Category: News JM Mellado

Important art collections inside and outside Spain treasure, today, the photographic work of José María Mellado. The relevance of his artistic career, accompanied by his constant work in relation to photographic technique, have brought him significant recognitions within which he figures, precisely, to be part of notable artistic reservoirs together with creators of different generations.

Since last September 17, the Art Room El Brocense in the city of Cáceres, on the purpose of celebrating its 40th anniversary, has inaugurated a retrospective exhibition that takes a tour of the trajectory of the space, within which the work of José María Mellado is included. In its room it houses pieces by a select group of artists who during all these years have exhibited at its headquarters and later have gone on to form the valuable collection of contemporary art that they currently treasure.

The photograph “Arqueología industrial II” (2002) by José María Mellado, belonging to the V Prize for Plastic Arts Sala El Brocense in 2002, is precisely one of the works that appears in this exhibition. The piece is part of an important creative stage of this photographer, where the lens of his camera found in the landscape a leitmotiv from which to explore the passage of time and the human footprint; fragments of reality that do not cease to excite and that Mellado has managed to capture unequivocally.

Organized by the Provincial Council of Cáceres, the exhibition ‘Sala de Arte El Brocense, 1980-2020’, exhibits 40 works that make up the funds of the institution itself. In the words of the organizers, it constitutes “a review of the recent history of Spanish contemporary art and a recognition and heartfelt tribute to all those men and women who have passed through this Room.” From these creations a conceptual and visual discourse has been woven that starts from different languages, formats and styles and that go through a selection of authors where they appear: Emilio Gañán, Chus García Fraile, Hilario Bravo, Verónica Bueno, Luis Canelo, Carmen Cantabella, Beatriz Castela, Encarna Cortés, Paloma de la Cruz, Esperanza d’Ors, Florentinio Díaz,  Manuel Antonio Domínguez, Teresa Esteban, Pedro Gamonal, Jorge Gil, Julian Gómez, Mª José González Alonso, Belén González, Arancha Goyeneche, Jaime de Jaraiz, Victoriano Martín Terrón, Laura Medina Kiko Miyarés, Pilar Molinos, Ruth Morán, Isabel Muñoz, Lourdes Murillo, Juan José Narbón terrón, Carmen Pastrana, Arsenio Pérez, Luis Rosado, Javier Roz, María Ruíz Campins, María de Sande, Andrés Talavero,  Pedro Valhondo, Mª Jesús Velasco, Manuel Vilches and José María Mellado.

We invite you to visit the exhibition that will open its doors until October 16 in the El Brocense art room in Cáceres from Tuesday to Saturday, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Video:

El Brocense Art Room, 1980-2020. Special exhibition 40TH ANNIVERSARY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX5s6yKhhFw

Prensa:

La sala de arte El Brocense de Cáceres celebra su 40 aniversario con una exposición retrospectiva de su trayectoria

La Sala ‘El Brocense’ celebra sus 40 años con una exposición retrospectiva

La sala de arte El Brocense cumple 40 años

La Sala El Brocense de Cáceres celebra su 40 aniversario con una exposición retrospectiva

La Diputación de Cáceres celebra el 40 aniversario de su sala de arte con la exposición “Sala de Arte El Brocense, 1980-2020”

Exposición Sala de Arte El Brocense 1980 – 2020

 

 

 

 

 

“Diálogos. 40 years of photography in Cordoba” highlights the photographic work of José María Mellado.

Cordoba has become a reference for contemporary art with the celebration of the Biennial of Photography. For 17 editions he has put on stage the artistic worth of the medium with an international focus. To this day, several have been the creators who have participated in their different calls, matching their images, exchanging and generating a visual dialogue between their works, the Cordoba context and their visitors.

This year the XVII Biennial of Photography of Cordoba has focused on recognizing the work carried out throughout these editions. The extensive exhibition programme presented under this highlights this. Within it stands out the participation of the photographer José María Mellado as one of its protagonists, recognizing not only his transit through this event, but also his career at the national and international level.

José María Mellado, in addition to participating with the personal exhibition “Closer”, inaugurated on April 9 at the Teatro Cómico de Córdoba, is also part of the collective exhibition “Diálogos. 40 years of photography of Cordoba”, curated by José Francisco Gálvez in the Vimcorsa room. In it he shares the stage with important artists such as Juan Vacas, Franco Fontana, Catherine McIntyre, Concha Adán, Pablo Juliá, Juan García-Gálvez, Gabriel Cualladó, among others.

“Napias” (Almería, 1966) is the piece of Mellado that we can enjoy in the exhibition, made up entirely of a selection of 179 works belonging to the funds of the City of Córdoba and the personal collection of the curator of the José Francisco Gálvez project. Precisely this is one of the most recognized photographs within the artistic work of José María Mellado, which goes back to its origins, where the prominence was held by his images of black and white reporting. A work with a marked documentary character in which the author has captured an enigmatic scene with which he plays on a visual and conceptual level. “Napias” earned him, in 2000, the Xiv Honor Prize Contest “City of Córdoba” Super Mosque, lauro awarded by the AFOCO Foundation.

“Dialogues….” – and the biennial in its broadest sense – have become an opportunity to value the work of artists, managers, projects and public and private initiatives by bringing the most representative of national and international photographic art to southern Spain.
Among them the Association of Cordobeses Photographers, an entity that since its birth, in 1981, has been key in the development of the biennial.

AFOCO has laid a bridge of relations between the city and photography, creating a documentary platform of great value. Added to this is the work of management and collaboration that has favored the constant flow of creators of the most dissimilar nationalities who have bequeathed their works to the city of Córdoba and who today allow to make a historiographic tour through the lens of renowned authors.

The exhibition, united in three exhibition blocks The Precursors (1945-1980), The Middle Land (1981-2020) and On the Limits of Reality (Final twentieth and twenty-first century), runs through different eras, characters, stories and realities through which the story of photography is told of both the Cordoba city itself, Spain and the rest of the world. The integrative approach, of concord and coexistence generated by this exhibition, highlights one of the premises that has underpinned to this day the Biennial of Córdoba, assumed in the title of the exhibition itself: the expanded dialogue to all creators and lovers of photography, within which José María Mellado becomes one of its main protagonists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVkZ2rXJ3uA

The exhibition “Dialogues. 40 years of photography of Cordoba” can be visited until May 23rd at the headquarters of this exhibition. We invite you to consult the information regarding this exhibition as well as the other exhibitions and activities that are part of the exhibition program of the Biennial of Photography inhttps://bienaldefotografia.cordoba.es/dialogos-40-anosde-fotografia-en-cordoba/

 

Pictured: left to right Juan García-Gálvez, José María Mellado, José Francisco Gálvez y Pablo Juliá.

 

 

 

 

On April 9th the exhibition “CLOSER” by José María Mellado opened its doors in the newly opened Teatro Cómico de Córdoba. A new itinerant of the exhibition that joins this time to the exhibition program of the 17th edition of the Biennial of Photography of Córdoba “Images Inmunes”, organized by the Andalusian Center of Photography that can be visited until May 23.

 

CLOSER, curated by Pablo Juliá, takes as a starting point the landscape, which has been masterfully documented in the work of José María Mellado throughout his artistic production. The proposal for the Teatro Cómico de Córdoba, however, takes us through other defeaters and invites us to delv into a composition of the most intimate and psychological image with which the author transgresses simple representation.

 

En palabras del comisario de la exposición, Pablo Juliá, la obra de Mellado “cuidada en el detalle, nos habla de las relaciones del hombre, o su huella, con el paisaje que habita…”. Este es precisamente el leitmotiv que aúna las fotografías de esta muestra. Las piezas seleccionadas, en esta ocasión, realizan un viaje enigmático y transitan por escenarios donde ha quedado plasmada, de una u otra manera, la huella del hombre.

 

With a refined photographic technique, playing with compositions and framing, and also including high quality photographs made with mobile (in tune with its most recent publications), 35 images of different cities, landscapes and enclaves are presented where the concept of absence/presence is spinning the narrative thread of the exhibition. CLOSER thus unfolds a whole subjective and sometimes alienating landscape that often appears to question our actions in space; enigmatic scenes and extreme subtlety that – quasi hyperrealistic paintings – make us vibrate emotionally, until those moments when human presence becomes dormant in waste, even though physically it is not observed.

 

For Mellado, in CLOSER, the landscape becomes an excuse to assume other topics that are already constant within its creation, but this time put to dialogue from another look, from the inside of the being. The nude, the abandonment, the loneliness, the fleetingness of the instant, life in the broadest sense of the word, are peeked into each of the images.

 

One of the pieces that synthesizes this thesis is precisely “Teatro Campoamor en ruinas”, an instant taken in Havana, which arrives at the Teatro Cómico de Córdoba in a special production. The proposal that José María Mellado has conceived specifically for this space, appropriates the same concept of theater to overlay, to this, the image of one of the most enigmatic scenarios of the island of Cuba. The ruined photograph of Campoamor establishes a thoughtful dialogue with space and other pieces questioning, between clues, not only what has once been the result of that imprint of man, but the immanent capacity of nature to regain its medium and give life to what seems to have come to an end.

Learn more

Image gallery

Media appearances

– El día de Córdoba (09 Abril, 2021)
La Bienal de Fotografía de Córdoba muestra el alma escondida de los lugares insólitos retratados por José María Mellado en ‘Closer’ (eldiadecordoba.es)

Un recorrido por la exposición ‘Closer’, de José María Mellado (eldiadecordoba.es)

– Diario de Córdoba (09 Abril, 2021)
José María Mellado ahonda en el perfil más íntimo del paisaje – Diario Córdoba (diariocordoba.com)

– Europa Press (09 Abril, 2021)
El Centro Andaluz de la Fotografía participa en la bienal de Córdoba con la exposición ‘Closer’, de José María Mellado (europapress.es)

– Cordópolis (09 Abril, 2021)
‘Closer’: el rostro del paisaje urbano, según José María Mellado (eldiario.es)

– ABC (09 Abril, 2021)
Bienal de la Fotografía de Córdoba | ‘Shooting’, huella del hombre en el paisaje de José María Mellado (abc.es)

– Córdoba Buenas Noticias (09 Abril, 2021)
La exposición ‘Closer’, de José María Mellado participará en la XVII Bienal Internacional de Fotografía de Córdoba (cordobabn.com)

– Sierra de Cádiz Informa(09 Abril, 2021)
‘Closer’: el rostro del paisaje urbano, según José María Mellado (sierradecadizinforma.es)

– Gente Digital (Córdoba, 9 de abril de 2021)
El Centro Andaluz de la Fotografía participa en la bienal con la exposición ‘Closer’, de José María Mellado (gentedigital.es)

– Diario de Almería (10 Abril, 2021)
Las fotografías de José María Mellado llegan al Teatro Cómico de Córdoba (diariodealmeria.es)

– Ideal (10 Abril, 2021)
Cultura en Almería | El CAF participa en la XVII Bienal Internacional de Córdoba con ‘Closer’, de José María Mellado | Ideal

– Córdoba Hoy (11 Abril, 2021)
“Reivindico el móvil como herramienta para hacer una fotografía que puede estar en una exposición” (cordobahoy.es)

From March 26 to May 23, 2021, Córdoba becomes the capital of photography through the XVII International Biennial of Photography that will reflect the immunity of the image against the passage of time.

The event will feature 14 exhibitions by creators such as Manuel Lama, Moreno Carretero, García Rodero, José María Mellado, Manuel Viola, Isabel Muñoz, Toni Catani, Alberto Schommer and Gervasio Sánchez.

The Teatro Cómico will host CLOSER, exhibition by José María Mellado in which he shows us his particular interpretation of the landscape.

 

Learn more about CLOSER exhibition at the Cordoba Photography Biennial

The opening of the exhibition “Dialogues. 40 years of photography of Cordoba”, opens the XVII Biennial of Photography of Córdoba. The exhibition features 179 works by artists such as Juan Vacas, Franco Fontana, Juan García-Gálvez, José María Mellado, Ramón Azañón, Catherine MCIntyre and Concha Adán, among others. The images are grouped into three different spaces identified with the different eras of the evolution of photography at the local, national and international levels.

 

Learn more about Dialogues. 40 years of photography in Cordoba

Press links:

Diario de Córdoba. Arranca la Bienal

The magazine Negra, is a publication of the School of Creative Photography of Havana dedicated to the promotion and study of Cuban photography, welcoming in its pages both national creators and other photographers with extensive experience in the world of photography.

In its number 42 of May 2020, the interview with José María Mellado is published.

Leer entrevista

José María Mellado, INSTANTES DE LUZ. From June 19 to July 19 Aurora Vigil-Escalera Gallery

 

Individual exhibition by José María Mellado, curated by Esther Maestre, director of the Photographic Encounters of Gijón and photographic advisor of the gallery.
José María Mellado is one of the main exponents of photography in Spain for his artistic and didactic facet, internationally recognized for his characteristic landscapes that manage to transport the viewer to the place of the shot with the greatest possible complexity and fidelity. Mellado has investigated in depth the technical possibilities of capture, treatment and copying. His artistic work is collected in six books of work: “The Silence and the Light”, “Iceland”, “Landscape. The Eternal Return”, “From Heaven to Earth”, “CLOSER” AND “Cuba. On the other side of the mirror.”

His work has been awarded more than a hundred times and his works appear in important collections and museums, highlighting the Reina Sofía National Museum (MNCARS), Borusan Contemporary de Estambúl, Chazen Museum of Art (Wisconsin – USA), Contemporary Art Collection of the Community of Madrid, Andalusian Center of Contemporary Art, the State Society for International Exhibitions , Museum of Cáceres, Government of Cantabria, Assembly of Extremadura, Artium (Basque Museum of Contemporary Art), Coca Cola Foundation, UNED Foundation, TEA, Museum of Fine Arts of Santander, etc.

He has regularly participated in the most important international art fairs such as ArtBasel, Art Brussels, Art Cologne, Art Karlsruhe, Photo Miami, Pulse, SCOPE, ArteLisboa or ARCO, being represented by galleries in Spain, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Switzerland, France, Panama and Peru.

 

Download the exhibition catalogue

 

 

JOSÉ MARÍA MELLADO Y LIUDMILA & NELSON

Space Art Revolution. Havana. November, 2019

On November 30th, the two-person exhibition Hoy también es ahora by the Spanish photographer José María Mellado and the duo composed of Cuban photographers Liudmila & Nelson was inaugurated in the Arte Revolución space in Havana, Cuba. Based on the curatorial work of its curator, Yanet Oviedo, the exhibition brought together a group of works that, under a joint perspective, address, as a fundamental theme, the concepts of time, present, past, future, crisis, transcendence, memory and illusion.

In Hoy también es ahora José María Mellado y Liudmila & Nelson «indistinctly, from their respective photographic poetics and discourses, they explore the imprint, the transcendence and the limits where they are redirected and new ways of relating to “what happened” arise.» ¹

Mellado’s photographs, in this exhibition, refer once again to those concepts that constantly overflow into his work. The (a)temporality of practically immobile, stopped images, the silence of their scenes, the physical and psychological imprint of the passage of time, man and nature, the dichotomy between presence and absence. However, his way of creating, his quasi-pictorial hyperrealism, offer his images a dystopian sense of present, past and future that produce bewilderment in almost every viewer. And it is that reality, as it shows us itself, but through the eyes of Mellado, seems to us different.

«While Mellado is tracing us a path without return, of clues left to chance, of immobile scenes that lost their continuity; Liudmila & Nelson prefer to defuse this temporality, in an illusory regame of permutations and pastiche of simulacrums.» ²

Hoy también es ahora focusing his speech on the importance of the “now”, the moment photographed, the relativity of it, its belonging to a certain moment and the bastedad of concepts that integrates it.

 

¹Oviedo, Yanet. Hoy también es ahora. https://artoncuba.com/blog-es/hoy-tambien-es-ahora/
²Idem.

Hoy también es ahora
Hoy y ahora de la fotografía española y cubana
Hoy también es ahora / Yanet Oviedo