_Manuel Antonio Domínguez_ Pure Theater_07/06_31_07_24_Dossier

For this exhibition, the artist from Huelva once again combines highly refined watercolour on paper and other surfaces (like the tambourine from Machado’s Spain), detailed collage work and the staging of found objects, which together correspond to his representation of the Great Theatre of the World. This theatre is a place where a life and death struggle takes place both for the stage and for the attention of the spectator, who in turn is an actor in other scenes that take place in the spheres of employment, politics, society, family and sexuality, or in the sphere of show business itself. Through thirteen highly theatricalised ritual moments -charged with familiar features in his work, such as safety pins, ropes, scaffolding, flags- we are submerged into his surrealist imagination, undoing falsehood through realist drawing.

The work follows a path through all the basic features of theatrical activity: the setting (physical, and musical); the stage, including props and the backdrop; the text spoken by each actor; and the public, which goes to be entertained, but meanwhile finds a message assigned to each seat that breaks the fourth wall.

Of all the aspects making up the exhibition, what stands out is the mask, a term that comes from the Arabic word “mashrah” (an object to make us laugh), allowing us to hide, to pretend we are someone else, to do theatrical or ritualistic activities. One real mask and two imaginary ones are found in the space. Yet the imaginary ones seem more realistic, easier to wear. Are they more accessible to us because they are shown as two-dimensional? Do we have more faith in what we see on screens than in our own shared sensoriality? In line with his usual practice, the artist invites us to immerse ourselves in an apparent disorder, which has nevertheless been deliberately developed on a conceptual level so as to address ambiguity, double morality and hypocrisy.

With masterful gestures, the exhibition raises doubts about what a character is and what a personality might be, about those who are actors and those who are observers, about which facial gestures are imposed on us, and which ones are worn to acquire a greater sense freedom, to look more like what we have imagined about ourselves. After all, when the curtain drops these contrived faces, as liquid and fluid as cheap makeup, end up fusing into our skin, which has become increasingly thin.

Manuel Antonio Domínguez continues to use art to call on us to break down the fourth wall when up against truly dramatic situations, faced with the generalised excess of offense perceived by the contemporary individual. With his work, he seeks to unmask the power of falsehood and disrupt the foundations of those few who assign us roles for life, trying to make us dance to the tune they have imposed. The intention of revealing the power of art in fighting double morality, hypocrisy and imposture, as seen in previous works like “Headless Men”, “The Stable Image” or “Radar”, spans the entire platform/stage of this spectacular body of work.

Attention, the curtain is raised!

Juliana Chaves Chaparro, Ambient Mixture

With the support