Randomness

Welcome to my blog "Randomness", here I will post stuff related to my artwork, talk about ideas, link to stuff that I like and things that inspire me.

Exhibition at byens kunst

Fernisering i Byens kunst 17.marts 2018

David Ramirez Gomez

Åbningstale v. Eva Guldmann, formand for Byens Kunst Jelling

En dag i efteråret bankede det på min dør og derude stod David og Bente Stamp. De kom lige fra Engelsholm højskole, hvor David var gæstelærer og Bente er lærer. De havde  fået den fantastiske ide om David skulle udstille i Jelling igen, med nye værker, med et andet udgangspunkt for sin kunst og også med en anden status som kunstner... for der er sket noget i de seneste år.. siden sidst. Vi kunne heldigvis i Byens Kunst sige ja tak og kan derfor byde velkommen til dig  i dag.

David er oprindeligt fra Colombia, født og opvokset og universitetsuddannet, og har boet og arbejdet som kunstner i Danmark i 10 år. Din kunst tager sit udgangspunkt din egen situation som migrant og indvandrer, - en situation som du jo deler med rigtige mange mennesker verden rundt. Du udtrykker følelser og tanker og skildrer oplevelser i forbindelse med det at flytte til et fremmed land og skulle finde sig tilrette og prøve at passe ind, om de fremmedes syn på dem, der kommer. Du fortæller om det at rejse væk fra det kendte mod det skræmmende ukendte, om at savne det man forlod og om at holde kontakten.

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Du skildrer det med alvor, desperation og vildskab, men også med poesi og ikke mindst humor. Du har en fantastisk legende tilgang til materialer og udtryk.  Du sprænger normen for det pæne billede og du provokerer vores opfattelse af kunst. Du fascineres af hverdags- og genbrugsmaterialer og lader disse blive en del af processen og dit udtryk, som et element af forgængelighed, af noget der har været i kontakt med mennesker og efterladt.. og måske bliver det en understregning af indvandrerens status og muligheder... man må klare sig ..

David er en alsidig kunstner,- du arbejder med lang række forskellige udtryksformer, - maleriet er det fortrukne, men du udtrykker dig også gennem installationer, skulptur, performance og video. Du har lavet vægmalerier, CD- cover og musikvideoer, en rejsekuffert med 55 immigranter er på vej ud i verden

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Du har udstillet worldwide ,- Sydamerika, USA, flere steder i Europa og Danmark og er meget aktiv på mange fronter i Århus hvor du bor. - bla.. i borgerinddragende kunstprojekter i udsatte boligområder. Du er en del af Godsbaneprojektet , underviser på Engelsholm og samarbejder med en gallerist i Paris, der drager verden rundt med dine værker.

Vi er glade fo,r at du for en stund er landet her i Jelling for som et ordsprog siger..

Et billede siger mere en 1000 ord, - og det du fortæller om, er noget vi alle burde lytte mere til og prøve at forstå.. de af os, der ikke  har det helt tæt på, og de har, giver du en stemme.. Tak for det.

New year a new chance to draw our way.

Hello there world

Days are getting longer slowly every day, as I say from time to time, summer it's on its way. 

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With this new light, I receive new energy, it recharges my soul, my body, it inspires me to move on and continue with the artworks that weren't finished last year, this new light is letting me draw a new path to follow and experiment with new ways of expression. 

 

I am happy to tell all of you in the great big strange world, that in this coming year you will se lots of experiments in ceramics, some new stop motion projects, paintings, drawings, printmaking, and many more things. 

 

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I am excited to see how everything unfolds. I wish you all a nice jump into the new year. Keep connected. 

TO TRANSGRESS AN INVISIBLE BORDER

[THE LA LOMA TESTIMONY]
•  PERFORMANCE / INSTALLATION•  MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA  •  2016  •

David Ramírez [CO] & Troels Primdahl [DK]
& Friends from La Loma, San Cristobal
Opening Night 17th November 2016
Paul Bardwell Contemporary
Colombo Americano Medellín

TO TRANSGRESS AN INVISIBLE BORDER

[The La Loma Testimony]

David Ramírez [CO] & Troels Primdahl [DK] 

in collaboration with friends from La Loma, San Cristóbal

It is already happening: a revolt against the urban violence taking place in an outskirt village northeast of Medellín. Through artistic practices a group of inhabitants are redefining themselves as a new family of La Loma. A family who dissents from belonging to one of the combos and hence from joining the battle for control of the criminal underworld. And with this initiative they are risking everything. 

Like an elephant in the room an awkwardly over-dimensioned white ACNUR car made of wood and pvc seems to address an obvious problem. Occupying the gallery space with a contraintuitive impression of immobility the automobile starts unfolding a multitude of unanswered questions. As an object supposed to move, the car seems to be stuck in a violent history which has been going on for too long and which still leads to an everyday life of forced recruitment, intra-urban displacements, extortion and sexual abuse.

The installation of a black tunnel creates a labyrinth pathway into a deeper psychological contemplation on the current situation in La Loma. From an explorative mesh of compositional and choreographic elements a performance cycle is slowly emerging in the dark. Eleven performers are devoting their voices and their bodies to become one instrument while they seek to bear witness about the complex emotions that reigns behind the ongoing fight for transgression and emancipation. After a while it becomes clear how darkness and light, noise and silence, stillness and movement give birth to each others destruction somehow.

This is not an exhibition. The works presented here should rather be perceived as a testimony; a proof. Due to La Loma’s strategic location, ideal for para-military drugsmugling organisations, the place has become a Gordian knot. Though, just as Gordian knots can only be solved by making a cut, this is exactly what the new family of La Loma is already doing - by transgressing the invisible borders with a yearning for love and friendship.

 

 

 

»Perhaps it is like a flash of lightning in the night which, from the beginning of time, gives a dense and black intensity to the night it denies, which lights up the night from the inside, from top to bottom, and yet owes to the dark the stark clarity of its manifestation, its harrowing and poised singularity; the flash loses itself in this space it marks with its sovereignty and becomes silent now that it has given name to obscurity.«

Michel Foucault: A Preface to Transgression

Promoted image of the month

”Pentecostes” (Super immigrant)156 x 155 cm2011

”Pentecostes” (Super immigrant)

156 x 155 cm

2011

 

Pentecostes is a work done in 2011 during a period in which the political situation regarding Immigrants was tough. Requirements to go through the integration process were getting tighter; just to be able to apply for family reunification (the visa option for married couples who wish to live together in Denmark, when one of them is from outside Europe and the other one is Danish). To get permanent residency one had to gather points during a 3 year period of time, some of the point giving circumstances were: having a full-time job for at least one year (demonstrating this being an individual artist not employed by someone seemed a bit difficult at that time for me); having completed 5 levels of education in danish language, having done a certain amount of hours of volunteer work, etc. At the same time on had to renew the temporary permission to stay, which also had several requirements that were constantly updated; to have security funding in an isolated bank account, to live in a place that was more than 50 square meter and had a contract for at least 3 years ahead from the time of starting the renewal process - which in the beginning was one year after coming to Denmark, then every year and a half and so on. These are a few of the things I can remember today about that. All this seemed a bit tough for me, I felt as if they wanted us to be superimmigrants, for me this was a clear message.

New year New stuff

Hello world, last year was filled with many exciting projects and exhibitions. Paris, New York, Miami, Basel, Denmark, Cologne, etc. But not much of it is on this site. Today I will tell you a little bit about the projects and things I have being working on during the last year. 

Limbo

Video installation within the migration thematic that speaks about that feeling one has when migrating to a new place, to start a new life, sometimes feeling like "why did i move here?", feeling lost and helpless, feeling unable to connect and have a life in the new place and unable to connect with what was left behind. Leaving one in a place, feeling "I just do not know what to do now". Leaving the immigrant in a limbo.

The installation itself has no sound!

The Bus Project is now done and is called "Inrejse"

A short art video film, that shows several characters, "immigrants", sitting in a bus on their journey to a different place, to a place that might bring new experiences, new opportunities in their lives, a hope for a change.  

screen shot "Inrejse"

screen shot "Inrejse"

"Inrejse" grows from the question; How do we feel while migrating, excited, sad about leaving a life behind, relieved by escaping the situation in one's home country, thinking about what the future might bring, a better life?

Some characters are based on real life immigrant stories and others are imagined.

I am hoping to be able to show the film in 2016 in film festivals and exhibition places as well as projecting it in public space as 'video graffiti'.  

screen shot "Inrejse"

screen shot "Inrejse"