Bernardo Montgomery

Cuarto de Máquinas presents Vientos cargados de arena by Mexican artist Bernardo Montgomery.

To be in a sandstorm is to surrender control of sensations. The air unfolds, clouding the view, obstructing the lungs. Light filters in, diffused and specular. The grains of sand slip through the fingers of memory, submerging us in total disorientation. The desert in which Bernardo Montgomery situates us becomes present through photographs that play with the limits of abstraction, conveying a struggle of the elements that subtly reveal the clarity, renewal and beauty that hides in adversity.

The exhibition is composed of 30 mixed media pieces. The distorted images emerge through photographing a series of reflections that are printed on steel or copper sheets, which are later oxidized and altered by hand. This process allows the pieces to come to life, the extent of the chemical reactions and the manner in which each element is impacted lies outside the artist’s control. Montgomery plays with accident, a poetic and nostalgic risk, which allows the pieces to continue to evolve.

The imperfections that emerge, far from being corrected, are celebrated as part of the inherent beauty of deterioration.

This aesthetic of chance and the uncontrollable gives each work a singularity that transcends the planned, highlighting the vulnerability of the materials and the inevitability of change. In this way, reflections are generated about the fugacity of everything that surrounds us. Death and transformation as the two certainties in life become serene concepts through the traces of existence.

The title of the exhibition alludes to Federico García Lorca’s lecture Juego y Teoría del Duende (Game and Theory of the Goblin). During the elaboration of this exhibition, Bernardo Montgomery found himself repeatedly reading this text, analyzing and questioning his creative process, what drives him to create and the divergences of what it means to be an artist. The result is an intimate narrative that portrays the dualities of creativity, the force of transformation and the power behind the ability to embrace the desert storms, the sand-loaded winds.

–Icka Gallego