Daniel Canogar, Billow
April 22 – August 14, 2020
Virtual walkthrough: April 22, 3 PM ET
bitforms gallery is pleased to present our fourth solo exhibition with Daniel Canogar. The data-sphere is a driving force of society and the economy, despite its invisible nature. This lack of visibility can make it difficult to comprehend how information affects daily life. Billow attempts to expose the hidden threads of data networks.
The exhibition consists of six sculptural LED screens that depict abstract animations developed with data from real-time Google Trends. Colors within the animation are determined by how “hot” or popular a specific topic becomes; the more viral the search is online, the warmer the tones become. Popular queries from each day appear momentarily as overlaid text before dissolving into a smoky abstraction. Their lingering forms generate illusions of interlaced imagery.
This series continues the artist’s interest in the similitude between screens and textiles. Canogar plays with the idea of threads and knotted string by exposing electric data cables underneath the LED panels. Another defining element of the artist’s recent work is the curving, architectural intersections of his sculptures. Rolling silhouettes of technological streams emulate the natural world of rivers, hills, and valleys. Canogar presents sculptures of the incorporeal electronic realm in the hopes of better understanding the ebb and flow of our digital times.
b. 1964 Madrid, Spain
Lives and works in Madrid and Los Angeles
Born in Madrid to a Spanish father and an American mother, Daniel Canogar´s life and career have bridged between Spain and the U.S. Photography was his earliest medium of choice, receiving an M.A. from NYU at the International Center of photography in 1990, but he soon became interested in the possibilities of the projected image and installation art.
He has created permanent public art installations with LED screens, including Aqueous at The Sobrato Organization (Mountain View, CA, 2019); Pulse, at Zachry Engineering Education Complex in Texas A&M University (College Station, TX, 2018); Tendril for Tampa International Airport (Tampa, FL, 2017) and Cannula, Xylem and Gust II at BBVA Bank Headquarters (Madrid, 2018). He has also created public monumental artworks in different mediums such as Amalgama El Prado, a generative video-projection projected on the Museo Nacional del Prado façade and created with the Museum’s painting collection (Madrid, 2019); Constellations, the largest photo-mosaic in Europe created for two pedestrian bridges over the Manzanares River, in MRío Park (Madrid, 2010) and Asalto, a series of video-projections presented on various emblematic monuments, including the Arcos de Lapa (Rio de Janeiro, 2009), the Puerta de Alcalá (Madrid, 2009) and the church of San Pietro in Montorio (Rome, 2009). Also part of the series is Storming Times Square, screened on 47 of the LED billboards in Times Square (New York, NY, 2014).
His solo shows include Liquid Memories at sala Kubo-Kutxa (San Sebastian, 2019); Surge a temporary installation for the Grand Lobby Wall at Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA, 2019); Echo at Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum (Lafayette, LA, 2019); Melting the Solids at Wilde Gallery (Geneva, 2018); Fluctuations at Sala Alcalá 31 (Madrid, 2017); Echo at bitforms gallery (New York, NY, 2017) and Max Estrella Gallery (Madrid, 2017); Sikka Ingentium at Museum Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain, 2017); Quadratura at Espacio Fundación Telefónica (Lima, 2014); Vórtices at the Fundación Canal Isabel II (Madrid, 2011); Synaptic Passage, an installation commissioned for the exhibition Brain: The Inside Story at the American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY, 2010) and two installations at the Sundance Film Festival (Park City, UT, 2011).
He has exhibited in Reina Sofia Contemporary Art Museum, Madrid; Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio; Offenes Kulturhaus Center for Contemporary Art, Linz; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfallen, Düsseldorf; Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin; Borusan Contemporary Museum, Istanbul; American Museum of Natural History, New York; Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh; Palacio Velázquez, Madrid; Max Estrella Gallery, Madrid; bitforms gallery, New York; Art Bärtschi & Cie Gallery, Geneva; Eduardo Secci Contemporary, Florence; the Alejandro Otero Museum, Caracas and the Santa Mónica Art Center, Barcelona.
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