Appropriation of fragments - Solo exhibition (Ascaso Gallery) Miami

"Fragments" Part extracted or preserved, broken or detached , in this case decontextualized and modified for the adoption of new concepts.
A language that Javier Martin has been researching and developing for more than a decade, an extension of his "blindness" concept where he explores through the appropriation of advertising images and icons, apparently perfect symbols of a standard of beauty in contemporary society, deconstructing these images to create a contrast between consumption and technology.

In appropriation of fragments, Martin uses the space to create a dialogue between the individual fragments and their collective composition that forms the whole, transforming the gallery into a theater filled with fragments, representing the information overload of our time.
A society created of fragments of information driven by advertising, technology and social media, questioning the veracity of what we recognize, through the use of appropriation, cutting, alteration and reflection, accentuating their emptiness; including the viewer in the scene and transforming them into a part of the fragments that invite self-reflection.

This exhibition is composed of three different body of works, where we can find a journey that shows the interdisciplinarity of the artist. From the installation Alma, part of the permanent collection of the Seoul Museum, which consists of a cube covered with mirrors where the viewer is reflected through the appropriated images stamped on them and illuminated by neon, a material appropriated by Martin who considered it a form of public writing, unassociated with art, and traditionally associated with popular culture.

He invites the viewer to step into a room where he has conceptually removed the walls, replacing them with unlimited light and space. Eliminating the barriers society imposes, which fill our minds with banal and insignificant thoughts, keeping us trapped and unable to realize the potential that exists beyond.

In contraposition to the installation, the body of work “CUT” first presented by the artist in Shanghai in 2015, a thought-provoking series that challenges our preconceptions about the power of celebrity and the way we consume media.
Creating iconic hand-cut photographs, technique inspired by The Chinese tradition of paper cutting, giving importance to the use of the negative space and the contraposition between wholeness and emptiness.

Conceptual Poetry - Solo project curated by Arta (Art Central) Hong Kong

Conceptual poetry

For the passed 15 years I have been working on my Blindness collection, which explores throught the appropiation of advertisement imagery of seemingly perfect symbols of a standard of beauty in contemporary society, and deconstruct this seemingly perfect image to create a contrast between consumption and technology.

This new body of work, creates a bridge between my conceptual work, that has last been seen in 2015 in the exhibition “War, Consumption and Other Human Hobbies”, and the vision of my work in the present time, Simplifying all the elements that I have been exploring and analyzing, adding a more personal message, with writings and archives that I have been collecting throughout the years that are also the fundaments of my artistic expression.

For years I questioned how I could simplify my work, and instead bring forward the hidden messages that were behind the bold images.

I also analyzed how I could visually deconstruct all the information overload and the visual pollution that surrounds us. In a world where media acquires relevance and our lives are dominated by social media.

Conceptual Poetry, is the foundation of my exploration of using language as the material and transforming the appropriation of advertising and light into the appropriation of language. To whom words and language belong to? Each of us owns the interpretation and the means by which we relate to them. However, in reality, are we the owners of those moments, or is language a part of the manipulation? When we see a word, what do we feel? What do we think of it? Does that moment transport us somewhere? And does our perception change when the word is larger or smaller or changes color or shape?

In conceptual poetry I propose a search from simplicity and irony, creating a door for the viewer to connect with themselves using verbal codes, proposing a dialogue with themselves through questions about issues of our socio-cultural environment such as politics, stereotypes, power and society of cosumerism.

In these new bodies of work, there is a fine line where traditional materials such as paint, wood, clay, and paper are the support of language and words are the connectors between them, an open book without a cover where the viewer organizes the words freely to create their own story through mirrors, pieces of clay that fall from the sky or words that appear in the works impulsed by air.

3650 Storage - 인터뷰 10th Anniversary (Seoul Museum) Seoul, South Korea

ART TAIPEI 2022 (333 GALLERY) TAIPEI, TAIWAN

Skin Deep - SOLO EXHIBITION (ASCASO GALLERY) Caracas , Venezuela

INTI-PUNKU - Group exhibition (Strouk Gallery) Paris, France

Baanai / Javier Martin - Duo Exhibition (Maki Gallery) ISETAN The Space,Tokyo, Japan

Cute Tunes for Serious Sapiens - Group exhibition (Ascaso Gallery) Miami

Takeru Amano. Javier Martin. Masako Miki. Noritoshi Mitsuuchi.

Cute Tunes for Serious Sapiens

Ascaso Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming show, Cute Tunes for Serious Sapiens, featuring the work of Javier Martin, Masako Miki, Noritoshi Mitsuuchi and Takeru Amano, four artists who explore their “inner child” while connecting to a great contemporary dialogue. Escaping the confines of art education and art history hierarchies, they create a bridge between high and low, popularity and singularity, allowing viewers into their private visions through an idiosyncratic yet accessible vocabulary.

The most obvious connection between these artists is the influence of Japanese anime and manga. But that is only a starting point, a generalization, that becomes ever more complicated when the viewpoints of each artist are investigated. For example, Takeru Amano blends classicism and pop culture in his depictions of women from western art history, rendered graphically in the style of Super-flat as defined by Pop star-master Takashi Murakami. Similarly, Noritoshi Mitsuuchi has studied western and Japanese traditions—pop and classical—looking for a certain sense of what he calls “Kawaiism” or Cutism. His paintings bear resemblance to children’s drawings or more correctly, an adult’s version of a child’s imagination as found in coloring books and cartoons.

Masako Miki makes three-dimensional objects that seem at first glance to be merely playful and humorous. Yet, she embraces as a primary influence the animism of Shintoism, such as yōkai or shapeshifters, believing that these folklore creatures presciently foresee today’s interest in nonbinary, transitory beings. And finally, Javier Martin, the only artist here not born in Japan but who has worked extensively in that country, explores a similar merger of old and new with his “Blindness” portraits, combinations of paint, print making and neon. The blast of light before his subject’s eyes might be read as a metaphor for the delusion of mass culture; it also mimics the flash of a camera, blinding even the participants in selfies. Together, this group of four creates an exhibition that is reminiscent of walking into a kindergarten on the one hand, or into a dynamic studio practice, on the other.

The strength of this show is precisely that—the way it taps into childhood memories of unfettered creativity. It celebrates the artist’s conscious ability to register images from dreams and the sub-conscience with unselfconscious ease. Or at least, that is true for this quartet of innovators. Collectively, they comment on today’s mass culture which both inflates narcissism and childlike desires as well as threatening to erase the individual and idiosyncratic impulses in art. From the artworks on view, we can see that these brave souls retain their individualism while acknowledging life in a very contemporary meta-world.

BARBARA POLLACK

Lights Appropriation - Solo exhibition (Pulpo Gallery) Murnau, Germany

Javier Martin: Lights Appropriation

By Cezara-Maria Casian

At this stage of his 15-year process of creating the iconic Blindness collection, Javier Martin presents a continuation of this series: it concerns the appropriation of light, the struggle and contraposition of natural, artificial, and reflected light, and the visual definition of the complex characteristics of light. 

Within the beauty of the seductive models lies the falseness per se: these women have been taken out of their world context of spotlights and placed as illusions for the viewer between idyllic landscapes and cold neon lights. They are portrayed as serene, often exotic and belonging to almost all beauty ideals. With the help of their beauty and self-confidence, they seduce and, at the same time, force the viewers to take place in their world: behind the light, in total blindness and delusion.

What our eyes perceive as natural turns out to be artificial upon a closer inspection: precisely executed paper collages torn vandalically and greedily from Spanish advertising posters create richly textured sections and a tangible three-dimensionality. The artificiality can also be observed in the models' garments and within surrounding elements of blue-gray water and emerald-green vegetation. Together they may be seen as a definition of advertising and the false world.

Behind charming gestures, tempting faces, glowing neon lights and vibrant landscape elements, natural light oscillates in a dance of death with a false light. Javier Martin chooses as the background of his paintings the breathtaking depictions of light metamorphosis throughout the day: from the pure, poetic sunrises, the brightest, dispersive lights of the noon, to the romantic, faded dawns and the darkest nights with a bright full moon.

Javier Martin pursues the immortalization of changing natural light, unstoppable time, the ephemeral of fleeting moment and beauty. The artist creates complex and multi-layered compositions with a pronounced balance within the textures, contrasts, and compositional constructions. Through excellent skills, meticulous research and observation of the daylight, Martin presents precise and exceptional colour studies using aerosols, acrylic and oil paints. 

Viewers are placed before an intellectually demanding task: they must identify the dichotomy of light, question the power of artificial light and advertising, and confront and criticize accordingly. 

Javier Martin is to be understood as a mediator and observer of our society. He brings together conventional elements from our everyday life, combining them in artful compositions and letting the viewers raise autocritical questions. He invites viewers to discover what lies behind each element and explore the expressive and thought-provoking message that remains hidden at first glance.

CryptoPunks Vs Blindness - Group exhibition (Art Life) Miami

Blindness CryptoPunks

For over a decade, Javier Martin has been working on the appropriation of elements from the language of advertising and deconstructing the perceived perfection and inspire self-reflection, in this case Martin is appropriating of the image of “Crypto-Punks” transforming it to Blindness, creating his first NFT collection, he offers a reflection on perception and concepts such as beauty and value, concepts somewhat elusive and ambiguous in today’s society.

At first, it might appear that the images follow stereotypes found in the marketing, advertising and symbols of mass culture; however, a second glance reveals that the artist’s intention is precisely to question the veracity of messages communicated by these images.

Our present-day culture is dominated by a visuality in which appearance is much more important than content.

SKIN IN THE GAME - Group exhibition (Gallery HZ) Hong Kong

Co-curated by Arta

ICONIC - Group exhibition at Seoul Museum, South Korea

ICONIC ; 아이코닉

Artists : Salvador Dali, Javier Martin, Kim Dong Yoo, Kim Sang Woo, Robert Indiana

스타들은 스스로가 원하는 모습보다 대중의 소비 목적을 위해 요구되는 이미지가 더 강하기에 실제의 삶이 희생되어야 하는 경우도 많았습니다. 대중적 이미지와 한 인간의 삶. 그 괴리 속을 살면서도 카메라 앞에서 시대의 아이콘들은 웃음을 잃지 않습니다.

아이콘들을 만나보며 스타들의 삶과 상징. 그리고 그 안에서 거울 처럼 비춰지는 우리의 모습을 돌아보는 시간을 가져보길 바랍니다.

Photos by : Kwangchan Song

We Dance You Mean - Group exhibition (Cerquone Gallery) Madrid

“We Dance ,You mean”

Curated by : Jordi Pallarés

Cerquone Gallery Madrid

INTERAZIONI -Group exhibition (A Pick Gallery) Turin, Italy

INTERAZIONI 

curated by Sara Liuzzi

Linee di connessione tra luce e suono Carlo Bernardini, Giulio De Mitri, Javier Martin, Paolo Scirpa

Solo exhibition at Koo House Museum, South Korea

Blindness, a Solo exhibition by Spanish artist Javier Martin will be presented at the Koo House Private Museum in Yangpyeong, South Korea.

Javier Martin presents his second Solo Museum show in Korea, at The Koo House Museum, following his first Museum show at The Seoul Museum last year, since then his iconic series Blindness has also traveled and has taken place in Andong Cultural Center and Tri-Bowl Art Space in Incheon, sponsored by the South Korean Ministry of Culture.

Photos by : Kwangchan Song

Alma- A Room Without Walls Public Installation (TEAF20) Ulsan, South Korea

“Blindness Alma : A room without walls” at TEAF 2020

Javier Martin has been selected as one of the 18 artist to participate on the 2020 TEAF Art Festival.
The one and only outdoor Installations Art Festival in Korea with history of 13 years.
It takes place at The Migratory Bird Park at Taehwa River National Garden in Ulsan city, Korea.


Martin will present his installation “Blindness Alma : a room without walls” for the first time outdoors, connecting with nature and taking the installation into a different dimension.

Blindness Alma - A room without walls, is an installation that encapsulates Javier Martin's Blindness Concept into a transcendental physical space, composed of mirrors and light that is simultaneously ethereal and unsettling.

He invites the viewer to step into a room where he has conceptually removed the walls, replacing them with unlimited light and space. Eliminating the barriers society imposes, which fill our minds with banal and insignificant thoughts, keeping us trapped, and unable to realize the potential that exists beyond.

This piece will not only test the concept of perception but inspire self-reflection. Blindness Alma will allow viewers to interact with the work, become a part of the art, and discover a pure reality.

The transcendental problem of light is that it is merely a reflection. So the ultimate goal for the viewer is not to focus on the glowing neon light but search within for something more profound beyond those lights. To look inside and outside of oneself to question societal views of self-worth as well as their perspectives.

Photos by : Kwangchan Song

Blindness -Solo exhibition at Tri-bowl Art Space in Incheon, Korea

The Incheon Cultural Foundation and the Seoul Museum present Blindness

The Incheon Cultural Foundation and The Seoul Museum are pleased to present the solo exhibition Blindness by Javier Martin at Tri-bowl Art Space in Incheon, Korea.This exhibition considers the powerful role of vision and the visual in exploring different realms, seeking truth beyond the visible and the tangible, Blindness collection began in 2007 representing beauty standards in today’s society with images that might appear innocuously attractive lurks the intention of shaking up the status quo.Blindness has been presented at The Seoul Museum and at The Andong Arts and Culture Center, with the support of The Korean Culture & Arts Center Association, Incheon Cultural Foundation and The Seoul Museum of Art, it would now take place at the Tri-Bowl Art Space in Incheon Korea which is the most important Cultural Center in Incheon.

Photos by : Kwangchan Song

Intra Moenia – Cattelani Collections (Campori Castle of Soliera) Modena, Italy

Curated by Lorenzo Respi

Blindness -Solo exhibition (Audemars Piguet House) Madrid

Solo "Borderless Artist Project" at Andong Arts & Culture Center, Korea

2019 Andong Arts & Culture Center Special Exhibition Borderless Artist Project - Javier Martin : Blindness