistercian order, to which this complex belonged, and in addition to the architectural approach of his convents.
These complete works, I and II, are now immersed in water, one on each side of the apse, subjecting its written word to the effects of the liquid on the porosity of the paper. Gradually, the resistance of the book – subject to natural forces – is being defeated, and what was fixed and immutable form (the writings of the past) becomes an emblem of continuous mutation. To witness these changes, yes, the public will have to adopt an attitude of patient contemplation, in a new reference by Martin to the ways of life of those who dwelt in bushing.
Alicia Martín. “Counterweight”
Monastery of Santa María de Bujedo de Juarros
Santa Cruz de Juarros, Burgos
From June 7 to September 28, 2025
