ORIOL VILANOVA
Manresa, Spain, 1980
If night was a color, 2017
Collection of 700 postcards featuring nightscapes
Dimensions variable 10 x 15 cm each
Acquired in 2018

The work of Oriol Vilanova is rooted in his exploration of how meaning is created, or how notions such as universality or neutrality are in fact pure fiction. His work in all media (installation, performance, artists’ books, etc.) tends to also address the notion of collecting and classification in ways that recall the work of anarchaeologist. He brings together found objects, using the context of the exhibition to examine their status, while also rethinking how forms of displays covertly affect the way thevisitor may comprehend artefacts or works of art of all kinds.

His preferred digging ground is the flea market, are pository for artefacts that functions as a kind of chaoticmap of our collective memory. He has been collecting postcards for over a decade. At any given moment, millions of postcards are produced and sold around the world as vehicles for short and usually impersonal or banal messages. The images exacerbate the clichéd vision one may have of a place and, in that sense, are a testimony tohow tourism tends to over simplify the world to make it more decipherable, more consumable. They are intrinsically ephemeral, since they are usually disposed of once they have been received. Yet, thanks to their being traded as collectibles, they have attained a certain degree of permanence. What may appear neutral in fact is telling ofhow a culture chooses to represent itself.

As a compulsive collector, Oriol Vilanova arranges his acquisitions according to strict categories, accumulating large numbers which he then organizes in thematic blocksand uses to create massive installations. The collections becomes meta-images, with each unit acting as a kind ofpixel or building block.