Newman Popiashvili Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of Ferrá Martín and Eduardo Gil curated by Javier Téllez. Titled after a piece by Jazz musician Sun-Ra, the exhibition focuses on notions of space and temporality, questioning the different ways in which we perceive space and how this perception always involves memory. Téllez asked the artists to create a work specifically designed for the gallery space.

Ferrán Martín modified the space by lowering the gallery ceiling to the height of his late father; Eduardo Gil filmed his video in the empty gallery space that he turned into a tennis court. While the two works employ distinctively different strategies, they galvanize each other by being juxtaposed in one place almost becoming a single work in its own right.

In Martín’s piece Manolo Martin, 64 inches, the viewers are forced to adjust to the uncanny space created by the lowered gallery ceiling (dropped at 64 inches height) and physically experience the “presence” of the absent person while they become aware of their own bodies in the space. The fact that his father shared the exact same height with General Franco, according to the artist, further complicates the reading of his piece drawing a parallel with the idea of collective mourning in Spain.

Venezuelan born and New York based artist Eduardo Gil’s work is called Muscle Memory 2. The video shows the artist hitting a tennis ball with a racket on all four walls of the gallery.

The camera follows the ball bouncing against different objects, we quickly gather a ‘constellation’ of references about the artist – the books that he reads, the music that he likes and the athletes that he rooted for as a kid. The careful orchestration between the images we see on the screen and the sound of the bouncing ball heard from speakers located in different spots of the gallery confronts the viewer with an aural recognition of a virtual space.

Eduardo Gil was part of the Queens International at the Queens Museum of Art, S Files at El Museo Del Barrio and L factor at the Exit Art among other exhibitions. Ferrán Martín is a Spanish artist living and working in New York. His past exhibitions include Beyond Narcissus curated by Soko Phay, Puddle Wonderful curated by Sima Familant and Action Jackson curated by David Hunt.