Juan Pérez Agirregoika. Snakeskin Jacket

From 27th April to 10th June, 2023

Rosenblut & Friedmann Gallery

Bárbara de Braganza, 9. Madrid. Spain

Rosenblut & Friedmann

The solo exhibition that the Rosenblut & Friedmann gallery dedicates to Juan Pérez Agirregoika is the result of his research into some of the symbols of our culture, the meaning of which the artist subverts in order to show the absurdity that lies behind them. For example, the eagle and the tiger in the series Great Black Chickens and American Imperialism is... to address the cultural construction of power.

Great Black Chickens is made up of large canvases, which are imposing due to the fact that they are mounted high up, forcing the viewer to look up to observe a variety of eagles (painted in pencil) from different cultures such as Ancient Rome, Fascist Rome, and those used by Germany, Russia and the United States.

In ancient times, the eagle was associated with the gods of power and war, symbolising something that dominates from above and, with its penetrating gaze, capable of seeing everything that happens below it. Bringing all these eagles together in the same frame enhances their petulance, as if each one were striving to appear more majestic than the other, as if they were posing for a selfie, looking for the exact angle that highlights their most imposing features, the imposture of the heroic, of virility, the fantasy of being a pure symbol of patriarchy when, perhaps, they are nothing more than “large chickens”.

In American Imperialism is... Agirregoikoa uses the figure of the tiger as the protagonist —another symbol of power which is, in turn, a predatory animal— but this time constructed with small coloured pieces of paper, as if it were a children’s collage. It is a plastic representation of a concept that Mao Tse Tung used to describe American imperialism. According to Mao, the reactionary forces of that empire look terrifying but they are like a “paper tiger”, lacking real power because they are not together with their people.

The exhibition closes with the work History of the snakeskin jacket, which is constructed in the form of a comic strip and consists of ten cartoons in which the artist unfolds a new version of the animal kingdom’s food chain. In this piece, we find references to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and David Lynch's film Wild at Heart. In fact, the film has a scene in which Lula (Laura Dern) picks Sailor (Nicolas Cage) up from prison. When she sees him, she kisses him and gives him a snakeskin jacket. Cage puts it on and asks her: “Did I ever tell you that this jacket represents a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom?” This scene is the title of the work and of the exhibition.

JUAN PÉREZ AGIRREGOIKOA

San Sebastián, 1963. He lives and works in Paris. He studied Fine Arts, specialising in painting, at the Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/ EHU), graduating in 1988. In the early 1990s, in 1991, he obtained a National Diploma in Fine Arts from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Years later, in 1997, he finished his studies in Philosophy at the Université Paris 8.

Pérez Agirregoikoa’s work has been exhibited in museums, centres and galleries both nationally and internationally, and his work has been shown at MNCARS-Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC) in León, Artium, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo de Vitoria-Gasteiz, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Lyon Biennial, the Jakarta Biennial, the 31st São Paulo Biennial, and the MUHKA-Museum Van Hedendaaste Kunst Antwerpen in Antwerp, among many others.

The bulk of his work is characterised by constant criticism of the socio-economic, political and cultural system, and by the use of sarcastic humour and biting irony.

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