Francesc Ruiz
4/06

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The cityscapes of this Barcelona-born artist have been shown widely throughout Europe, as well as in his native Spain. Ruiz uses real life scenes and translates them to a language of comics that disrupts conventional narrative and linearity. He reworks the comic-book as a medium that gives visibility to the various layers and subcultures of urban life, including those traversed by artists. In the process he rebuilds and reorders the city, uncovering some of its secrets.
Ruiz came to Israel at the end of 2005 for an extremely productive stay. He brought his narrative interest in the urban environment to Jerusalem, and made work that manifests an unusual and original view of the city.  He was invited to join a prestigious international show at the Dvir Galley in Tel Aviv in April of 2006. Ruiz made the relevant piece here, using a book he found during his residency. He also met with several influential local art figures. In addition, Ruiz conceived of his startling new installation, Kiosk Downtown, during his stay in Jerusalem. The installation was exhibited in the Santa Monica Museum in March 2006.
Untitled
(homage to :Max Bill. Four cubes cut into halves which make eight elements. 1973-1985).

This darkly-rendered scene offers us a vision of the deterioration of a prized urban site: Max Bill's slit cubes, set in a park overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem. The work attests to the borderline qualities of the site — placed between Old Jerusalem and the newer, western city, and embodying the meeting-points of cultivation and neglect, respectability and shadiness, art and the underworld.
 
Untitled

This work — an intervention in a book found by Ruiz in Israel during his JCVA residency — was made especially for a show titled Cheslaw Milosh/ To Allen Ginsberg at the Dvir Gallery in Tel Aviv. Ruiz, along with other internationally acclaimed artists, was invited to make a piece that responds to Cheslaw Milosh's poem in tribute of Ginsberg. The poem explores the triangle of artist, art work and viewer. It is shot through by the artist's cry of disappointment and frustration at his failure to communicate his intended idea. Milosh uses the metaphor of a discarded tire lying aimlessly on the roadside to describe the artist's life. This "zero" image fits well into Ruiz's vocabulary.  During his JCVA residency, Ruiz came across Maris Bishof's book The Exhibition, bought it, and modified it. Bishof's is a book of wordless comics that address the same art-artist-viewer triangle. Playing (with) the endless game of interpretation, Ruiz added bubbles with short texts characteristic of many comic books, thus granting Bishof's work a new, humorous twist.
 
Kiosk Downtown

A neon-lit kiosk stacked with comics is a common urban sight, but this one, placed at the center of the gallery space, has been termed by curator Jacob Fabricius "a sculptural delirium."  What may appear at first as an imitation of the everyday kiosk, turns out to feature only Ruiz's own comics — on the magazine fronts, candy wrappers, DVD covers, everything. These subversive magazine covers, with names like Crunch, Servant, United Geographies, or The Victims, include characters with direct, unexpected statements like "I was doing sex," or, "I hope I will find a job soon." Ruiz's magazine titles and covers communicate with each other; the entire concoction, which appears commonplace from a distance, turns out to offer Ruiz's biting commentary on the estrangement, isolation, and forms of consumption that rule our urban experience.