The insurrection of signs

"The city is a discourse and that discourse is truly a language:
the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak to our city".
Roland Barthes

What if the walls of the great modern metropolis were not only the reflection of our collective unconscious, but also the sculpted, graffitied, carved, pasted and almost always half crumbling blocks of a virtual museum that longs to be seen as a physical one? And what if art were not in museums, but in our daily lives, on the street?

By Frédéric-Charles Baitinger

Pajares's use of cropping and montage does not place his work under the heading of painting. He is a self-taught artist, as much a poet and wanderer as a sociologist, and each one of his canvases can be related to the cinematographic experiments of Guy Debord or Jean-Luc Godard. In general, the artist only uses elements which belong to the world of advertising, politics or street-life. His works constitute authentic pictorial reflections of the history of society, saturated with signs.

More in keeping with Situationist militancy than Surrealism or the Dada movement, Pajares is, first and foremost, a master of piracy and diversion. Profoundly influenced by the streets of New York, his work depicts the abandoned walls that progressively, under the assault of passers-by, evolve into a kind of bone yard for contrasting signs.
However, instead of seeing the straightforward reproduction of a given situation in this jumble of images and symbols, isn't it necessary to capture, much like Roland Barthes's mythologies, a global meaning on canvas, one that should not be confused in any way with the meaning of the individual elements?

In this respect, something akin to charity nestles at the heart of all Juan Manuel Pajares's compositions; an ethical flavour instils his work with a dimension which goes far beyond the meaning of its elements, depriving the images of their aggressive connotations, deactivating their negative load and subverting their meaning or intention. Collages, templates, posters, graffiti: the impact of the images, as with Barthes's codes, is miraculously absorbed or even subverted from within.

Pajares's entire collection is condensed in this reversal, in this insurrection of conflicting signs. In the world of communication and marketing (whether it be political, commercial or even self-referent marketing, as is the case with graffiti) the meaning denoted by a message (the literal meaning of a phrase, image or sign), is always erased when faced with a sensible implication (its metaphoric meaning). Pajares's work however has the unusual quality of showing the real meaning behind the signs by liberating them from servitude, that is, their subordination to the binary world of communication.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2011

• Villa del Arte Galleries. Barcelona, Spain
• AAF Milan. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Milan, Italy
• AAF Brussels. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Brussels, Belgium

2010

• Villa del Arte Galleries. Barcelona, Spain
• Critical Mass. New York, USA
• AAF Amsterdam. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Amsterdam, Netherlands
• AAF London. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. London, UK
• Morier Gallery. Bordeaux, France
• AAF Paris. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Paris, France
• AAF New York. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. New York, USA
• Brelan d'Àrt Gallery. L'Isle sur la Sorgue, France
• Contemporary Art Fair. Bordeaux, France

2009

• Base Elements Gallery. Barcelona, Spain
• St-Art. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Strasbourg, France
• Feria Internacional.Touluse, France
• Nexus Urbanos. Bogotá, Colombia
• Françesc Llopis Gallery. Barcelona, Spain
• Marie Leduc Gallery. Niza, France
• Lille Art Fair. Lille, France
• Villa del Arte Galleries. Barcelona, Spain

2008

• St-Art. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Strasbourg, France
• Arte Nim. Nimes, France
• Collage Gallery. Lleida, Spain
• Villa del Arte Galleries. Barcelona, Spain

2007

• Gallery Bar Orchard Street. New York, USA
• Contemporary Art Fair Vigo. Vigo, Spain
• Arte Nim. Nimes, France
• Grenoble Art Fair. Grenoble, France

2006

• Christies Gallery. París, France
• Grenoble Art Fair. Grenoble, France
• Arte Nim. Nimes, France
• Art for Progress. New York, USA

2005

• Art for Progrss. Miami, USA
• Art for Progress. New York, USA

2004

• Simon Fundation. New York, USA
• Atelier Art International. New York, USA

2003

• Marta Torres Gallery. Ibiza, Spain

2002

• Agora Gallery. New York, USA

2000

• Agora Gallery. Sitges, Spain
• Roger Smith Hotel. New York, USA

1998

• White Gallery. Sitges, Spain

1995

• Agora Gallery. Sitges, Spain