The Play-Gallery for still and motion pictures is pleased to announce that it will re-open in September with the solo show of Alejandro Vidal (Palma de Mallorca, 1972), an appointment with an exponent of the last Spanish artistic generation.

Inquiring about the state of security or the power of fear, Vidal’s work is concerned with the
mise-en-scène of violence. Ski masks, urban tribes, hang-outs, punk music and DJ culture, martial arts manuals, performative rituals such as Hara Kiri, rave and techno scenes are all elements of the video works and photographs by Alejandro Vidal. However, the research on Vidal is not about the representation of violence, but on its deconstruction: in a kind of “anatomy”of its representation. In Vidal’s works the image of violence takes possession of the codes found in mass media, advertising and in films (for example the icons of Bruce Lee and Robert De Niro in “The Deer Hunter” are always present). The image in itself is not important, the importance lies in the ideological context and its interpretation.

For the exhibition in Berlin, curated by Marco Scotini, Alejandro Vidal will transform the entire space of the Play Gallery into an empty, black rock stage where something has already taken place or is about to happen. There will be two big video projections with photographs and light boxes displayed. The video, “Conflict, modern pathologies and tactics of disappearance”, will be presented for this occasion for the first time. While in “You can scratch that way without the record falling off” (2004) the punches of an old boxer are alternated with that of a young drummer, whereas in the new video the hand-to-hand combat between two men alternates with one playing the guitar and one with a jump rope. The rhythm of the techno music as a soundtrack increases the psychological mechanism of these works by Vidal that present themselves as a constant question for the narrative of our fears.