Gonzalopuch

With his unusual, fantastical constructions and videos, Gonzalo Puch is at first glance an unlikely candidate to be an inspirational photographer. His work, especially his Untitled Globus-Self-Portrait series, would seem to translate badly into the two-dimensional medium of photography. His photographic works, however, transcend the restrictions imposed by the limits of the medium and distill the three-dimensionality of his constructions and the temporality of his performances and videos into subtly humorous and intellectually stimulating photographic images.

Taking Globus (2004) as a starting point, it is clear that Puch is not just creating his own world but, intellectually, his own universe of interlocked ideas, concepts, and metaphors that circle one another like planets and moons circle the sun which in its turn spirals through the galaxy. As can be seen in various pictures, Puch goes about assembling his images the way one might logically decorate a room. A room of one’s own is, of course, the site of one’s own personal universe. He assembles cultural elements—books, maps, sculptures—natural ones—plants, fruits, and the like—and, typically, scientific ones involving spheres representing the planets, real or nonsensical formulae. The recurring motifs suggest an interdependence or an evolution as the ideas accumulate in different works to create new scenarios and new ideas.

As in his work focusing on the natural environment, Puch includes “Everyman-like” figures that appear to stand in for the artist or humanity in general. His figures are placed outside in wonderment, often seated directly in the water or in small boats. They chase clear bubbles or globe-like things reflected in many of his other constructed universes.

His constructions are often laid bare in a way that mixes humor, intensity, and a certain futility. In Globus, the artist himself lies on a floor in a room attempting to inflate a globe constructed of mismatched sections of maps. It is as though he is attempting to give the breath of life to his own universe. A basketball net emerges from a blackboard densely covered with unintelligible formulae. Ladders and other objects abound and implicate the artist—often seen in baby blue pajamas—in the constructions themselves. In one series, he becomes entangled in his creations and crashes to the ground like another unfortunate Icarus. In another image, a woman screws in a light bulb in a kitchen brimming with bric-a-brac while on the back wall a clock set in a frame representing the sun tells time. Let there be light . . . In other images the protagonist, alone or with someone else, struggles with paper strips. In the beginning was the word . . . The word, metaphorically here, constructs relations in space and between the individuals in the images. Some paper strips form cages, some structures, others furniture or diagrams. Still others bind the two figures together in some form of intertwined relationship—a marriage contract perhaps, a dialogue? Who can say?

The experimental worlds of Gonzalo Puch do not allow easy answers. They are hilarious but hermetic. Still, they suggest relationships between us, our fantasies, our culture, our scientific advances, and our natural environments in ways that are whimsical and enigmatic. Here photography distills a larger picture—a video or an actual sculpture—into a two-dimensional object that contains all the mystery of these larger works. Each is worth more than the official 1,000 words or ten minutes of HD-video, and that is the magic contained in Puch’s untitled worlds.