The artist Núria Güell wins the 10th Edition of the Video Creation Award

The artist Núria Güell is the winner of the 10th Edition of the Video Creation Award. Co-production of a video creation project between Territorial Centers of the Public System of Visual Arts Equipment of Catalonia*, Santa Mònica, the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia and LOOP Barcelona.

The *Territorial Centers of the Public System of Visual Arts Equipment of Catalonia are: ACVic Centre d’Arts Contemporànies, Vic; Bòlit, Centre d’Art Contemporani. Girona; Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; M|A|C Mataró Art Contemporani; Mèdol – Centre d’Arts Contemporànies de Tarragona; Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida; Lo Pati – Centre d’Art Terres de l’Ebre, Amposta i Centre d’Art Tecla Sala, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

The project is titled: “Morir d’amor” and will be inaugurated next year as part of the LOOP 2024 Festival.

“Morir d’amor” 

Phaedra, Oedipus, Medea, Antigone, Narcissus, Adam and Eve, the lovers of Terol, Callisto and Melibea, Romeo and Juliet, Carmen, Tristan and Isolde, Juan Tenorio and doña Inés, almost all the boleros, the bachatas and even the “perreo”.

The list of cultural representations around love is endless: from Greek mythology and its tragedies such as the later tragedies crossed by Catholicism, through courtly love, the Golden Age, the romanticism of the 18th and part of the XIX to the most popular or alternative cultural expressions of our days: also Bad Bunny, Rauw or Bad Gyal wonder about the ravages related to love in our time.

On the other hand, there are the kamikazes who officiate in the name of the love of God, to all the nationalists who continue to throw themselves into their mutual destruction for the love of some country, to the teenage girls who understand the cellotypical features – and implicit violence – as signs of a passion towards them, the mother who kills her children so they don’t suffer, giving life or taking it out of love for an idea of social revolution, or the lover who decides to kill the beloved before he lost his love.

What responsibility does culture have for all these paradoxes? And cultural productions? What myths whisper unconsciously in our discourses? What is the relationship between the ideals of the time and the unique identifications of each subject? What hidden ideals behind the mask of convictions and shared beliefs around the ideal of love, are seen to transform coercion into persuasion? Can the fountains of love be renewed?

The project will raise all these questions in a video essay whose core is based on a stage action that the artist Núria Güell will perform at the National Theater of Catalonia in April 2024.

With the production of this action as an axis, the video essay will propose to investigate the relationship between western cultural productions around love passion and some of the consequences that these representations and discourses have on the real of bodies, both in the singular as in the institutional thing.

Núria Güell (Vidreres, 1981)

Graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona (UB), she continued her studies at the Chair of Performing Arts in Havana, Cuba. He has held exhibitions in international art centers and has participated in numerous biennials. She has also been awarded on several occasions with prizes such as the GAC-DKV, the Ciutat de Palma Prize, the Antoni Gelabert Prize for Visual Arts, among others, and regularly collaborates with social and educational centers.

In her artistic works, Güell is interested in showing the conflicts and contradictions of a political and social nature by which she feels questioned, with the aim of trying to make something emerge from what is not allowed to be seen; that is to say, to perceive something of the real. According to the artist, his practice is not the expression of contemplation or a virtuous deployment of a technique, but a practice of confrontation and subversion, of questioning evidence and moral conventions.

Güell states that he does not conceive of artistic practice as a cultural practice but quite the opposite: a socially and politically necessary practice in which the cultural and the established are brought into play.

Videocreation Prize

The Territorial Centers of the Public Visual Arts Equipment System of Catalonia, Santa Mònica, the Department of Culture, and LOOP Barcelona promote this award with the commitment to promote the work of artists who stand out for their innovative approaches in the creation process, incorporating the video as the main element in the proposal as a whole. The aim is to formulate strategic actions that can be developed in a network, strengthening the visibility in the territory and the international presence of the visual arts.

In previous editions, the following artists have been awarded: Jordi Colomer for the “X-Ville” project in the 1st Edition; Carles Congost for the work “Wonders” in the 2nd Edition; Joan Morey in the 3rd Edition for “SOCIAL BODY [Anatomy Lesson]”; María Ruido in the 4th Edition for the project “Estado de Malastar (malastar_exhuberancia_anomalía)”, Isaki Lacuesta for the work “I am the forbidden” in the 5th Edition, Mabel Palacín for the project “Thieves” in the 6th Edition and the artists Lúa Coderch and Mireia Sallarès joint winners of the 7th Edition for the projects: “Palace of Wind” and “Potential history of Francesc Tosquelles, Catalonia and fear” respectively, Alex Reynolds in the 8th edition for the work “Billie y Nilo” and in the last Fito Conesa for “Anoxia. A constant prelude” in the 9th edition of the award.