THE EXPERIMENTAL CURE - Visual Art In Meditation State

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WHAT - Description of the creative process

This is visual art realised in Vipassana meditation state.

Vipassana is a very peculiar kind of meditation focusing on the “objectivity of individual perceptions”. The hand, in its exact correspondence with the point of attention of the mind going throughout the body, moves on a waxed zinc plate acting like a seismograph. It creates, then, a sort of map, often discontinuous and deformed, enriched by the endless range of experimentable perception, represented ex tempore with dashed lines, undulations, vectors, geometrical solids of temperature or expansion/compression, etc. An absolutely subjective and imperfect, changing alphabet that gives a shape to pleasure and pain, to what can be seen only with the eyes closed.

Immediately after finishing the meditation, the artwork is completed with the anatomical definition of the represented zones, and a short account of happenings preceding the meditation or come during it, presented in form of list, in order to give further information about the changing circumstances influencing (¿or not?) the practice.

The final work, concretely an etching engraving, is inseparable from the performative act that creates it.

WHY - Which is the reason for it's relevant in contemporary art research

The creation of visual art excluding the sense of sight itself drives to a fundamental consideration about art, underlining the paradoxical contradictions existing between the art work creation and its fruition by the audience.

Also the absence of a deliberate aesthetic purpose by the artist contrasts with the constructed evaluation of the art piece by the observer, whereas the lack of a conventional concept content avoid the public to be emotionally manipulated and the art to be exploited by the capitalistic system.

Finally, this kind of investigation creates a bridge between Art, Science, Philosophy and Mysticism, being, for contemporary art itself, an experimental cure.

This project has been presented and exposed in many occasion, like the FIG Grahia Award (Italy) or the XXI Premios Nacionales De Grabado (Spain), as well as the solo exhibition La Cura Experimental in Blanca Soto Gallery (Madrid, Spain), between January and February 2016.

If you're interested in buying one of these artworks you can just send a mail to malcolmo.tavolaro@gmail.com

You'll be contacted as soon as possible.

The public presentation of the project within the event ZINC SHOWER, "the first meeting-show for entrepreneurs, investors and professionals of the cultural and creative industries (CCI)", in Matadero_Madrid, on April 2013. It contains the teaser of "Fragmentos De Un Proceso", the documentary by Daniel Martínez Sebastian.

Version with SPANISH SUBTITLES here: vimeo.com/73469965

Teaser of the documentary about the entire creative process, by Daniel Martinez Sebastian.

For the SPANISH SUBTITLES version, please click here: https://vimeo.com/73037282

Some picture of the solo exhibition of The Experimental Cure in Blanca Soto gallery, Madrid (Spain), on January 2016. The blue artworks appear like this as exposed to blacklight (UV-A light). I wanted to isolate part of the exhibition behind a curtain and in total darkness in order to induce a less distracted and more centered state of mind.

--------------- FRIDAY, MARCH 2 2012 MEDITATION (etching engraving, 40x60cm) ---------------

(the same artwork shown in the ZINC SHOWER talk)

Price: 200€ // 300€ with frame

The paper "floats" in a 6cm-thick black frame with non-glare glass.

Some pictures from the photographic reportage about the production of this artwork,

by Daniel Martínez Sebastian.

The coat of wax, before the meditation performance.

The meditation performance (in the photographic studio of LENS Escuela de Artes Visuales, Madrid).

After the meditation performance, the zinc plate is immersed in the acid.

Ink on the corroded plate...

...and the plate under the printing press.

-------- MONDAY SEPTEMBER 16 2013 THREE MEDITATIONS (etching engraving, 60x80cm) --------

(a three meditations composed artwork, finalist at the FIG Graphia Award and the XXI Premios Nacionales De Grabado)

Price: 600€ // 750€ with frame

-------- TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1. 2013 THREE MEDITATIONS (etching engraving, 60x80cm) --------

(three meditations during the same day)

Price: 600€ // 750€ with frame

-------- SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2015 SIX MEDITATION (etching engraving, 110x80cm) --------

(six meditations during the same day, all of them focused on the head)

Price: 1200€ // 1400€ with frame

Detail of the artwork under blacklight

Corresponding detail on the zinc plate.

Under blacklight the elevation of the strokes appears more visible.

The artwork under blacklight.

-------------- THURSDAY FEBRUARY 23 2012 MEDITATION (etching engraving, 40x60cm) --------------
(selected for the XIII Certamen De Grabado Nacional José Caballero)

Price: 200€ // 300€ with frame

--------------------- WEDNESDAY APRIL 18 2012 MEDITATION (etching engraving, 40x60cm) ---------------------
(its creation was filmed by Daniel Martinez Sebastian)

Price: 200€ // 300€ with frame