Memorabilia, The Invented Memory. Solo Exhibition by Jose Quintanilla.
Location: DDR ART GALLERY. Calle de la Encomienda 21, 28012, Madrid, Spain
La Latina Metro Line 5 / Tirso de Molina Line 1.
Public Parking in front of the gallery.
Dates: The exhibition "Memorabilia, The Invented Memory" will be open to the public from February 3 to March 2, 2025.
Schedule
Tuesday to Friday.
12pm to 2pm
4pm to 7pm
[Saturday, Sunday and Monday, appointment required].
Appointment: comunicacion@ddrartgallery.com
"Memorabilia." The Invented Memory.
Jose Quintanilla exclusively presents a project that invites us to reflect through a unique work.
"If you don't like the past, change it."
William L. Burton.
Among monumental representations, the ruin will become the key to our collective memory, the gateway to the dream world that, as Marc Augé said, places us in a "pure time, without date, but with memory."
Ruins reaffirm the roots of our past and establish our heroic references, and when these don't exist, we invent them. In this work, Jose Quintanilla discusses the false ruin—also known as follie or caprice—which became fashionable in the landscaped gardens of the European bourgeois classes beginning in the 18th century.
As generators of memory on demand, they recreate the Western vision of history, clinging to a heroic past that feels threatened by the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and modernity, while calming consciences troubled by growing environmental degradation, the overexploitation of natural resources, the ruthless use of children and slaves, and the appropriation of other people's wealth in colonized territories.
The MEMORABILIA project, which received the PhotoEspaña Special Mention at the ENAIRE Photography Awards in 2021 and was exhibited that same year in Santander as part of the festival, is the first time it has been presented as a solo exhibition in Madrid, after being shown at art fairs and in such emblematic spaces as the George Pompidou Centre in Malaga.
The artist has created seven exclusive pieces for this exhibition at the DDR ART GALLERY. Quintanilla invites us to reflect on the construction of history and our collective memory through beautiful images that draw directly from the Romantic aesthetic, which he has been working on for over six years.
© Jose Quintanilla
© DDR ART GALLERY
