Exhibition
Jaime Pitarch
The insistent persistence of failed horizons (La insistente persistencia de los horizontes fallidos)
January 18 - February 28, 2025
Spencer Brownstone Gallery is pleased to present The insistent persistence of failed horizons, Spanish artist Jaime Pitarch’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.
The exhibition comprises objects of striking familiarity – chairs, books, tin cans, and wine glasses – items so fundamental they might appear in a child's first drawing of a home. These archetypical objects speak to our most basic needs and protocols as corporeal beings. Yet in Pitarch's hands, their immediately recognizable forms undergo subtle but profound transformations. Stools are bisected. Dice are impossibly contained within a flipped glass. A wooden crate sits precariously on a chair, which itself balances upside down. The initial familiarity of each object is immediately challenged by its transformation, creating a cognitive tension that demands resolution.
This upheaval of perception is not merely aesthetic. In an era marked by excess, Pitarch’s interventions favor prolonged intimate encounters despite their universal resonance. And through careful physical interventions focused on precise points of equilibrium, these commonplace items are reconfigured into embodiments of suspension. Time is made manifest as a measurable element, evident in their deliberate precarity. This temporal aspect serves as a conscious resistance to society's increasing acceleration and spurs meditation on how objects can read and reveal the time within things.
The selection of objects and their placement, likewise, challenges the expectant order we impose on our environment. Systems of control are on the precipice of failure. Cups are designed not to spill, chairs are meant to hold our weight. All things are made to avoid accidents – death being the ultimate accident. The precarious arrangements and impossible configurations reflect our persistent attempt to find resolution in external things, where inner conflicts inevitably project outward.
Certain pieces are about something specific, while others simply manifest their own being. Through these transformed objects, Pitarch creates a powerful meditation on the human condition. The exhibition invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with the everyday objects that surround them, revealing how the simplest interventions can spark profound contemplation of our shared experience.
Artist Bio
Jaime Pitarch currently lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. He received a BA from the Chelsea College of Art, London in 1993, and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London in 1995. Pitarch has exhibited extensively in Europe, primarily in Spain. He has had solo shows in places such in: Tecla Sala,L’Hospitalet (2017), àngels barcelona (2013, 2009, 2004,1997); Fúcares Gallery, Madrid (2013, 2008); Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York (2025, 2013, 2009, 2006) and Galerija Vartai, Lithuania, 2011. His work has been selected for group shows in places such as Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Portugal; Artium; MASS MoCA, Massachusets; Manifesta; Centre d’Art Santa Mónica, Barcelona; Fondation Maeght, Saint Paul, France; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon; Carré d’Art Contemporain, Nimes or MACBA, Barcelona, amongst others. His work can be found in public and private collections such as the MACBA collection, La Caixa collection, Artium, the Bergé collection, the Museum Patio Herreriano or the Royal College of Art, London, among others.