The Belly of the Observer (The Threshold of Attention) (Afterimages) - Bilbao Fine Arts Museum

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The Belly of the Observer (The Threshold of Attention) (Afterimages)

Urzay, Darío

Bilbao, 13/12/1958

Part 1: Oil, resin and photographic paper on wood; Part 2: UV printing on Artist Backlight SENFA fabric, LED lighting and aluminium

4 pieces of 150 x 122 cm (each one); 4 pieces of 280 x 236 cm (each one)

2001

First decade of the 21st century

02/81

Acquired in 2002

Periods spent in London and New York radically transformed Urzay's development. He gave up figuration for abstract art and experiments with materials based on the transformative capacity of heat applied to resins, waxes and other heat-ductile materials. From the late 1990s Urzay explored the limits between photography and painting, and between the digital image and the representation of the real via the new technological media.

The Belly of the Observer, two rectangular works deployed over four panels each one, is part of the exploration of the relation between painting and photography.

The panels of Threshold of Attention, photographed, digitalized and printed on a transparent material, are the negative image of Afterimages, these last being obtained by digitally positivizing the first ones. These works are like skin full of capillaries or some organic fabric, as if the viewer were accessing a microscopic world expanded to a monumental scale. The play produced by the randomness of the colour stain, a strategy used by Abstract Expressionist artists, is replaced by computer generated digital procedures. (Silvia García Lusa)

Selected bibliography

  • Adquisiciones 02/07 [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2007. pp. 128-129, n° cat. 55.
  • Guía Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. pp. 193-194.
  • Gida Euskal Artistak. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Eder Museoa, 2008. pp. 193-194.
  • Guide Basque Artists. Bilbao, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, 2012. pp. 193-194, n° cat. 110b.
  • Viar, Javier. Historia del arte vasco : de la Guerra Civil a nuestros días, 1936-2016. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2017. pp. 888, 890-891, il.
  • Después del 68 : arte y prácticas artísticas en el País Vasco, 1968-2018 [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 196, 430, 430, il.