An Unreal Somewhere Man

Ivan Navarro ; Nowhere Man

Towner gallery in Eastbourne, April to June 2009

"He's a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody..." The song was spreading in a dazzling and peculiar space. The voice was dry and low but sounded a little sad yet holy. It was quite impressive, and so it was whirling in my mind even after I went out of the space.

This is one of the artworks which I would like to review. The artist's name is Ivan Navarro and the trademark of his works is that he uses lighting tubes as the building blocks. This exhibition consists of two bodies of his work, Die Again (2006) and Nowhere Man (2006). In the space, the fluorescent tubes and a black cube blend well with the gray gallery walls as they emphasis the cold and extremely simple structure.

However, in contrast to the simplistic configuration, it incorporates his social and political view in the base of his work. Navarro was born in 1972 in Chile and grew up under the repressive dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Therefore, the political situation in Chile had a deep impact on his work and it appeared in his work "Die Again". The work shows a 12-foot black plywood wall outside and has light boxes inside the floor made of one-way mirrors. The box, which reflects infinite space, represents the dark chambers of Pinochet's camps and the transient experience of the exile under Pinochet's cruel reign.

Another work, Nowhere Man (2009), which is being exhibited is on Olympic pictograms, raises the issue which illustrates physical competitions without individuals. He selected 11 characters to express a dramatic and tense atmosphere. The figures are based on the Olympic symbols at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Olympians start playing as representatives of each country but gradually their roles change from national heroes to become almost like gladiators competing in a Roman arena. The abstraction of the figures has no color unlike reality and can be obviously expressed by using the white fluorescent tubes.

The most interesting aspect of his work is the way which he deals with the subject of humans under power. He utilises the power of the electric current as a resource of industrial materials and creates intensity and anxiety in the power of society. Also when he uses fluorescent tubes, it can have an effect on the contrast of light and dark. Besides, the two bodies of his work do not seem to be connected but they are related to one another between the human and power. It is the main topic that he always concentrates on and the minimalism is giving them a new layer of meaning. The latest series, Nowhere Man (2009), uses physical shapes but suggests psychological aspects. Its reductive factors reveal the underlying subject through a contradictory way. Basically, the human being is not only a social animal but also a political one so it is difficult to avoid living under the power. Nevertheless, we can contemplate ourselves as having the right of the human being by the means of his work.

The nowhere man hopes to sing the song differently as ensuring his existence, "He's a real somewhere man, sitting in his somewhere land, making all his somewhere plans for somebody...".

16/06/2009 for an art review