A QUIET CORNER away from the artistic noise
Artist Núria Güell conceives her political art from the calm and tranquility of her studio and home in Vidreres that she shares with her husband and fellow artist, Levi Orta
Núria Güell (Vidreres, 1981) confesses that she envies those artists who work with their hands, because she believes that this must free them from a great many tensions. After all, it is often said that art is therapeutic. This artist, who specialises in political and social art, which has an impact on lots of people, including herself, has been looking for that mental serenity that is so difficult to achieve when dealing with such conflictive issues. That is why Güell knew her work space had to be in Vidreres, her hometown in La Selva county, which offered her the chance of finding the peace that she could never have found in places like Barcelona. In addition, Güell purposefully chose to stay far away from the artistic noise and the centres of power in Barcelona. She finally made her decision in 2014, when she received the GAC and RAC awards for her Al·legacions desplaçades exhibition in Barcelona’s AND gallery. “I realised that if I wanted to work independently and freely I needed to stay in Vidreres,” she says.
It’s been only a few months since Güell and her husband and fellow artist, Levi Orta, began sharing their working and living space in Güell’s grandparents’ old house. Now restored, the house has been turned into a bright, diaphanous place, from where both of them are able to conceive and coordinate artistic projects, later to be given form and shown all over the world. As with most young artists, Güell has lived abroad and been part of artistic residencies: besides living in La Havana for a while, she has been artist in residence in Colombia, Grenoble and Beirut.
On the day we visited her, there was a plane ticket to England on her work desk. Together with Orta, she is going to the UK for a month and a half to develop a project at Middlesbrough’s Institute of Modern Art. The theme of the new project is Syrian refugees, but from a point of view “that won’t focus on the victim, as usually happens.” In her projects, Güell unmasks the mechanisms of power by getting close to power itself. Her idea now is to buy a detached house in Syria, in order to be make it some sort of extension to the Middlesbrough museum: “The same powers that are now bombarding Syrian cities, are the ones that are acquiring lands and houses in the country,” she says.
Reading and writing
Also on Güell’s desk are the main tools for artists like herself, a computer and lots of notebooks. Güell spends her mornings here in her office, making progress with the paperwork necessary for her to get on with her projects. She is in good company, surrounded by authors like Michel Foucault, Elias Canetti, Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida. On the shelves, there is also a collection of tin boxes she has been holding on to for years. In the afternoon, Güell moves to another part of the house, a more comfortable area, where she spends her time reading and writing. On her coffee table lies Darian Leader’s study, Stealing the Mona Lisa. In this space, Güell enjoys the green landscape, with the Montseny in the background, an important element of the much-desired calmness she was looking for.
A reproduction of a slogan from the artist Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Nada por las patrias, catches the eye above the fireplace. No doubt it is related to one of Güell’s more controversial and best-known projects, one in which she proved that it is impossible to be stateless in any country in the world, by personal choice.
arT