Monday April 10 – Thursday April 13, 11pm PT
Films by Valentina Alvarado Matos and Carlos Vásquez Méndez
In person and online
Artists in person
Microscope is very pleased to present a screening of films by Barcelona-based filmmakers and artists Valentina Alvarado Matos and Carlos Vásquez Méndez, both of whom will be attending in person. The event will be accessible online as well, with a live streaming of the introduction and Q&A from the gallery.
The program of short 16mm films — one of which is a double 16mm film projection — Super 16mm, Super 8mm films and film transfers to digital, includes eight works made by Matos and Méndez between 2014 and 2023. Both filmmakers show an interest in the abilities of human hands — to make physical artifacts, to shape matter, to produce sounds — as well as the intermingling of people and cultures across the ages, and the artistic response to the forced pause of the pandemic.
Matos’ works, at once poetic and methodical, are often scored by her own narration and seem to play with the viewers’ expectations. Through the use of transparencies, for instance, she is able to paint over the images she is shooting while the camera is running; in other cases, she assembles collages of inexistent locations, or sets them on fire. The works by Méndez in the program, using in a variety of film formats, are more concerned with our perception of time — time at a human scale as opposed to cosmic — genetic mysteries, and the recontextualization of early cinema studies. Nature as shot by Méndez, whether in Northern Iceland or Spain, appears static yet majestic, as a seemingly menacing “unknown.”
Matos and Méndez will be available for a Q&A following the screening.
Special Thanks to Carlos Saldaña.
Please note: Masks are required for this event.
General Admission $10
Member Admission $8
_
Valentina Alvarado Matos (1986, Maracaibo) is an artist whose practice focuses on collage from where she thinks of the image traversed by a look that revolves around landscape, gesture and matter. Her pieces have been shown at the Los Angeles Film Forum, Conde Duque, Salzburger Kunstverein, Fabra i Coats, Arts Santa Mònica, Viennale, IFFR, Punto de Vista, Xcèntric, SF Cinemateque, (S8), LOOP Festival, Cineteca Madrid, and Filmoteca de Catalunya, among others. She has been a resident at La Escocesa, Cultura Resident, The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, and Matadero Madrid. Her films are part of the catalog of the distributor Light Cone. Currently she is an artist in residence at Hangar (Barcelona).
Carlos Vásquez Méndez is a visual artist and filmmaker, working with different languages that range from film to photography, sound art and performance. His proposals revolve around experimental documentary discourses, in the form of essays on history, poetic ethnography and field recordings. His work Pewen [Araucaria] received the Joris Ivens/Centre National Artes Plastiques award at Cinéma du Réel for Best debut film, and his latest feature film Las Cruces received important awards and recognitions at festivals such as FIDMarseille (FRA), Yamagata (JPN), Mar del Plata (ARG), etc. His work was part of the retrospective Chile, Cinèma Obstiné presented by the BPI / Pompidou (FRA). His works have been exhibited in spaces such as First Look (USA), Jeonju (KOR), FICValdivia (CHI), FIDOCS (CHI), Transcinema (PER), Arts Santa Mònica (ESP), Blitz! / Zumzeig (ESP), L’Alternativa / CCCB (ESP), Xcèntric (ESP) etc. He holds a PhD from the Faculty of Fine Arts (UB) and is an artist-in-residence at Hangar (Barcelona).
