WORKS

The Ages 

June 23- July 22, 2018, Dread Lounge, Los Angeles


In the exhibition The Ages Amengual elaborates on ideas of temporality, past and futurity, inspired by concepts from Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History and literary tropes such as that of oracular voices in classical myths. Reflecting on the impulse behind those literary and philosophical warnings and how the rhetoric of the “profetic” tries to compress time and bend the course of history, The Ages presents a body of work that addresses the current environmental crisis linking it to the ideology of progress that lays at the core of the project of Modernity. The installation proposes a route in which the critical content intensifies as the viewer moves through the space, leading to a constant resignification of the elements previously seen. 

At the exhibition entrance a series of small oil paintings From Time to Time and Time and Again show five “portraits” of the terrestrial atmosphere. Installed in front of them, the large triptich Storming Heavens, presents a disorderly sequence of painterly events: a shape that resembles a house, a close up of vegetation, a silent starry night. In the middle of the room, a clay sculpture, The Carrier, denotes a ghostly human presence of questionable gravitas: the clay is unfired, the feet are hand modelled, not casted.

Following the exhibition path, another series of five paintings, Obituary for Some Beautiful Ideas, is presented as a frieze in which everything that is about to be lost could be included. In them, a multiplication of eyes and hands look at and wave to the viewer as if they were trying to call her attention from a distant dimension. These painted eyes are echoing images presented by the piece The Eyes That See You, a slide projection on an automated loop that shows pictures of animals at display in two different zoos in California. The piece was placed in a corner, close to floor level, evoking a peripheral vision that glimpses the part of reality we don’t direct our attention to.

The sound piece On the Trail Rack of Modernity (Leaning My Head) is installed at the mezzanine that overviews the rest of the show. Combining two words, this two channel audio piece is presented to the viewer as a riddle to be deciphered, eliciting an emotional response.




Exhibition views

Carmen Amengual, The Ages, installation view, Dread Lounge, Los Angeles, 2018



Carmen Amengual, The Ages, installation view, Dread Lounge, Los Angeles, 2018


Carmen Amengual, The Ages, installation view, Dread Lounge, Los Angeles, 2018




Carmen Amengual, Storming Heavens, 2018
oil, acrylic, vynil, soil on canvas



Carmen Amengual, Bare Bear Circle Cycle, 2018
video projection, infinite loop



Carmen Amengual, Obituary for Some Beautiful Ideas # 3, 2018


Carmen Amengual, Obituary for Some Beautiful Ideas # 4, 2018


Carmen Amengual, The Ages, installation view. Los Angeles, 2018





Carmen Amengual, Obituary for Some Beautiful Ideas # 3 (detail), 2018



Carmen Amengual, The Eyes that See you, 2018
slide projection


Carmen Amengual, The Carrier, 2018
unfired clay