In it, Antonio Uriel speaks of a love story through a woman, his, which is repeated without stopping along the 45 photographs that already fill the walls of room 0 of the IAACC Pablo Serrano. There is also a place for pain, reflection and the search for that inner look that the artist has already forged decades after the goal. “Antonio Uriel. With the grades of ash” it is an autobiographical exhibition, as the artist understands that photography must be, which is born from a trilogy that Zaragozano has developed in the last seven years. This can be seen until September 28 at the Museum.
Exhibition image. Photo: Lorena Torrijo
The name, as always in this art, is not accidental and those ashes have to do with the image that the artist uses to talk about the passage of time. The exhibition is articulated in different sequences and the photographs accompany a number that indicate to the viewer the tour to follow. The first image that one is located is that of a ladder of an impossible ascent and the last one speaks exactly the same theme. Thus, the exhibition goes from verticality to horizontality displaying a very personal inner look.
“The meaning of each of the series is how I understand certain quite universal concerns that can be all that we have. This has a very theoretical aspect, but all of us who reach photography in the 70s, as is my case, because all in a more or less explicit way we have inherited an obsession for what is the specificity of the environment, the anthology, being, the essence …”, says Uriel.
The composition and assembly are two undisputed of Uriel’s work and also of the exhibition itself. In it you can also see the first two images of a project still in process that correspond to two digital shots in which the artist deliberately sought the noise in the image. All the photographs and assemblies that make up the sample are in black and white in a clear motivation of the artist for awakening the emotions of those who admire the works.
“I intend to awaken emotions and sensations in the public that admires the photographs but also moves a more theoretical part that those interested in the image find something else,” said the author.
Guided visits
“Antonio Uriel. With the grades in the ash” will have free guided tours by the author himself on August 28 and September 18 at 6.30 pm. The entrance is free but it is necessary to register on the website of the IAACC Pablo Serrano.
Most of the photographs of ‘With the grades of ash’ were composed between 2019 and 2023; In May 2022, those responsible for the IAACC Pablo Serrano saw a first very advanced version of the collection and received the exhibition proposal.
The director of the IAACC Pablo Serrano, Julio Ramón, recalled that when the author presented the project, they seemed “of special interest, taking into account that his figure was already present in the museum and in the public collections”. In fact, Antonio Uriel participated in the 90s in an exhibition that led him to enter with his work in the art collections of the Government of Aragon.
For the Chief of Archives, Museums and Libraries of the General Directorate of Culture, Fernando Sarria, the exhibition “claims photography as a plastic art”, in this case of the hand of an author “recognized and of plenty of career.”
