And say cos is part of the exhibition cycle Territories in transit / Duo only, an exchange and projection platform that connects artists from different institutional and geographical contexts. The cycle proposes a dialogue between two creators - one is invited by a collaborating institution and the other, linked to the Valencian Community— so that it generates a shared tour in two locations and two exhibition times. This format encourages the crossing of gazes, languages and territories and promotes collaboration networks that expand the scope of the contemporary artistic fabric.
The exhibition And say cos brings into dialogue the artistic practices of Marco Giordano and Irene Grau. At the center of the exhibition, the relationship and tension between the body and the more than human world is located, a broad horizon that includes plant and mineral species to the infrastructures that inhabit our urban ecosystems. The title And say cos it refers to the act of recognizing more than human elements, naturals or artificials, such as bodies, subjects endowed with an essence of their own that you come into contact with. Each artist articulates this relational dynamic through positionings, different modes and techniques.
On the one hand, per a irene grau, his own body is the medium through which he can enter into dialogue with the natural landscape, cross it, inhabit it and use it as an element to develop a coherent artistic production. His works are often the result of performative actions, not only footprints and documentation of these processes, but systems in which natural matter becomes a lexicon that dialogues with the history of painting and landscape. On the other hand, in the practice of Marco Giordano, the body is never displayed, rather it is always suggested. His research starts from the word, of sound and materials to recompose an intrinsically performative sculptural language. His work often involves the recomposition and transformation of matter as an act capable of interrogating contemporary social phenomena that reveal political frictions.
And say cos brings together pre-existing works by Irene Grau and Marco Giordano, together with some new productions of both made specifically for the museum spaces, and range from painting to photography, and from sculpture to installation.
irene grau presents a selection of works belonging to the two cycles glitter coat (2024) i To iron (2023-2024). In this last series, Irene works from her body towards nature, recording, staining the canvases with rust and water. Use the force to drag the canvases and turn the grass into countless brushes that draw the canvas embodying the action of the mine man in the work. All this force is recorded on the surface of the work and coexists with all the delicacy of water. The landscape paints itself. Shelter is a work developed around Altamira that starts from connecting two essential questions: the presence of water through movement and the possibility of understanding it as a refuge. It will accompany these series with a new production made from the dust that sustains the manufacture of ceramic countertops in the Castelló area.
Marco Giordano builds a new ecosystem by bringing different cycles of work into dialogue with the large sculptural installation Gridlocks (2026) as a central axis. These sculptures are composed of aluminum joints, copper, fiberglass and plastic, elements that make up energy infrastructures, often invisible bodies within our cities. Made from materials from cable dismantling in Glasgow, this cycle represents the first stage of a long-term investigation that the artist dedicates to the theme of the energy transition and the productive and extractive logics that support it.
