Creation / Criticism / Media

Frederic Amat, Erick Beltrán, Mariana Castillo Deball, Ángela Molina and Pablo Santa Olalla

This workshop was part of the Study Sessions AFTER THE ARCHIVE: ARTWORK AND DOCUMENTS. 

Frederic Amat is a painter whose work defies any single form of categorization. His work has been exhibited and published all over the world. His open conception of painting has led him to integrate multiple artistic languages into his creative work. He has created sets for dance and theatre based on texts by García Lorca, Beckett, Juan Goytisolo, Koltès and Octavio Paz. He has directed and assembled the sets of the opera El viaje a Simorgh by Sánchez Verdú and the oratorios Oedipus Rex by Stravinsky/Cocteau and Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo by Caldara. He has also illustrated various literary works. In his interventions in architectural spaces, he has carried out projects that combine painting, sculpture and ceramics. He has also taken painting to the field of cinematography in films such as Viaje a la luna, Foc al cántir, El aullido, Danse noire and Deu dits.

The work of Erick Beltrán (Mexico City, Mexico, 1974) focuses on research and reflection on the concept of editing and discourse constructions. He explores various formats, such as drawing, photography, maps and sculptures. The artist is interested in the way information circulates and is organized, which conditions our understanding of the world, language and our relationship with knowledge: our diagrams, plans and graphic systems are his intentions. Explain the world. His work has been exhibited in various exhibitions such as Popular at IVAM (2023), Documenta 15th, Kassel (2022), Liverpool Biennial (2021), the Centro Botín in Santander (2019), the Yinchuan Biennial (2018), the Museo Experimental el Eco, Mexico (2021), La Tertulia Museum of Contemporary Art, Cali (2017), New Museum, New York (2014), or the Tamayo Museum, Mexico (2014). He is an artist in residence at the Archive des Avantgardes (Ada) in Dresden, Germany.

Mariana Castillo Deball graduated in Fine Arts from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1997, and in 2003 she completed a graduate programme at the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands. In her work she takes a kaleidoscopic approach, mediating between science, archaeology and the visual arts and exploring the way these disciplines describe the world. Seeking to initiate a dialogue with institutions and museums outside of contemporary art, she collaborates with ethnographic collections, libraries and historical archives. Her installations, performances, sculptures and projects are the result of long research, and her work has been recognized through awards such as the Prix de Rome (2004) and the Preis der Nationalgalerie (2014).

Ángela Molina is a philologist. She has a degree in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1993-95) and a doctorate from the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona. From 1994 to 2001 she worked as an art critic for the culture supplement of the newspaper ABC. Since 2002, she has regularly contributed to the Art and Literature sections of the supplements Babelia and Quadern of the newspaper El País and the culture section of the same newspaper. She has been director of the symposium “Los Lugares de la Crítica” (2009), organized by the Public University of Navarre and the Jorge Oteiza Chair, together with the Museo Reina Sofía, and she coordinated the book that was published from the symposium. 

Pablo Santa Olalla is a postdoctoral researcher at the Art History Institute of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He is a member of the work team of the Global Art Archive (GAA) academic research project and is a regular collaborator of the Muntadas Archive Association. Centre for Studies and Research (ARCHIU/AM).