Galería FORMATO COMODO

FORMATOCOMODO presents:

Crying Room/ Patchworked Dreams

Sally Gutierrez

May 6th to June 18th, 2011

Exhibition Opening: Friday May 6th, 2011, at 8 p.m.

FORMATO COMODO presents Sally Gutierrez's video-installation Crying Room/ Patchworked Dreams,exhibited here for the first time after its initial presentation at the show it was originally conceived for: Trauma Interrupted, CCP, Manila, 2007.

As part of her research for a feature documentary, Gutierrez worked with foundations that rescue minors from situations of abuse, violence and sexual trafficking in the Philippines. At the “Crying Room”, the pain from the girls’ damaged lives erupts in all its brutal, unprocessed intensity, and Gutierrez’s piece combines an immersion into this space of trauma with a critical look at the contexts that make it possible.

The drawings and Collages from the series Children Sleeping Blue 2005-2011) and Unseeing Bodies (2009-2011) are depictions of enslaved corporeality in the age of hiper-capitalism. In the bio-political order of globalization, the bodies of the dispossessed are expendable resources to be exploited, privatized or discarded in accordance with the demands of capital.

BEST REGARD. P&M CASTELLANO,

When Narrative Becomes Reflective Mourning

Susana Blas

I'll begin by warning the visitor that Crying room/ Patchworked Dreams, exhibited at the gallery FormatoCómodo, is not easy to digest, nor is it anything like the videos we usually might encounter in the Madrid gallery circuit. If experienced from start to finish in the atmosphere of quiet contemplation its viewing properly requires, Crying room/ Patchworked Dreams unleashes a storm of feeling and thought that leaves no respite for intellectual contentment or quick emotional absorption.

Sally Gutierrez took special care not to show this piece unless it could be presented in a setting and under conditions far removed from any hint of sensationalism or trivialization. Originally created for a show entitledTrauma Interrupted (CCP, Manila, 2007), the video is divided into three parts which must be viewed in their entirety if one wants to undergo the trance-like feeling of liberation and the release of energy and thought the work is intended to generate. I’d rather not describe this “trance” in many words, though, as I believe the point is precisely to experience in it in all its raw intensity.

But I will say, nevertheless, that the whole experience has a cathartic effect that goes well beyond what is shown and reaches into the personal sphere, into the domain of our own memories, fears and frustrations. Not only does the video-installation nonjudgmentally approach a specific problematic- contextualized in Filipino society-; it also reaches inside of us, directly challenging our social hypocrisy and our notions of corporeality, pain, identity, etcetera... […]

As in other works by Sally, floating in a hybrid space between experimental documentary, visual essay and anthropological video-art, in this case I have the feeling that the focus of the artist’s concern lies not in the elaboration of a traditional, self-enclosed artwork ready for distribution in the art world, but resides instead in a thoroughly honest process of prior research on the subjects she shows us and the issues she addresses, as well as in the effects upon, reactions from, and dialogues between, the viewers.

I believe her videos, photographs and drawings are intended as points of transit and mediation aimed at generating substantial and complex negotiations with different publics on the artistic, political and personal domains. These negotiations with the audience- never pre-accorded or based on clichés-, may surprise the artist herself, allowing relationships to emerge beyond the discipline of fast consumption culture.