Raúl Cordero Studio

Official updates on the work of Raúl Cordero

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    • Raúl Cordero: An Art of Transition
    • Raúl Cordero and The Measure of Art
    • Raúl Cordero: Video Without Video Equipment
    • New Rules of the Game: Painting As Process
    • Being Raúl Cordero: Aporias of Painting
    • Raúl Cordero: Seeing it my way
    • Painting… and why not?
    • La pintura de Raúl Cordero o la sacralidad de la imagen
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FOCUS II: THE WORLD IS FLAT

20 June, 2023

 

The World Is Flat does not relate to the physical world. Such an affirmation alludes to the universe of non-things, to the intangible dimension of contemporary life. Precisely, these works are inspired by Thomas L. Friedman’s ideas in the homonymous book, according to which in today’s world -given the level reached by globalization- issues such as geographical, historical and cultural divisions, become more and more irrelevant every time.

The world is flat could be just another way of naming the contemporary experience. In a society ruled by the rush and the short-lived, in a context where all of our existence passes through the filters of technology and hyperconnectivity, contemplation and patience should be taught at school, because we have forgotten how to do it. And we don´t even care anymore. When everything is urgent, nothing is urgent.

In these paintings, geometric motifs in the foreground covering the entire painting, somehow “flatten” the image. Thus becoming a parallel story to the universe it refers to. The world is flat because it is hyperconnected, and today nothing is novel because whatever is new, instantly ceases to be. Obsolescence, more than programmed, is immediate. At this point in the 21st century, the field has become so leveled that we are all public figures, and privacy as well as the capacity to contemplate life, has become a luxury.

Every scene we see in the background has its own narrative, each of them tells a different story. Yet, they all share very similar foregrounds that not only synthetize the image in the back and “flatten” the whole picture, but also symbolize the connectivity and standardization of the contemporary world: in a way, Byung-Chul Han’s “hell of the same”.

In such a scenario, privacy is an illusion as the gaze of the other is ubiquitous. Even if we don’t expose our private life on social networks, the devices we use daily give us away, they know more about us than we do ourselves. And they also condition us, they impose a rhythm of life determined by acceleration and constant updating.

These paintings are, then, a footnote on contemporaneity. The rush of the ephemeral turned into beauty. They stand as an invitation to reflective pause, as a place for momentary rest in the face of the constant flow of stimuli and information in which we live.

Magela Garcés

FOCUS is presented regularly to highlight selected works from our production accompanied with observations by Magela Garcés.

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Focus I: THE LANDSCAPE HAS BEEN UPDATED

2 May, 2023

 

Each of Raúl Cordero´s paintings is a visual adventure that explores the way we live and think in the contemporary world. Working with the traditions of figurative and geometrical abstract painting, Cordero incorporates his expansive knowledge of art history in layers of literary, philosophical, and pop culture references. Distortion and blurriness combine with hard-edge figures to, along with his technical proficiency, speak about the human experience in our hastened postmodern context.

Beyond the random choice of elements that make these pieces up, the truth is that a certain image jumps to the eye: the mountain. The mountain is a symbol of closeness to the divine, it´s the home of the gods, the union of heaven and earth. On it, silence is consecrated, the sacred is touched and one enters into self-oblivion. It´s the union with the whole, the transcendence. But here, there´s a twist in shape and color (on the one hand it looks like lava, on the other, like the magic hour; is it the announcing of a fall?), the mountains are now a distortion in the background, and it doesn’t matter what they once were: they have faded, they are now remote.

There is no longer access to the holy summit, to that moment of pause, of silence. The steadiness of the contemplative gaze nowadays becomes almost impossible. Faced with the noise of infinite options, in this hyperconnected world, just as in these paintings, the sacred peak fades, goes away. The background figure is sped up and simplified. We no longer see mountains here, but sharp, definitive rhombi, like a fragmented and ephemeral truth. The landscape has been updated.

Magela Garcés

FOCUS is presented regularly to highlight selected works from our production accompanied with observations by Magela Garcés.

INQUIRE

MiArt, with Wizard Gallery. Milano, Italy

14 April, 2023

Booth C19. April 14-16. Allianz MiCo, Pavilion 3 viale Scarampo, Milan, Italy.

Wizard Gallery is presenting at MiArt works by Raúl Cordero, Bruna Esposito, Danillo Buccella, Agnese Guido, Luis Molina-Pantin, Diango Hernández, Marko Lađušić, Attila Szucs, Igor Eskinja, Edgar Orlaineta and Franklin Evans.

See at Wizard Gallery´s website

EXPO CHICAGO, with Galeria Artizar. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

13 April, 2023

Booth 448. April.13-16. Navy Pier, Chicago, USA.

Galería Artizar presents a project bringing together paintings by Juan Roberto Diago, Raúl Cordero, Dave McKean and the most recent works of artists from Canary and Balearic islands such as Marco Alom, Amparo Sard and Carlos Nicanor.

See at Artizar Gallery´s website

REALITY IS THE NEW SPAM Open Studio. Mexico City, Mexico

12 February, 2023

Last night we had the pleasure to receive curious visitors at the Open Studio we did introducing new REALITY IS THE NEW SPAM paintings and nfts. We had 3 continuous hours of visitors with many interesting questions and observations about the works.

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  • NEWS
  • ARTWORK
    • 2023
    • 2022 – 2021
    • 2020 – 2019
    • 2018 – 2017
    • 2016 – 2015
    • 2014 – 2013
    • 2012 – 2011
    • 2010 – 2009
    • 2008 – 2007
    • 2006 – 2002
    • 2001 – 1996
    • VIDEO WORK ARCHIVES
  • CHRONOLOGY
  • VIDEOS
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • TEXTS
    • Raúl Cordero: An Art of Transition
    • Raúl Cordero and The Measure of Art
    • Raúl Cordero: Video Without Video Equipment
    • New Rules of the Game: Painting As Process
    • Being Raúl Cordero: Aporias of Painting
    • Raúl Cordero: Seeing it my way
    • Painting… and why not?
    • La pintura de Raúl Cordero o la sacralidad de la imagen
  • REPRESENTATION
  • CONTACT

Upcoming Exhibitions

Raúl Cordero: THE WORLD IS FLAT. Fredric Snitzer Gallery. Miami, Florida, USA. March, 2024 (solo show)

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Raúl Cordero Studio
  • NEWS
  • ARTWORK
    • 2023
    • 2022 – 2021
    • 2020 – 2019
    • 2018 – 2017
    • 2016 – 2015
    • 2014 – 2013
    • 2012 – 2011
    • 2010 – 2009
    • 2008 – 2007
    • 2006 – 2002
    • 2001 – 1996
    • VIDEO WORK ARCHIVES
  • CHRONOLOGY
  • VIDEOS
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • TEXTS
    • Raúl Cordero: An Art of Transition
    • Raúl Cordero and The Measure of Art
    • Raúl Cordero: Video Without Video Equipment
    • New Rules of the Game: Painting As Process
    • Being Raúl Cordero: Aporias of Painting
    • Raúl Cordero: Seeing it my way
    • Painting… and why not?
    • La pintura de Raúl Cordero o la sacralidad de la imagen
  • REPRESENTATION
  • CONTACT