Perplexity

The latest work by sculptor Mercè Ribera comes to us in photographic form. For her, art and life go hand in hand, and her recent work shows us that different art forms do as well—that there are no clear boundaries between them.

Perplexities presents a series of images, almost all of them photographed from objects she has arranged on a table, just as a set designer places scenic elements on a stage, and illuminated with patience until achieving the desired result. These are not images of reality, nor do they intend to be, nor do they seek to be metaphors. Instead, they represent what has been created by the prolific and fertile imagination of the artist. Among all the universes she has imagined, she has materialized and photographed those that have provoked a certain perplexity in her—hence the name of the exhibition.

Visitors will find themselves in front of images that, far from resembling model-maker dioramas or set design projects, transport us to a space without apparent limits, somewhere between dreamlike and painterly, where we always find a hint of dramatic action that gives meaning to the composition. This diversity should not surprise us, as we have long known that human imagination has no limits. What is astounding, however, is the photographer’s ability to create dramatic images so universal that viewers will inevitably discover the stories they tell and, more importantly, perceive the images as an expression of their own inner universe. Furthermore, the images are so vivid and human that different spectators will interpret them slightly differently—but never contradictorily—because they stem from a completed work, not one left unfinished under the excuse of open interpretation.

A man running through a sea of cotton toward a staircase that will allow him to escape from the distressing space in which he finds himself; a departing ship seen from an abandoned house; a spinning top viewed through a keyhole, serving as a cry for freedom; planes diving or flying over furniture or animals; three feathers standing like trees over water—an image as erotically charged as that of a mannequin behind a sheet... None of these clumsy descriptions precisely capture the reality of the photographs they attempt to reference, but they serve as evidence that Mercè more than achieves her goal in sharing her creative universe with the viewer: drawing them in, making them linger, and leaving them with the impression that she created these images with them and their inner world in mind. This is why Mercè Ribera’s photographs—her perplexities—are so universal.

Jordi Font-Agustí.
Cassà de la Selva & Gualta, December 2021