Voltaic arc, 2016

Desk 80 x 83 x 82,5 cm. Iron.
Photograph 38 x 28,5 cm. Digital print mounted on wood.
Book 24 x 16 cm. Hugh Thomas. The Civil War. Paris, Publisher Ruedo Ibérico, 1961.

The installation Voltaic arc consists of a news item, a desk and a book. The news item, dated 7 February 1937, is found in the magazine ‘Crónica’ and reports on the inauguration of the Instituto para Obreros (Institute for Workers) of Valencia. It also shows a photograph of a group of future pupils posing next to several desks. The desk, as well as being a piece of furniture related to learning, stands out, in this case, for the modernity of its design. The book The Spanish Civil War, written by Hugh Thomas, was published in Paris in 1961 by the exile publisher Ruedo Ibérico, the first in its collection (1).

With the intention of interrelating these three elements, the structure of one of the desks has been replicated to act as a bridge or arc between a positive ‘pole’: the news item representing the Republican hope, and a negative one: the book representing its end.

(1) The cover of this book, which coincides with the rectangles on the desk when viewed from above, is by the Swiss typographer André Gürtler.

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Exhibition:
Presence and Absence
G6 Gallery. IVAM. Valencia. From 26 January to 7 May 2017.