Exhibition

  • Suprasensible: A Project on Astral Bodies and Invisible Planes
    Santiago Borja
    Artist
    Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, Barcelona
    Jul 01, 2015 to Aug 16, 2015
  • GRANTEE
    Santiago Borja
    GRANT YEAR
    2014

View of Suprasensible, Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, 2015, Barcelona, Spain. Courtesy of the artist.

Inspired by Paul Rudolph's drawings, Suprasensible contrasts the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion with a group of esoteric dancers that practice eurhythmy, a holistic approach to space based in Rudolf Steiner's teachings, in which the macrocosms and microcosms interpenetrate each other as the body performs the space.
In this sense, Suprasensible: A Project on Astral Bodies and Invisible Planes is not only a eurhythmy performance at the Barcelona Pavilion, but also a project that renders visible an esoteric vein that runs underneath the modern movement in architecture, evidenced or exemplified by the phenomenological jargon that dominates the theorization and discourse on spatial perception in architecture. This project critically unfolds this language through the use of esoteric practices that represent in their literality these same theories, as if reflected on an oblique mirror, or as in this case, on a glass pavilion.

Born in Mexico City in 1970, Santiago Borja received a BS in architecture from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and an MFA in the theory and practice of contemporary art and new media from the Université Paris VIII, France. He is a visiting professor at ESAY, in Merida, Mexico. His recent work builds on the intersection between art, architecture, and anthropology; his recent solo projects include Sitio at Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye in Poissy, France; Fort Da / Sampler at the Neutra–VDL House in Los Angeles; In the Shadow of the Sun at the Irish Museum of Modern Art; Divan at the Freud Museum in London; Décalage at the Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City; and Halo at the Pavilion Le Corbusier, Foundation Suisse, CIUP in Paris. Among other awards, Borja has received a SNCA–FONCA fellowship, grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Fundación Marcelino Botín, and the Fundación/Colección Jumex.