Juan López
Santander, Spain, 1979
Locals Only, 2019
Cement on wall
500 x 800 cm
Acquired 2018

Juan López often works on site-specific interventions in the exhibition space, which result from his meticulous exploration of the urban space. Blurring boundaries between the architectural space of the gallery and the outside, López either displaces fragments of the urban landscape—such as street lighting or signage—or reinstates elements taken from the streets: graffiti, wall paintings, etc. Street signs, logos, and other public writings provide López with forms which he then deconstructs and recontextualizes, thus divesting them of their original meaning in the process.

Locals Only consists of a kind of cement normally used for outside walls, this time applied onto the inside wall of the gallery. On this wall, fragments of letters that once spelled out the name of a company have become hieroglyphs of sorts: they become abstract forms, spelling out the evolving nature of the urban landscape, its continuous decay and renewal, as a cycle of life. Thus, what once was an abandoned wall in the city takes on a new guise as an abstract fresco in the exhibition space.