Introduction to Carles Congost

November 1st, 2010

UNTITLED (GLORIA), 2005

The works of artist Carles Congost bring forth a variety of ways to approach the production of images related to the miscellaneous imaginarium of pop culture. In his photographs he combines sketching and photo novella in narrations that allow for the interaction of aesthetic trends and characters in dissonant social circumstances. His visual references go from the comic strip genre, portraying camp super heroes, to celebrities from the European show business, from poprock, from cult movies or gore, punk and underground cultures. Such iconographic registers are brought together via theatrical stagings and pathetic performances, at times so exaggerated and baroque that they come close to being science fiction. His projects draw on tragicomic characters, decadent at times, or incarnations of simply stereotyped roles at others, verging on the melancholic and the comical at the same time. Thus, Carles Congost’s artistic discourse puts forward a questioning of the social roles, the use of the media, the artistic institution, without losing sight of a complex sense of the contemporary visual experience.
Willy Kautz

LET THE WOLF IN, 1998

THE AMATEUR, 2001

UN MYSTIQUE DETERMINADO, 2003

In this small rock opera, a young football player suddenly feels the calling of video art, referred to as Mystique in the video.

A.M.E.R.I.C.A, 2003

THE REVOLUTIONARY I, 2004

THE REVOLUTIONARY II, 2004

TWO EMPIRES IV, 2006

THE PORTRAIT, 2007

RAPTURE (AMERICAN REMAKE), 2008

BIO
Carles Congost (Olot, Girona, Spain 1970) lives and works in Barcelona. He has exhibited internationally, appearing in: Say I’m Your Number One, MUSAC in Leon (2007); Memorias de Arkaran, CASM in Barcelona (2005); That’s my Impression!, CAAC of Seville (2002); Popcorn Love in the MNCARS in Madrid (2001); Country Girls, Fundació Miró in Barcelona (2000). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions in the Mucsarnok Kunsthalle in Budapest; IMMA in Dublin; Centre Pompidou in Paris; Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico DF; MAMBA in Buenos Aires; Santralistambul in Istanbul; Palais de Tokyo in Paris; PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York; Hamburger Bahnhof (Museum fur Gegenwart) in Berlin.

http://carlescongost.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/carles.congost

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