Photography: Mozhde Nourmohammadi

César Barrio was born in 1971 in Oviedo and currently develops his work in his two studios in Madrid and Lisbon. His first exhibition was held in 1989. He has a degree in Architecture and has given courses and lectures as a guest professor at various schools of Architecture and Fine Arts in Spain. Barrio is an artist who, starting from painting, works in other formats such as sculpture, video, or performance, creating a dialogue between them.

His work is based on the question of what painting is. He poses a reflection that aims to open all the searches that were thought to be closed on what is space, scale or light and depth, and on the creative process itself. How the topological contact of inside and outside in the work maintains throughout the history of art its analogy with the body and its relationship with the myth. Notions such as interstice or interval become indispensable tools in Barrio’s research to understand the emergence of the image and its fragmentation and investigate the opposition between the constitution of the image and its mobility. To reach that perception of the ungraspable.

This peripheral and borderline search leads him to establish links with music or poetry as in his latest artistic actions at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid within the cycle Visual Music (2023), at the MUN in Pamplona (2023) and at the Kursaal in San Sebastian (2022) in a Tribute to the Encuentros de Pamplona in collaboration with Sigma Project Quartet, as well as to publish his essay on art Lo que no se ve, (2021) with the publishing house Archivos Vola. His video piece Milk Split on a Stone (2022) with music by Helga Arias was selected for the VIII Festival de Música electroacústica y audiovisual de Chile (2023).

Among his latest projects are the solo exhibitions A invenção de distâncias (2023) at the Museum of Natural History in Lisbon and Solo aquello que pasa por todas las puertas at the Pabellón de mixtos de la Ciudadela in Pamplona (2021), the installation Quatro Paredes de Água (2019), in collaboration with AC/E and the Lisbon City Council, which was recommended by that year’s ARCO Lisboa, and Rituales del Imaginario (2016), the result of his three-month artistic residency at the Fundación Arantzazu Gaur in Guipúzcoa. He has recently participated in Drawing Room Lisboa 2021, Drawing Room Madrid 2022 and Estampa Madrid 2023.

His work is represented in the collections of the University of Navarra, University of Toledo, Caja de Ahorros de Navarra, Arantzazu Gaur Foundation, ETSAUN, Pamplona, Fulbright Association, Fundación Pazo de Montecelo, Biolty, as well as in private collections in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Austria, Brazil, Mexico and Peru.


 

LAST SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023
A casa térrea
Casa das Artes, Tavira

The Invention of Distances
Natural History Museum, Lisbon

Moon Tables
Graphe gallery, Madrid

2022
Score of a Submerged Cathedral.
Art Installation. Cave dels Òrguens, Castellón, Spain.

2021
Only that which passes through all the doors
Mixed Pavilion, Citadel. Pamplona Pamplona

Rituals of the Imaginary
Mados Space, Madrid

2020
Recent Work. Mados Space, Madrid
​
Singbarer Rest. Adam Bresnick Gallery, Madrid

2019
A telescope welcomes a magnifying glass. FIDE Foundation, Madrid

Four Walls of Water. Art installation, Lisbon.
Collaboration with AC/E and the City Council of Lisbon.
Exhibition recommended by ARCO Lisboa

2018
Rituals of the Imaginary. La Nave, Madrid La Nave, Madrid

2017
Rituals of The Imaginary
Cathedrals Space, Arantzazu. Arantzazu Gaur Foundation

2016
Rumor and Sound
Space 77, Madrid 2015
​
La Puerta Gótica Gallery, Pamplona

2015
Rumor and Sound
ICA, Oviedo

2014
A vida não pára
Madphoto gallery, Madrid

2013
Polygraphs.
La Bagatela Foundation, Madrid

 

LAST COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

2023
ESTAMPA 2023, Madrid.
Tamara Kreisler Gallery, Madrid

Blank Page.
Tamara Kreisler Gallery, Madrid

2022
DRAWING ROOM 2022, Madrid.
Martínes & Avezuela Gallery

2021
DRAWING ROOM 2021, Lisboa.
Martínes & Avezuela Gallery

2020
Virtual exhibition MY HOME .
Álvaro Alcázar Gallery, Madrid

2017
The Material Cause.
Project Office Gallery, Gijón

Around the Circle.
Kreisler Gallery, Madrid

2016
No Title. No Text.
Project Office Gallery, Gijón

Digital versus Analogical.
Kreisler Gallery, Madrid
​
2013
Amelia Moreno Foundation Quintanar, La Mancha

María Forcada Foundation, Tudela

2010
Matarromera Group, Valladolid

2009
International Symposium of Artists Torrefactum. Logroño

 

ARTISTIC INTERVENTIONS

2023
Synergies: visual art and sound art.
Visual Music Cycle. Juan March Foundation, Madrid Juan March Foundation, Madrid
Collaboration with Sigma Project Quartet

Gaur!! 50th Anniversary of the Pamplona Meetings
MUN. Museum of the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
Collaboration with Sigma Project Quartet

VIII Festival of Electroacoustic and Audiovisual Music in Chile (2023)
Collaboration with Helga Arias and Sigma Project Quartet

2022
Resis. V Festival of Contemporary Music of A Coruña (2023)
Collaboration with Sigma Project Quartet

Gaur!! 50th Anniversary of the Pamplona Meetings
Kursaal Conference Center. 83rd San Sebastian Musical Fortnight
Collaboration with Sigma Project Quartet

2020
Broken Frontiers, Irún.
Fronteras Rotas Quartet: Josetxo Silguero y Ángel Únzu (Música), Francisco Javier Irazoki (Textos)
​
2019
Bull Fair Poster, Pamplona

The Memory of the Air, Barcelona.
Collaboration with Jose Luis Montón, Cristina Benítez and Inma “La Carbonera”.

2018
The Secret of the Fireflies
Guaza de Campos, Palencia

The Wandering Listener
Azkuna Center, Bilbao

Madrid es Moda, Sororidad collection
Collaboration with María Lafuente

2017
Arunachala. Performance in collaboration with Antonio Poppe
Festival do Silencio, Lisbon

2016
Arantzazu Gaur Foundation artistic residency.

MB Fashion Week, Código Rojo 146 collection. Collaboration with María Lafuente

2015
Jazzruela
Victoria Eugenia Theater, San Sebastian.
Collaboration with musicians Josetxo Silguero and Pierre Jodlowski Live performance of the work “El palimpsesto de Cortázar”.

Naked Music Festival.
Collaboration with Sigma Project Quartet
Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid

2014
University of Toledo

2013
Amelia Moreno Foundation, La Mancha. Collaboration with Isaac González.

2012
Open Art, Logroño.
Collaboration with Daniel Carranza

2009
Scenography “Happy New Day”
directed by Agnieszka Kolodynska and Jose Iglesias Vigil
Premiere “Teatr Osmego Dnia” Poznan, Poland.

2008
Sala Galileo, Madrid.
Collaboration with the musician Joe Barnara

Scenography “I byl wolno”
directed by Agnieszka Kolodynska and Jose Iglesias Vigil,
premiere “Teatr Jaracza Olsztyn”, Poland