Carles Congost. Grey Has Declinations

Montseny with violence

Carles Congost presents Grey Has Declinations, a performative intervention that gives precedence to the role of text and sound. The imposing influence of the writings of Antoni Tàpies is expressed through various musical and sound tracks, created previously by the artist.

Congost adopts the role of a DJ, turning a clubbing session into a hybrid, reflexive performance. This hybridisation responds to various ways of intervening on the tracks, and is also expressed in the various creative processes undertaken.

In some cases, Congost improvises over preexisting instrumental bases, introducing new effects and voices created by artificial intelligence, so as to organise the messages within the particular economy of the song format. In other circumstances, he recreates ambience landscapes where the text appears in a more abstract, suggestive manner.

Despite clear formal differences between Congost’s work and that of Tàpies, this performance seeks to highlight the essential ideas they share as related to the creative act, which here deserve to be united and celebrated. The Tàpies texts utilised work as foundational material for this study, bringing to the fore the free association of ideas as a valid way of working. Congost ravels up and reworks the original texts, which never appear in literal fashion, with the aim of emphasising the transversality, pertinence and universality of the ideas of the painter Antoni Tàpies.

This presentation features the collaboration of the musician Andrés Papas Pérez.

Activity carried out within the framework of the third edition of the cycle “The Chairs of Tàpies“, curated by Judith Barnés.

Carles Congost employs various visual and sound procedures, including video, photography, drawing and installation, to create narratives that ironically and sensually reflect on the forging of identity, consumer habits and artistic creation itself. In his work he analyses the codes of popular culture as vehicles for differentiating constructions, and as hegemonic forms of subjectivity.

Congost has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions, including Music as a Foreign Language, Museu Es Baluard, Palma, 2023; What are Songs Good For? , La Casa Encendida, Madrid, 2020; A Sense of Wonder, Centre d’Art Contemporani Fabra i Coats, Barcelona, 2018; X Nicaragua Biennial, 2016; Manifesta 11, Zurich, 2016; The Real Royal Trip, PS1/MOMA, New York, 2003; Popcorn Love, Espacio Uno – Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2001; and Country Girls, Espai 13 – Fundació Miró, Barcelona, 2000.