chorda Achillis is also the name that the protagonist of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel “Flights” gives to Achilles tendon at a key moment in the text: –From now on it is called chorda Achillis, where naming (as well as drawing) is creating and seeing means knowing; drawing is never the same as reproducing: to see you have to know how to look, you have to know what you are looking at. This exhibition is composed of a group of works that present philosophical coincidences and crossings with “Flights” regarding the idea of the creative process (poiesis) in relation to death and impermanence, establishing a correspondence between creation and spirituality.
In both cases, the wound, the absence or the void is the metaphorical receptacle of light (which allows us to see), physically present in Castellano’s sculptures in cracks and cuts, often highlighted with gold leaf in areas where the materials have been pushed to the limit of rupture, involving chance, risk and accident as conceptual pillars, while giving the vulnerable a leading expressiveness and strength. In the playful process of experimenting, risking, breaking, and rebuilding underlies the intention of healing; the point at which the artist sews the fabrics or joins the wooden parts with staples is not only a crucial moment in the production of the works, but the constructive elements acquire an empathetic, precise and necessary interdependence.
From the history and the symbolic load of the used materials –such as demolished wood, gold leaf, iron, or untreated textiles– Castellano’s works are articulated in a balance between lightness and brutality, contemporaneity and rootedness, working as a means of updating personal and collective memory while arousing moments of insight that link us as a community, with the world, spirituality and the unknown.
Jacobo Castellano (Jaén, Spain, 1976) lives and works in Madrid. Next September he will have solo shows at Sala Alcalá 31 (Madrid). He has had individual exhibitions in institutions such as: Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid (2022); Artium Museoa, Vitoria-Gasteiz (2021); Museo Barjola, Gijón (2020); Kunsthalle São Paulo, Brazil (2015); or La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2009). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, both national and international, in venues such as: MUSAC, León (2024); Centro Conde Duque, Madrid (2023); Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland (2023); CA2M, Madrid (2021); CAAC, Seville, Spain (2021); Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, Spain (2019); Centro Botín, Santander (2018); MARCO, Monterrey, Mexico (2012), among others.
His work is part of multiple institutional collections, within which it is worth mentioning: TBA21 (Madrid); Artium Museoa (Vitoria-Gasteiz); CAAC (Seville); CA2M (Madrid); CGAC (Santiago de Compostela); FRAC des Pays de la Loire (Nantes, France); Fundación Montenmedio Contemporánea (Cádiz); Fundación Provincial de Artes Plásticas Rafael Botí (Córdoba); Die Mobiliar Art Collection (Zurich); Fundación DKV (Madrid); Fundación Botín (Santander); Colección olorVisual (Barcelona); Fundación Televisa (Mexico City); Kunstsammlung der Schweizerischen Mobiliar Genossenschaft (Bern, Switzerland), to name a few.
