Rosana Antolí _ ​My East Ballad: The One, The Teeth and The Circle

About

Rosana Antolí
​My East Ballad: The One, The Teeth and The Circle
3 June- 1 July 2017 / Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm
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​Private view and live performance: Friday 2 June,  6 - 9pm
Live performance as part of the Whitechapel Art Night: Saturday 1 July, 6 - 12pm
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‘"It is not by accident that rhythm and resistance start with the same letter"’
Ericka Flores

The RYDER is pleased to present ‘My East Ballad: The One, The Teeth and The Circle’, a solo exhibition by artist Rosana Antolí. Following her research in the rhythms of urban spaces and the geographical gestures of the human body, Antolí aims to reveal the choreographic commands structuring our daily lives. Through interaction with the citizens and observation of their natural movements, the artist creates a sculptural musical score of everyday patterns of human action. There is a performative process of collecting and displacing, every collected gesture subsequently recontextualised in a new environment and narrative. The utopian character is central to her practice, and consequently the absurdity and failure of the actions involved.

The exhibition is composed of drawing, sculpture, film and performance, each work titled by a single letter and number evoking the minimal and succinct expression of musical notes. Applying the theory of Space Harmony developed by Rudolf Laban, who sought to create a system to observe, understand and trace all forms of movement, Antolí creates a musical score in which to dismantle and explore the everyday activities and movements of East London, where the gallery is located. In her drawing D1, the artist takes as a reference the hand of a worker in the area and decomposes the rhythm of its gesture line by line, creating a type of musical harmony.  Here, the interest of the artist lies in the graphic sound of the hand, translating the worker’s daily movements into sound shapes.

Collaborating with experimental and psychedelic musicians Tomaga as well as with art critic and performer Sarah Kent, the artist presents a performance conceived as an abstract portrait of the everyday movements and activities of the area. Each movement is then transformed and abstracted into minimal shapes, sounds and actions. Metal structures suspended from the gallery’s ceiling and a video projection and sound create the stage for the performer, who, re-enacting the array of gestures the artist has been collecting, forms an harmonic dialogue with the works in the space. 

Each work is subtly connected to the next, and circular shapes and loops are constantly present and reiterated, making allusion to Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis and his study of cyclical rhythms. 
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How much is architecture affecting the way we move? 
How can we, as architectural bodies, transform our movements in relation to the space we are in? 
What is the resistance that our daily rhythms can produce?

Rosana Antolí (b. 1981, Alcoi, Spain) lives between London and Barcelona. He studied MFA Sculpture/Performance at Royal College of Art, London, and BA Fine Art at Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. Her work has been exhibited in national and international galleries and museums such as: Arebyte Gallery, London (2016), Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2016), Centro CAC Wifredo Lam, La Habana (2016), CCEMx, Mexico (2016), Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York (2016), ABC Museum, Madrid (2015), The RYDER, London (2015), Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (2015) and CA2M Museum, Madrid (2012). Selected grants and awards include: Loop Discovery International Video Art Prize, Barcelona (2017), Generaciones 2017 Art Prize, Madrid (2017), The Royal British Society of Sculptors, Bursary Award, London (2015), BBVA National Video Art Prize (2015), Gasworks International Fellowship, UK-Colombia (2015), International Emerging Artists Award, Dubai (2014) and Pilar Juncosa and Sotheby’s Grant, Spain (2012).

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This exhibition has been generously
​supported by the Spanish Embassy.​