FW Spotlight: Top Submissions of November
“Art is not just about reflecting the world but changing it,” says a famous quote by Olafur Eliasson. This idea feels especially relevant today, in an era where the digital and physical realms intertwine. Eliasson’s work, in all its complexity, challenges the dominance of automation in contemporary art, advocating for a deep synergy between human creativity and mechanical processes.
His creations invite us to reconsider the very fabric of reality, weaving cosmic energies into tangible materials and embedding poetry within everyday objects. In doing so, he encourages us to question the algorithms shaping our perceptions and to rediscover the craftsmanship that persists even in digital contexts. A paradox, perhaps?
And yet, it is precisely this vision, so present in Eliasson’s work, that inspires us at FakeWhale. We strive to bridge the gap between digital and physical spaces, transforming not only how history is perceived but also how future narratives might unfold in our increasingly interconnected world.
This month, five exhibitions stood out for their ability to explore the boundaries between the material and the immaterial, the artificial and the true, the real and the virtual. Across various cities, including Paris, Madrid, and Helsinki, these shows encouraged visitors to contemplate the meaning of creation, memory, and transformation in a world increasingly shaped by technology.
Each exhibition took us on a journey through tangible and digital worlds, where objects are not just present but resonate with potential. Together, they invited us to see art as an act of rediscovery, a process that subverts conventions to uncover hidden stories within the folds of reality and perception.
Léo Fourdrinier: Poems Hide Theorems
At Galerie Les filles du calvaire, Paris (October 5 – November 2, 2024)
In Poems Hide Theorems, Léo Fourdrinier transforms everyday objects and raw materials into surrealist puzzles. Deformed plaster casts, metal spheres, and fragments of marble motorcycles appear suspended between the poetic and the cosmic, evoking a mysterious magnetism. In Matter III (Patience dans l’Azur), a plaster bust is paired with a book on astrophysics, conjuring a delicate dance between matter and imagination.
The exhibition examines the tension between human creativity and increasing automation. In an era where artificial intelligence seems to encroach on the creative process, Fourdrinier’s works reclaim the act of intentional assembly, reminding us that art can still astonish, beyond the cold efficiency of machines. His art explodes with freedom, an invitation to simply “look” without distraction, to rediscover wonder in the act of seeing.
Andrea Muniáin: Photogrammetric Pack
At NAVESIERRRA, Madrid (October 10–20, 2024)
Andrea Muniáin’s Photogrammetric Pack transports us into the realm of the virtual, critically examining photogrammetry as a tool for contemporary perception. Centered around wooden animal figures—a wolf, an eagle, a snail, and an owl—the installation explores how the virtual is not merely a replica of the real, but a fragmented, unstable reinterpretation of it.
These sculptures, scanned and rendered as digital models, blur the line between tangible and intangible. Like Borges’ fictional Tlön, where reality is seen as a flux of actions rather than static objects, Muniáin’s work suggests that existence itself is a process. The wooden stumps, once part of a forest in Navarra, linger as echoes of what was, suspended between memory and erasure.
Muniáin invites us to view technology not just as a tool but as a language. Her work reminds us that every representation reshapes what it represents, amplifying and subtracting, creating new virtual realities while leaving absences in their wake.
Combine24: Remix the Archive
by Newyellow, Nahuel Gerth, Ilmo Kapanen and Aarni Kapanen, Blas.v, Roni Kaufman, Agoston Nagy, Jeremy Schoenherr, Arttu Koskela, Tuomo Rainio at Alusta Space, Helsinki, (September 20 – November 23, 2024)
Remix the Archive brought together artists from 47 countries to reimagine the Finnish National Gallery’s digital archive of over 25,000 objects. Using generative art techniques, the artists delved into collective memory and explored the intersections of body, movement, and landscape.
Here, technology becomes more than a tool, it is a collaborator in the creative process. Fragmented landscapes are reassembled, poses from the past are digitally reconstructed, and the chaos of algorithms is transformed into visual poetry. Echoing Muniáin’s reflections, the exhibition grapples with the mutability of history itself, reworking archival material to produce new meanings and possibilities.
The heart of the exhibition lies in its exploration of generative creativity, dissolving the boundaries between human and machine. This process isn’t merely automated but multi-layered, the product of interconnected minds and algorithmic possibilities.
Though diverse in medium and message, these three exhibitions converge on a central theme: the interrogation of reality in a world of constant transition. Whether it’s Fourdrinier’s poetic assemblages, Muniáin’s fragmented virtualities, or Remix the Archive’s dialogue between archives and algorithms, each work invites viewers to reflect on what is real, what is possible, and what we can imagine.
In an era where the virtual often reduces the tangible to a faded copy, these exhibitions remind us that art remains a living, vibrant process. Perhaps this is art’s true role today, not to offer answers, but to illuminate the questions that make our existence more complex and profound.
Sasha Sime: “Control & Domination”
At g • gallery, Barcelona, (November 07 – Dicember 07).
Through a verbal ping-pong, a hypnotic incantation recorded on magnetic tape, and a code executing repetitive operations, Control & Domination invites visitors to reflect on the pervasive nature of control and the saturation of information.
The exhibited objects, seemingly banal and ordinary, transform the exhibition space into a continuous echo. The action repeats incessantly, becoming as familiar as a household appliance or a reflection in a mirror. Yet, this obsessive reiteration reveals an underlying tension: the trivialization of urgency. The boundaries between the social, the private, and the informational dissolve into a continuous stream, where critical events and memes share the same space and fate, becoming indistinguishable.
The work navigates the dichotomy between domination and participation, questioning the numbing effect of habitual exposure. The installation thus reflects a contemporary phenomenon: the informational overload that desensitizes, rendering even the unusual familiar, and the tragic commonplace.
In this exhibition, the everyday becomes both a mirror and an amplifier of our times. It is not merely about coded executions or seemingly neutral objects but a profound meditation on the role of information, its fragmentation, and our capacity, or incapacity, to respond to it.
Resbalar (una cosa): at CEM Can Felipa
By Agustine Zeguers, Daniel Llaría, Leire Lacunza Miranda, Luis Lecea, and Nazario Díaz Valerian Goalec, curated by Lorenzo Galgó and Iñigo Villafranca Apesteguia, at CEM Can Felipa, Barcelona, (October 14 – January 12).
This collective exhibition explores the concept of “slipping” as both a metaphor and an artistic practice, questioning the complex relationship between object, idea, and creative process. Slipping, understood as an involuntary movement that disrupts balance while maintaining contact with matter, becomes an act laden with meaning—an opportunity to reflect on the connections it fosters, the crises it reveals, and the possibilities it unlocks through its dynamics.
Through a combination of gestures, images, and attitudes, the exhibition challenges the reduction of art to mere finished objects, questioning the pursuit of stability imposed by market and consumerist logics. The space invites the audience into an immersive experience, using immateriality as a lens to explore the relational, performative, and processual dimensions that shape the whole.
fakewhale
Founded in 2021, Fakewhale advocates the digital art market's evolution. Viewing NFT technology as a container for art, and leveraging the expansive scope of digital culture, Fakewhale strives to shape a new ecosystem in which art and technology become the starting point, rather than the final destination.
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