Javier Codesal: Inmóviles. Fábula de un hombre amado

Codesal is considered one of the pioneers of video art practice in Spain. His works, in the words of the critic and curator Manel Clot, "incorporate a presumable concept of dematerialisation inherent in the execution of all performative processes -videorecording, photographing- and a strong disassociation with the traditional narrative media."

In the installation Inmóviles the centre of the room is occupied by a metal table of oversized proportions, which has two pairs of openings on its cold surface. More than a conventional table it alludes to a surgical table.

Fourteen photographs are displayed along the walls of the room which show a scene that takes place in this space: the unsuccessful attempts of two men to make contact. Their legs sink into these openings and, given the size of the table the men do not manage to reach the ground with their feet.

The suspension of their bodies becomes a metaphor for suspended communication "the break-up of the meeting", as noted by the artist. At the same time, the photographs are an image of the demonstrative process of the impossibility of abstract sense.

The intensity of the work lies in the spatial alteration that the enormous table generates, whose presence is reinforced by the absence of occupants, who thus accept their loss to this device.

The second work in this exhibition: Fábula de un hombre amado, is a video installation comprising of two projections on separate screens, placed perpendicular to the wall. In this way, it is possible to view on both sides and "a complex three-dimensional device designed to implement production mechanisms of meaning in the hall" is configured, as noted by Manel Clot.

In this sense, while the choice of the term fable might make the public think of an artificial or exemplary narrative, the artist shows a sequence of spontaneous visual material, whose narrative is not linear, but lyrical, in such a way that it triggers the production of meanings for each of the images.