Roberto Molla . Ricochet

May 12–June 12, 2011

Roberto Mollá

Ricochet

Roberto Mollá Ricochet

A conversation between Roberto Mollá and gallery director Christina Ray. CR: We met in Tokyo over ten years ago. What took you to Japan in the first place and kept you going back?

RM: The first time I visited Japan was in 1994 for a group exhibition and I was immediately captivated by Tokyo’s powerful imagery (the calligraphy, the manga, the ukiyoe) and its futuristic architecture. I was also very lucky to meet a group of Japanese people who were extremely warm and friendly to me. After this first trip, I tried to go back to Japan as often as possible and I was offered some opportunities to exhibit in solo and group shows. I also received grants to stay in artists’ residencies such as the Marunuma Geijutsu no Mori, which allowed me to spend long periods there. But I guess I was a Japanophile long before going to Japan, probably since I couldn’t stop drawing Mazinger Z characters in my childhood or when, in adolescence, I listened to Yellow Magic Orchestra and watched movies by Kurosawa and Oshima.

CR: Ricochet seems an appropriate title for this new body of work that features more of the abstract and graphic elements in your work. What’s the origin of the title?

RM: The exhibition title came to me once the artworks for the exhibit were almost finished and I was talking with my friend Oliver Johnson about targets, songs and videogames.

Most of my new abstract images are built in the same way a ray-tracing program would do. Drawing automatically, without a previous sketch, lines that changes their directions as they impact with some random points, intersecting between them and creating shapes and triangles. Some of these new works also give the appearance of a vosticist blast.

These works, focused on abstract elements, are a change from the previous series.

Those were more narrative, inspired both by the Japanese ukiyo-e and the drawings of naturalist Ernst Haeckel. They played with the tension between geometric and Dear Kauffer (2), 2011, acrylic on canvas mounted on panel, 13 x 9.5”

organic elements. Now the tension remains, but only between geometric elements and Siamese twins.

CR: Your past work has referenced historical Japanese “floating world” ukiyo-e woodblock prints as well as hard-edged linework inspired by mid-20th century modern designers including Manuel Barbadillo and Julio Le Parc. This time, your titles include names such as “Kauffer,” “Warner” and “Bahia.” Can you tell us something about them?

RM: Quoting other artists has always been a good creative strategy, a way of knowing other worlds and modifying them. The Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas has built a powerful literature quoting other writers and using the quote as the perfect vehicle to anticipate what literature is nowadays. Last year I drew a little piece titled “Fog.” That drawing was influenced by the American artist Edward McKnight Kauffer. His avant-garde graphic design was brilliant, influenced by the vorticism of Wyndham Lewis. Last month I was reading the letters from Lewis to Kauffer. From these correspondences came the title “Dear Kauffer.” A painted letter of abstract explosions.

“Warner” is influenced both by the geometric Spanish artist Pablo Palazuelo and Warner Bros. cartoon characters Daffy Duck and Marvin the Martian. I can’t help but establish relations between high and low culture.

“Bahía” (“Bay”) is a cartography. Its origin is a group of maps of Tokyo in which I was drawing lines, joining different places, bars, galleries, shops, friends’ houses and train stations. As the scene was saturated with information I decided to draw it again on graph paper, but this time without any cartographic rigor.

CR: I enjoy seeing these names of artists who have influenced you incorporated into your titles. Are there other contemporary or historical figures that offer meaning and inspiration as you develop your work?

RM: Undoubtedly I have a deep devotion to Francis Picabia. I admire his unshakeable will to be unfaithful to any notion of style, his combative intellectual spirit against the myth of the modern artist. His work is always smart, fun, violent and full of poetry.

His painting “lies above the symmetrical mud” with majesty. A list of artists that I appreciate would be endless and heterogeneous and would also include writers, musicians, architects, etc. But here are a few: El Lissitzky, Hiroshige, Palazuelo, Duchamp, Goya and Utamaro.

CR: Graph paper is a constant in your drawings. How do your conceptual and technical processes differ when working on a gridded paper background versus a blank canvas?

RM: The grid background gives warmth to the drawing. The “technical” concept is usually understood as synonymous with “cold,” but this is an idea that I do not share.

A technical drawing, a geometric composition, can contain as much emotion and warmth as one that is usually attributed to more expressionist artworks. Moreover, with the fast development of software production and the spread of calculation and drawing programs, the graph paper notepad has attained a retro look very suggestive of our times. I always draw my sketches on graph paper as it is a background that allows for control of the composition. My paintings also originate in sketches drawn on graph paper. I can say that, although it remains invisible, the grid is under the painting.

CR: You’ve mentioned an interest in quantum mechanics and in your work I sense an expression of wonder, or respect, perhaps, for the elastic and ever-changing qualities and relationships between time and space. Can you talk more about this?

RM: The relationship between time and space is one of the big subjects in throughout all of the arts – not only in painting but also in literature and music. I don’t know much about physics and most of the time I do not understand a single word of what the physicists say, but it always sounds very attractive and suggestive to me. I have some friends who are physicists and I have some other friends who are artists and who are also interested in quantum mechanics – in Hugh Everett’s many-worlds interpretation and so on. I remember an interesting afternoon talking about this theory that describes time as having the shape of a pear. But regarding my work, what I find interesting is to visualize and construct an unpredictable context in which different times, spaces, periods and styles exist simultaneously.

CR: You’ve traveled extensively but your roots are in Valencia, Spain, where you’ve always lived. Can you describe life and work in your hometown?

RM: As you say, Valencia is where I’ve always lived and it is the city where my family and friends from childhood live. Lou Reed, in a song about Andy Warhol, said that “There is only one good thing about a small town. You know that you want to get out.”

Valencia is neither a small town nor a really big city, and – despite many defects – it’s a nice and warm place to live and work. It’s funny because I’m writing this from Hanoi, a city where I wouldn’t mind spending more time due to its balance of Asian and Mediterranean atmospheres, its lively cafés and crazy traffic. Hanoi, like Tokyo or New York, is in my map of temptations that, when I have a chance to travel, distance me from my tasks but allow me, after a time, to go back with renewed strength and conviction to my sunny studio in Valencia.

CR: What do you hope most to convey to the viewer of your work?

RM: The tension between geometric elements, between the European and Spanish XX century vanguards. The structure and order that I try to mold until everything fits together or, as Óscar Esquivias said, “the fantasy that must be struck by a hammer to become useful.”

Dear Kauffer, 2011, acrylic on canvas mounted on panel, 13 x 9.5”

Fum-Club, 2011, graphite, ink, gouache and marker on graph paper, 17.5 x 11�

Fluffy, 2011, graphite, ink, gouache and marker on graph paper, 17.5 x 11�

Ricochet (2), 2011, graphite, ink, gouache and marker on graph paper, 27.5 x 39.5�

Katsura (8), 2011, graphite, ink, gouache and marker on graph paper, 17.5 x 11.25�

Warner (2), 2011, acrylic on canvas mounted on panel, 13 x 9.5�

Ricochet (1), 2011, graphite, ink, gouache and marker on graph paper, 17.5 x 11.25�

Siamese Twins (1), 2011, acrylic on canvas mounted on panel, 13 x 13” Siamese Twins (2), 2011, acrylic on canvas mounted on panel, 13 x 13”

Bahía (2), 2011, graphite, ink, gouache and marker on graph paper, 42 x 29.5�

About Roberto Mollá Roberto Mollá (b. 1966, Valencia, Spain) first exhibited his work in 1994 in Tokyo, a city that inspires his paintings and works on paper. His work has since been presented in Japan in twelve group exhibitions and eight solo exhibitions including the Instituto Cervantes and Tozai Bunka Center, among others. He has received grants from both the Japanese and Spanish governments that have allowed him to spend time creating work in Japan. Mollá has held one solo exhibition at CHRISTINA RAY in New York. In Spain, he has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Madrid, Valencia and Santander. Mollá’s work is included in private and public collections including the Embassy of Spain in Tokyo, UNED (Madrid), Marunuma Art Park (Asaka), Ars Fundum (Madrid), Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and DKV Collection.

CHRISTINA RAY is an innovative gallery and creative catalyst in New York whose mission, grounded by the concept of psychogeography, is to discover and present the most important contemporary artists exploring the relationship between people and places.

Baby Jellyfish, 2011, graphite, ink, gouache and marker on graph paper, 3.25 x 2.5” Front cover: Bahîa (1), 2011, graphite, ink, gouache and marker on graph paper, 42 x 29.5” Back cover: Warner (1), 2011, acrylic on canvas mounted on panel, 13 x 9.5”

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