When not precious or semi-precious, how valuable is a stone? Can it have any value in itself, or is the value (for example, historical value) bestowed by the context in which the stone finds itself? Because it is not irrelevant whether a stone is used for skipping or is part of the structure of a medieval church. The skipping stone remains insignificant enough so that, as soon as it sinks, we can replace it with another one without feeling any loss, but what about losing a stone that is part of a church? Historians and archaeologists are certainly not indifferent about material remains because one stone, even a damaged one, can help build a narrative of the entire history.
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Starting from an interest in the value that is produced by the creation of narratives, Emilio Moreno is particularly intrigued by material remains, that is, cultural heritage that gets dislocated from its own temporality through relocation or the process of anastylosis. He is interested in what happens to the value of cultural heritage during such a procedure. Does the new building remain the "old one"? His first film Stone Acrobatics (2014) seeks to consider these issues, and the film narrative is built around the anastylosis of a medieval Spanish church which was declared national heritage. At the request of John D. Rockefeller Jr., who had just built a museum of medieval monasteries from all over the world in Manhattan, the said Spanish church was disassembled piece by piece and transferred to New York, where it was reassembled. As a resident of Triangle Arts NY, Emilio Moreno planned to investigate the political background of such an event, but during the residency his research interests had expanded. That is why in the film the consideration of the phenomena of anastylosis is interwoven with his very personal associations and stories about his father, but also his thoughts about contemporary usage of personal photographs and what they represent. Moreno captures the shots of his own travels and thereby associatively complements the narrative with images. From very personal shots to aesthetic ones, he narrates the story by deconstructing the idea of value and the way objects, actions and language are assigned value statuses.
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Irena Borić
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Emilio Moreno (1980) is a Spanish artist whose work investigates different notions of value, as well as the realms of experience from which value emerges. History, language, currency and space are some of the realms in which he focused recently. Formed as a philologist, a photographer and as an artist, his practice varies formally depending on every specific project. His work has been recently made public in solo shows at Instituto Cervantes, New York, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, as well as in group shows at De Appel Center for the Arts, Amsterdam, Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, Móstoles, Madrid, CASCO, Utrecht, Vanabbe Museum-Onomatopee, Eindhoven. He collaborated with If I Cant Dance I Dont Want to be Part of Your Revolution and with Bulegoa z/b in the project \’18 Images and 18 Stories\’. Moreno\’s work was published in Scapegoat Journal (Toronto) and The Autonomy Project Newspaper (Eindhoven). His exhibition \’Stone Acrobatics\’ at Galerija Miroslav Kraljević is the first time his work is exhibited in Croatia.
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http://www.emiliomoreno.info/
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During the exhibition, the gallery will be open from Tuesday to Friday, 2pm – 7pm, and Saturdays, 11am-1pm (film screening starts every hour on the hour).
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Curators: Ana Kovačić and Irena Borić
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Original music and sound design: Sjoerd Leiten
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Exhibition is supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb
