“In the object of consumption, all traces of its production must be forgotten. Consequently, it must appear as if it has never been done [...]. The concealment of work constitutes the origin of the autonomy of art”.

Th. W. Adorno, Wagner Manuscript. W. Benjamin, Work of the Passages.

"De lo cierto a lo pintado" (From the Truth to the painted), an exhibition organized by Vicente Vázquez, takes as its starting point the place which supposedly inspired Velázquez to paint "La Fragua de Vulcano" (1630), a stay with a stone oven (nowadays converted into a laundry) located in one of the rooms of the Palazzo Monaldeschi in Rome. A motif that allows him to present what really interests him; on the one hand, the questioning of the condition and status of his practice in order to be able to reflect on possible new ways of naming it (different from conventional ones) and formalizing it. In other words: the consideration of the artist's work, art vs. crafts, high and low culture, the sublime (the field of ideas) and the vulgar (the manual and the mechanical), the convention "art", the grammar of opposites, etc. In his own words: "... I try to question whether what I do is really work and if so what kind of work it would be; (...) in that place of discomfort is where the foundations of the artist's work are laid and it is from that place of discomfort that he wants to set up the exhibition.

Or quoting Pedro G. Romero (extract from the text "Járnvid" written for the publication that forms part of this exhibition): "The great failure of artistic fictions about work, the work with capital letters, is related with the different nature of the elements that mediate when they try to communicate this effort. The performing arts are not a work, they are not a work. Art is an activity but not a work. Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio was obsessed with making it clear to everyone that his art was not a job, that his work was hard and his task immense, but properly speaking, it could not be considered a job (...)".

Thus, Vicente Vázquez decided to act as an intermediary, to transport the meaning throughout the process of preparing the exhibition and to materialize this intermediation without opposing in it. Finally, this "being" is made concrete through a display of artefacts that refer to the works in an exhibition and their arrangement in the gallery space -as a specific site-, which is altered respecting to their usual use, in addition to subverting the status of "official art" of the work of art, understood here as images and documentary actions, recording the process and main idea.

In this way, it is intended to establish possible relationships between each elements arranged in the room, links that will extend during (and beyond) the agreed exhibition time. For that, Vicente Vázquez will once again act as an intermediary, providing new content that will in turn bring about small transformations in situ. Thus, through the use of the artistic strategies carried out at Nordés, he seeks to move away (both the moment and the fact) beyond the conventional limits of the exhibition format. We are therefore talking about a prolonged task in time, rather than a finite exhibition.

*At 8:30 pm, during the opening, Vicente Vázquez gave a presentation-performance of the project in the gallery, providing a simultaneous voice-over to the projected images of the video recorded in Rome.

*This project has been carried out thanks to the work and collaboration of the following agents and companies: the Government of Spain Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation; The Holy See, which gave its approval to film and photograph in Rome; the Faculty of Geography and History (USC), especially the Professor Miguel Anxo Rodríguez; Marcos Asorey, especially Bernardo; Imprenta Agpograf; Copynino; EASD Mestre Mateo, especially the professor and photographer Juan Adrio; Katharina Hetzeneder, designer of the publication; Iván Nespereira for his photographs; Tractora Coop.; the texts by Pedro G. Romero, Esperanza Collado, Vicente Vázquez... and the one which is going to arrive in handwriting by Pablo Fidalgo Lareo (among other contributions to the publication); Cineclube Compostela, Hervor y Fervor y Didac, for the loan of some of the necessary elements at the inauguration; the whim for this project by Chus Villar and the production by Nordés with the collaboration of the Xunta de Galicia.

Vicente Vázquez (Tarragona, 1976): since 2001 he has been working jointly and individually under different names. Most of his collaborations have been with the Basque artist Usue Arrieta. His activities have been published in the field of visual arts, cinema, contemporary dance and performance. Trained as a visual artist, his contributions in the fields of image and time and the production of objects, the visual, the auditory and the formulation of the social, have been shown in public and private institutions, both national and international, as well as in film festivals. As an expansion of their collaborative practice, in 2013, with Usue Arrieta, Marc Vives and Ainara Elgoibar, they set up Tractora Coop. which was later joined by Nader Koochaki. Tractora is an artists' cooperative based in Bizkaia that was set up to formalize the existing collaborative relationships between its members. Over time it has grown as an organization that supports the artistic projects of its members as well as the projects of third parties with whom the members of the cooperative share interests, affections and concerns. As a result of these synergies, in 2018 the publishing house -zko was born. The publishing house arises with the purpose of bringing to light and distributing works that are developed between art and other disciplines of knowledge.

Some of the latest exhibitions in which it has participated:

Open codes we are data. Azkuna Zentroa. Bilbao/ZKM and the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe curated by Peter Weibel with Lívia Nolasco, Yasemin Keskintepe and Blanca Giménez; Ver as vozes dos artistas #2, Oporto, Saco Azul/ Maus Hábitos, Oporto, curated by Miguel von Haffe; Landa land. A documentation of Darcy Lange. Tabakalera, Centre of Contemporary Culture of Donosti (San Sebastian), articulated by Tractora Coop.; Desing week, V&A Victoria and Albert Museum, London, curated by Irini Papadimitriou; Después del 68. Art and artistic practices in the Basque Country 1968-2018. Museo Bellas Artes, Bilbao; CMDG: As near as one pleases, EAST, New York, curated by Víctor Esther; Ocho diez, seis o siete lobos, Joan Miró Fundation, curated by David Armengol. Barcelona; Contra Tápies, Antoni Tàpies Fundation, Barcelona, curated by Valentín Roma and Laurance Rassel; 1813, Siege, Fire and Reconstruction of San Sebastián. Museo San Telmo, Donostia, curated by Pedro G Romero; Suturak, Cerca a lo Próximo. San Telmo Museum, curated by Xabier Sáenz de Gorbea; Resonance. Goethe Institute, Wyoming Building, New York/98 weeks, Beirut, curated by Sarah Demeuse and Manuela Moscoso... etc.

Collections: Works made in collaboration with Usue Arrieta are part of collections such as La Caixa Contemporary Art Collection, Barcelona; CGAC Collection, Galician Centre of Contemporary Art, Santiago de Compostela; BilbaoArte Collection; Alterarte Collection; Vigo University and private collections.