- text
- pictures
Teresa Solar
eresa Solar Abboud’s imaginary is based on the morphology of speech and, by extension, of thought. Concepts such as resistance, insulation, tightness and immunity are developed through a multidisciplinary production focused on sculpture and drawing and based on the creation of multi-layered narratives. Throat, pore, hatch, tongue, pipe, her pieces are populated with connotations of connectivity and flow. Hers is a practice full of words and full of organs that create words: a talkative work that doubts itself but nevertheless wants to talk.
In recent years, Solar Abboud has developed large-format installations in which families of sister sculptures vary in shape and size, creating complex ecosystems of thought. The reflection about the great stories of progress in contemporary society are opposed to micro-narratives that have to do with her own body: sports injuries, stuttering and daily transits through her city are a fundamental part of the expressive sphere of the creator.
The artist takes up the space with pieces of very different size and materiality: clay, found objects and human symbols coexist in her work. Teresa Solar Abboud approaches these relationships from an organic sensibility, as if they were bodily functions, but she also accentuates the complex system of relationships in the industrial world, where hybrid forms of existence that combine organic and synthetic properties are constantly being produced. The work with ceramics is especially relevant in her production, the artist interprets the clay as a metaphor for the relationship of mankind with the geological mantle on which our civilizations lay and thus creates, through the intrinsic insulating qualities of the material, cavernous systems with which to tell stories of self-protection and isolation.
She participated in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani (2022). In 2021 she took part in the Liverpool Biennial curated by Manuela Moscoso with a public art installation at Exchange Flags. She took part in KölnSkulptur #9 curated by Chus Martínez in Cologne (2017-2019).
Future projects include a group show at Hayward Gallery in London, a solo exhibition at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo CA2M, curated by Tania Pardo, travelling to MACBA and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, and a project at The High Line in New York, curated by Cecilia Alemani.
Recent solo shows include Big Mouth, within Boundaries, Oozing out at 1946, The Hague; Formas de fuga at Travesía Cuatro Madrid; Pumping Station at Travesía Cuatro CDMX; Ride, Ride, Ride at Matadero Madrid and Index Foundation, Stockholm and Flotation Line at Der TANK, Institut Kunst in Basel.
She has taken part in group shows at TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Islas Canarias, Spain; Collegium, Ávila, Spain; C3A, Córdoba, as part of TBA21 Collection; Fondazione Sandretto’s Young Curators Residency Programme in Madrid, Spain; Pinchuk Foundation, Kiev; Museo de Arte Abstracto, Cuenca, Spain; Centro Conde Duque, Madrid; Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca, Spain; Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, Spain; Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, CA2M, Madrid; Haus der Kunst, Münich, Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander; Maxxi, Rome; General Public in Berlin; Kunstverein München; CA2M, Madrid and La Casa Encendida, Madrid.
Her work is part of the permanent collections of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; MACBA, Barcelona, Spain; Museo Jumex, Mexico; Fundación Botín, Santander, Spain; Colección CA2M-Comunidad de Madrid, Spain; FRAC Corsica, France; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary – TBA21 Collection, Austria; Fundación ARCO, as well as the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.