The New York Times –which has dedicated one whole page to this artist on its Sunday edition– focused on his astonishing intervention on the external walls of the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere in Rome. His disturbing characters and mutant creatures occupied the rooftop of the Real Academia de España in Rome and, successively, several facades of calle Ballesta in Madrid. Now, Santiago Morilla (Madrid, 1973) takes the leap ‘from the street to the museum’.
«Based on the semantic introduction of one piece chosen from the Santander Collection –an Alcora ceramic ornamental vase with handles in the shape of the head and horns of ram– and another from the funds of the Museo ABC –’Cabeza de cabra’, by Fernando López Herencia–, the exhibition Ornamento y Detonación aims to explore the relationship between psychic and physics, between the internal space –slowly consumed– and the external space –of uncontrollable detonation–, between the formal limits of a profusely ornamented organic bomb and the private fact of its own combustion», explains Santiago Morilla. «Apparently, the two pieces are unrelated and distant, both by origin and by nature, date of creation, destination and use. In a way, they’re only related by the eventual circumstantial repetition –in both pieces– of a common iconographic element: the horned head», explains the coordinator of Conexiones, Óscar Alonso Molina, on the exhibition catalogue. And he continues, «However, this is only an anecdotic start point which will lead Morilla to pose, throughout the expositive development, a profound contemplation on ornaments and violence».
More than 30 drawings –small and large– function as is they were descriptions of the new ‘bomb prototypes’ –‘bomb men’–, as they hide their internal burden under a dense ornamentation. They will also be accompanied by 6 volumetric reproductions in wax –where Morilla’s distinctive characters acquire three dimensions for the first time– and 6 stop-motion videos of their explosive, evolutionary and degenerative processes. Thread tangles outline his mutant creatures, born to inhabit the rooms of the Museo ABC. The artist will also perform a site-specific feature, in union with his urban interventions and his street art background.
Museum ABC, Amaniel 29-31. 28015 Madrid.
Tuesday through Saturday from 11 to 20 h. Sunday and holidays from 10 to 14 h.
