Transformation is the title of the retrospective exhibition of the Spanish multimedia artist Francesca Martí, curated by Pilar Ribal & Kees van Twist, offering a wide approach to the work of one of the most innovative European artists, both in the sphere of traditional visual language as well as in the domain of new technologies. Her works go beyond the limits of painting and sculpture to explore the vocabulary of photography and video art as dynamic mediums. Martí’s deep and engaged reflection on human emotions, ideals, cultural backgrounds or common universal challenges takes form in thematic series of artworks such as The Fly, Movements & Soul, Tears, Screen, Crystal, The Wall, Scream, Planet of Fusions, Cities in the Crooked Line & Migrants.
Making individual dreams and wishes an opportunity for collective change, Transformation emphasizes the question of mixing and melting together. The ideas of exchanging and the symbiosis of old and new unify the concept of the exhibition and embrace its artworks, making different visual analogies out of the same message. The importance of self-consciousness and the acceptance of difference – as all cultural backgrounds are a rich heritage that we all share – are the most meaningful reflections proposed by this project. This is what fusing means: the combination of knowledge and experience as a social process that may lead humanity to peace.
Born in Sóller (Mallorca) Francesca Martí works between Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden. She emerged on the art scene in the early 1990s and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums in Spain, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, Jordan, Israel, South Korea, Australia and the USA, with prize-winning installations at the Biennales of Cairo (2007) and Montijo in Portugal (2008). Transformation, a major retrospective of her work accompanied by a 128-page catalogue, plots her multi-faceted career since 1999.
