J. Manuel Ruiz creates an installation to “destroy the expectations” of the public

Raul Garcia Hemonnet

“I want to generate questions and spaces where things happen,” with this idea in mind, the professor of Audiovisual Communication, José Manuel Ruiz, is exhibiting his multimedia installation 'The Rumor of the Wheel that Pushes' at the Galería Nueva in Madrid, starting on Tuesday, November 12.

It is a composition of drawing and sculpture combined with construction materials that is articulated around a text created from a 'cut-up' (cutting and pasting technique) of fragments of texts by Beckett and Rancière, to create a new one. In addition, the text is also narrated (by the actress Laura Arjona) and broadcast on a loop.

"The installation is designed and planned for the space in which it will be located, a two-story area in which what happens above influences below, and vice versa," he says.

In addition to the text, you will be able to see some drawings that the FCCOM teacher has worked with. They are topographic maps “on which I go through the paper, capturing the idea of ​​drilling holes until what is hidden begins to pour out.” And it is this idea of ​​drilling, of excavating, of searching that surrounds the entire installation by José Manuel Ruiz.

For this artist and professor at the Rey Juan Carlos University, exhibiting solo in Madrid for the first time means “losing his virginity in a big square.” Despite having exhibited all over the world for 15 years, “this is a work that has been in the making for more than a year. What you see is the tip of an iceberg that I hope will topple the public’s expectations and not satisfy them,” he says.

The URJC, through Echegaray funds granted to the Audiovisual Communication and Advertising department, has financed the publication of the catalogue of this exhibition, of which 500 copies will be made and given to attendees free of charge.