Before, fatigue
Before, fatigue consists of a sculptural installation in peat, a complete series of 24 unpublished photographs in B/W and an artist's book, edited and published by Vilaseco.
Peat is an organic material formed from plant remains, dark and spongy; amorphous, but stubborn in occupying time and space.
For Before, fatigue , Rodríguez-Méndez fits ten flexible structures covered in peat into the main room of the gallery. The pieces take over the space, wedged between the floor and the ceiling of the gallery; they dirty and scratch, leaving traces and residue: testimonies of failed attempts, of successes.
Between action and sculpture, his pieces emerge from a controlled disorder; he strains this chaos, aware of a possible failure, because it is there, in that uncertainty, where he finds balance, where his practice is shaped.
Rodríguez-Méndez says that everything has happened before, we are bodies exhausted by our insistence, our failures, but committed to returning. Before, fatigue, It is a compendium of insistences that have already been made, that have broken the surface and let us intuit, at least, what is on the other side.
Rodriguez-Mendez (Pontevedra, 1968) has a degree in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid. He works on projects involving different languages that intervene in the incorporeality of the material and the word. Languages that analyze and respond to the elusive principles of sculpture and the essential and physical experience of man.
Her work has been exhibited individually in centres such as SMAK in Ghent, MARCO in Vigo, Abierto x Obras, Matadero Madrid, Caixa Forum, Barcelona, the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid, the Yaddo Foundation in New York, the Formato Cómodo Gallery in Madrid and soon at CA2M, Madrid, the Sirvent space in Vigo and in collective projects such as the CGAC Santiago de Compostela, Montehermoso, Vitoria- Gasteiz, the Artos Foundation, Nicosia, Cyprus, the IVAM, the CaixaForum in Barcelona, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, the Conde Duque in Madrid, the SMAK and the Vooruit Arts Centre in Ghent, Belgium, the LABoral, Gijón, the Sa Nostra Foundation, Mallorca, the MAC Gas Natural Fenosa, A Coruña, the CCCC (Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània), Valencia, among others.
He has been awarded the Botín Foundation Scholarship, the Iniciarte Scholarships, the Bilbao Arte Foundation, the aid for the promotion of Spanish Art from the Ministry of Culture, Matadero Madrid Scholarships, Casa de Velázquez Scholarship in Madrid, Aid for Creation and Production from the Xunta de Galicia, Aid for Creation in Visual Arts, Community of Madrid, a scholarship from the Art and Law Foundation and an award from "CONNEXIO, spaces for reflection", Lugo.
He is currently a professor of Sculpture at the University of Salamanca, USAL.