A path across the instincts
Instintos Distintos GlougauAIR – Berlin (Germany) From 8th to 12th July 2016
If we translate the word Instintos to English, instincts, we can find this defintion: the way people or animals naturally react or behave, without having to think or learn about it. Whereas if we translate Distintos, different, the dictionary will define it as: not the same or used when you think someone or something is unusual or shows bad judgment.
The use of both words together mean: the way people or animals naturally react or behave differently without having to think or learn about it.
This exhibition make visitors question the nature of certain impulses established as “normal” in a social context. It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is or where you were born. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, poor, young, elderly, sick, healthy, or unique. Everyone in the world holds an inherent set of instinctive behaviors.
The series of photos Hasta el último aliento by Seri Solanas is a good introduction to the basic instincts. Love, sex and appetite are represented on his photos. The use of food as a medium with which to represent art is especially easy to understand. Food and sex keep humans alive and lead to adaptive satisfaction as a human being, but love is something different.
The thing is, we can eat and have sex without other purposes than pleasure. This means that our sexual orientation and food references are governed by the environment and society. About this topic It will take a while, an instalation by Georgina Espasa, Guided by the society by Candela Paniagua, The liberation by Sara Ferrer, En la intimidad by Ana Guallart and the Belen Majdalani photos, represent the individual results of the “role model” that the society has established, as a negative aspect for the identity and personality of the human being. For example, the “gender role”, is a set of societal norms dictating what types of behaviours are generally considered acceptable, appropriate or desirable for a person based in their cultural or perceived sex or sexuality. The specifics regarding these gendered expectations may vary among the cultures, while other characteristics may be common throughout a range of cultures. Through the artworks exhibited by these artists, visitors can reflect what extent gender roles are socially constructed.
During the exhibition some instincts like curiosity, sexuality, fetishism, sociability, play, and imitation among others, were also represented by performances that invited us to experiment with the limits of consciousness about ways of social established behaviours with the intent of surprising.
Sexuality, found sometimes as a taboo theme in the society and especially in one cultures more than in others, is the perfect match to all of these artworks, but specifically connected with the theme we found artworks like Sexhibitionism by Jorge Benavides and Fuggerstresse by Diego Puerto. The artists want to express that repressing our sexual instincts causes sickness and frustration, but on the other hand accomplishing our fantasies allows our realization. Example of the repression include some cultural views on sexual pleasure within marriage and some views of other religions on avoidance of sexual pleasures. On the other hand, as a way to accomplish our fantasies, sexual fetishism, also represented in both works, refers to sexual interest in specific activities or objects.
But love is a different thing. Can it be described as an instinct? What is love? The beginning of something or the end of everything? It is mystery, privacy and away from customization. Photographers Irene Cruz and Sergi Solanas, and visual artist Ana Guallart have elicited a light in between different sides of love. The new beginning, body feelings, sentimental union and the end of something.
The beginning of something new is always exciting and could be easily represented by Broken Egg photo from Sergi Solanas. A start, a new born, a new love, a new life. Everything you can imagine, could just start now.
However Waldeinsamkeit, by Irene Cruz shows the woods with eyes similar to those of the German Romantics of the 19th century, a place for contemplation, made up of lights and shades, and paths that lead to the relief of the clearings or the isolation of luxury. The loneliness of the woods favors the encounter with the “transcendental me”, and Irene embraces it as an act of naïve gratitude. Meanwhile, a hand sinks in the lives while the other one grasps her own body feeling their differences, and feeling their union.
As a result of En la intimidad by Ana Guallart, described as a “vánitas” represented with a bunch of natural flowers. The flower is the reproductive organ, the sex, and the death. After some days the flowers will perish and so like the end of something, which inevitably expires.
Photo Credit: Sergi Solanas
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