Daniel Silvo

I was born in Cádiz (Spain) in 1982. Now I’m living and working in Madrid.

Graduate in Fine Arts at the Complutense University (Madrid) in 2005. In 2003 and 2004 I was studying in UdK Berlin. I lived in 2006 and 2007 in Aix-en-Pro-vence (France) with a European program at the École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence. In 2007 and 2008 I win a scholarship to do a research for my PhD in the UNAM (Mexico City). In 2009 I had a grant to work in Bilbao Arte Foundation, and in 2009 and 2010 I was living at the Residencia de Estudiantes, a Spanish institu-tion where researchers and artist can develop their projects. In 2010 I was invited by Hablar en Arte to do a photography project at La Havana. I’ve shown my work individually at Young Art Centre Madrid (El mecanismo definitivo, 2007), Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid (Constelaciones en el Parking, 2007), Michel Meju-to Gallery Bilbao (Cien Formas de Doblar tu Dinero, 2009), Espacio Abisal, Bilbao (Y Dios creó la Política, 2009), Galería Marta Cervera Madrid (Nostalgias Ajenas, 2011). My Works were shown at Reina Sofía Museum (Monocanal, 2003), Fon-dation Cartier (J’en rêve, 2005), Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (En tiempos de video, 2007), The Artists Cinema (Frieze Art Fair, London 2005, Arnol-fini, Bristol 2006), the Film Museum St. Petersburg (Izolenta, 2006) and The Big Screen Project (New York, 2010) among others.

You can also see more of my works at:http://danielsilvo.wordpress.com/http://www.youtube.com/user/Danisilvo

Most of my Works are made on video and photography, but I also work in installation, drawing or sculpture. In 2002 I made my first video work, “Technoaceitunas”. It’s a pretext for commenting a serious racial issue from an innocent, naive point of view, against a background of techno music. I opted to show the most common, perversely everyday objects, as in the video works “Shooting Stars” (2007) or “Odysseus in Berlin” (2004). I often propose issues taken from mythology, classical literature and science history. Interferences in the verbal communication are a frequent sub-ject in my work, as in Breakfast (2004), where I make an interview to Michael, an artist from Kenya who speaks to us in Swahili, and I put the subtitles in Per-sian language. The installations “Pulchrum Est Quod Visu Placet” (2009) and the newspaper intervention “Aguzad Vuestra Conciencia” (2009) are related to the same subject but on visual terms, using Braille texts. The paradox of Braille texts showed to sighted people speaks about the gap between this two kind of texts: read and touched. I began to do more physical works in 2007, with the video-installation “Matter of Facts”, or the dry-point engraving series “Glande Pineale”. In 2009 and 2010 I’ve developed the project “Cómo Doblar Tu Dine-ro”, doing a 100 origami series with dollar bills, photographs, video works and editions. This research related to economics, money value and work purchase is evolved into political interests (“Cuerpos y Fuerzas”, 2009; “Nostalgias Ajenas”, 2010). In the series “Lecciones de Mecánica Política” (2010) I deal with histori-cal, political, social and economical meanings of a soviet Lada car in Cuba. I try to expose those subjects in a documentary language, as I’ve done in 2007 with the road movie A7-A54. In this film I’ve done a trip with Moroccan women from Aix-en-Provence to Arles (south of France), speaking about art and its percep-tion, and visiting an exhibition at the Van Gogh Foundation at Arles. Between 2006 and 2011 I’ve done my PhD on video-art, with a stay at École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence (France, 2006-2007) and UNAM (Mexico City, 2007-2008). During 2003-2004 I lived in Berlin, and in 2009 in Bilbao, where I began a video series interviewing Xabier Arzalluz, a nationalist basque politician, asking him about art and its political implications (Arzalluz entre Picasso y Goya, 2009).

Folding Money 2009 - 2011

Möbus Strip. From the series Nine Ways to Fold your Money. C Print. 50 x 70. 2010

series Nine Ways to Fold your Money. C Print. 50 x 70. 2010

Origami is a tic-tac-toe, a hobby, a therapeutic activity or an artistic work. Here I play with dollars making different figures, giving them an added value with my handwork.

Brukenthal National Museum. Sibiu, Romania. January 2011Series Four Ways to Fold your Money. Digital prints. 21 x 29,7 cm. 2010

In this project I invite the public to do his own origami forms with his money. They should pay in the stores and bars with them, using the exchange value to pay the product and the added value (what I call an emotional added value) to give a present (a pretty origami figure) to the waiter or the check out operator.

Cómo doblar tu dinero. Digital print on paper DinA1. Installation view at Espacio F (Mercado Fuencarral) 2011

Braille (2009 - 2010)

Braille light and shadow. Perforated aluminium panels 100 x 70 cm. Residencia de Estudiantes, Madrid 2010

A Braille text is wrote (perforated) in an alumi-nium board. The light beams are projected on the ground, writing with the sun the Braille text, doing it visible but not accessible to the blind people.

Pulchrum est Quod Visu Placet. Golden dots on marble. 30 x 335 x 2 cm. 2009 Installation view at Centro de Arte Joven, Madrid.

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The text of the piece, in Braille, appears to the onlooker as something cryptic. The fact that he/she is unable to un-derstand does not mean that the con-tent of that form – those gold points shaping the words in an unknown language– is not real. This is empha-sized by the fact that some individuals –blind people– are able to understand it. The text, however, arranged like a frieze at a height of three metres, is out of reach, and consequently the content is rendered impossible even for the blind.

Aguzad vuestra conciencia. ABCD Art Magazine, nr. 925. Week 28th. November - 4th. December 2009. Pages 40 and 41

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder. Colour photograph on light box. 50 x 70 cm. 2009

Shooting Stars (2006 - 2010)

De Revolutionibus Orbis Caelestis II. Carton, acrylic painting, expanded polystyrene, black fitted carpet. Variable dimensions. 2010

This series deals with the duality order – disorder. The way we have to understand the world is verbalizing it. The title of this piece is the name of a Copernican’s book: De Revolutio-nibus Orbium Caelestium, which explains how is the planet’s movement. This text is written on the carton with Braille words, composed by small and ordered white dots, similar to the white spheres disordered on the ground.

Shooting Stars proposes a relationship bet-ween the macro and the micro in the uni-verse and in our daily life. With the smallest things that I find around me, I try to draw the biggest things we can see: the stars. In a creation gesture, I’m the architect of this small universe created with pop-corns and sand.Shooting Stars. Video installation at Jardín Botánico (Destino Futuro, 2007). 2 channels, 3 min., 4:3 PAL. 2007

Constelaciones en el parking. 2007-2008. Acrylic painting on canvas. 14 x 39 m. Installation in the Conde Duque’s courtyard, Madrid.

Constelaciones en el Parking connects the everyday supermarket parking lines and the unfathomable constellation lines. As there of the Greek gods, this transformation proceeds to defend us from the unfavourable destiny, like Dafne transformed on laurel tree to be preserved from Apolo’s possession. In our regard from down to up, we see easily this change from parking lines to constellation lines. Again, I change the small human measure elements in inaccessible and huge realities as there of the stars. This work was placed in the Conde Duque’s courtyard.

Parking Stars series. B & W photograph on dibond. 50 x 70 cm. 2007

Justicia y Ley (2010)

Justicia y Ley. B&W Photograph. 5 x 14,5 cm. 1910. old photograph bought in Mexico City. A group photograph is taken in Mexico in 1910. There is a group of 36 Mexican Revolutionaries on a tra- in. I’ve resized each head of those people, putting them around the space as portraits in a memorial room.

Installation view at Marta Cervera Gallery. 36 prints taken from this old photograph. 2011. 40 x 30 cm each photograph

El Mecanismo Definitivo (2007)

El mecanismo devinitivo (the definitive mechanism). Exhibition at Centro de Arte Joven, Madrid. 2007. There are two kinds of strokes in machines: the circular and the vertical strokes. Gui-llotine have a vertical stroke, and his movement is definitive. Concret trucks have a circular movement. I compares in this ex-hibition both strokes, remarking the guillotine’s vertical one as the most visible way to understand death. It appears that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another, without being able to comprehend any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect. (Second part SECTION VII. OF THE IDEA OF NECESSARY CONNEXION, in An Enquiry Concer-ning Human Understanding, by David Hume)

Matter of Facts I. Videoinstallation. 22.6” x 7.2” x 10.7” acrylic painting on toy truck and video on a 7” screen. 2007

Matter of Facts II. Videoinstallation. 27” x 7,2” x 10,7” acrylic painting on toy truck and video in a 7” screen. 2008

Glande pinéale de Louis XVI. Dry point engraving illuminated in gouache and chinese ink on cotton paper. 50 x 70 cm. 2007

Installation view at Centro de Arte Joven (Madrid 2007)

9 names of guillotined people, from Louis David Collenot d’Angremont –the first guillotine condemned- to Hamida Djandoubi –the last one-, counting on Louis XVI, Robespierre or Marie-Antoinette de Habsbourg- Lorraine. I’ve marked on red the pineal glande in each engraving. For Descartes there was the link between the body and the soul. His position is significative when the guillotine separes head and body, se-paring at the same time soul and body. It’s the most graphi-cal way to explain the death.

Nostalgias Ajenas (2011)

Petržalka. Watercolour on Hahnemuhle paper. 110 x 81 cm. 2010 Karl-Marx-Allee. Watercolour on Hahnemuhle paper. 110 x 81 cm. 2010

In Nostalgias ajenas #1: DDR 1972 (Other’s Nostalgias #1: GDR 1972), I play the role of a GDR soccer player singing the East Germany Anthem. The East won this match over the Federal Republic at the Olympic Games in Mu-nich 1972. This videotape was filmed with a 82’s Thomson camcorder, pro-voking this strange trip to the past.

TV transparency was an important cau-se of the political changes in the soviet block: Perestroika and Glásnost (trans-parency).

Libertad o muerte. Instalation view. 55 x 55 cm each piece. 2010

Libertad o Muerte (Freedom or Death) is an installation composed by 4 car wheels with Cuban coins fixed on a black wood table surroun- ded with led lights. In those coins are two kinds of text: Patria y libertad (Country and free-dom) – Patria o muerte (Coun-try or death), and at the centre of each one is a five tips star. Those stars compose different constellations: Leo, Orion, An-dromeda and Gemini, visible from Havana in the springtime nights.

Lecciones de Mecánica Política. Video HD colour 16:9, 9’30”. 2010

Lecciones de mecánica política (Political mechanics lessons). This is an interview with some Cuban people about his re-lation with Lada, a soviet car imported all around the com-munists countries. There are mechanics, police men and a taxi driver, speaking me about all the political implications of this car, at the same time they are telling me his daily life dri-ving or working with them.

Series Lecciones de mecánica política. Drawing on paper. 28 x 36 cm. 2010

Series Lecciones de mecánica política. Drawing on paper. 28 x 36 cm. 2010

Police Lada. C Print on RC paper. 55 x 77 cm. 2010

White Lada. C Print on RC paper. 55 x 77 cm. 2010

Policía Nacional. Digital prints on photographic paper. 100 x 70 cm.. 2009

Nacionales. 200 digital prints on photographic paper. Din A3. 2009

Espera (2010)

41 y 96. From the Waiting series. C Print on RC paper on dibond. 25 x 38 cm. 2010 Espera (Waiting) is a bus stops photography series in Havana realized in colaboration with the cuban artist Humberto Díaz. In this work people are doing a very daily activity: waiting. Waiting the American blockage ends, waiting the Castro’s death, waiting political changes... there are a lot of hopes in the Cubans, more or less possible, more or less real.

This project was supported by the spanish government AECID program. I was invited by the project Lugares de Tránsito and hosted by Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales (Havana).

Waiting series. 24 C Prints on RC paper on dibond. 2010

Glásnost (2011)

Glásnost. 2011. Glass. 33 x 25 x 25 cm. Glásnost is a Russian word that signifies “transparency”. It was an important policy program during the Perestroika reforms. I use a folkloric object, the Ma-trioska, a figure hidden another figure, hidden another figure... and I make it on glass, a paradoxical gesture that set us in this soviet period.

Video Glásnost. Video HD 3’30”. 2011 After Glásnost. Concret and acrylic painting. 29 x 15 x 15 cm. 2011

Daniel Silvo. Cádiz 1982

Education

Advanced Studies Certificate, Universidad Complutense, Madrid 2007Teaching Certificate, Universidad Complutense, Madrid 2006B.A. Fine Arts, Universidad Complutense, Madrid 2005Erasmus scholarship in Berlin Universität der Künste, 2003 - 2004Free training at the École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix en Provence, France 2006-2007Assistance to the postgraduate course in architecture, “The experience of space, liveability and design”, at UNAM (Mexi-co City) 2007-2008Workshops: Jannis Kounellis (Universidad Complutense Ma-drid, 2004), Gary Hill (UCM, 2006), Joan Fontcuberta (Bilbao Arte 2009), Guy Ben Ner (CA2M Art Centre, 2009) and Tania Bruguera (CA2M, 2010).

Solo Exhibitions

2011- Monstruos del Nuevo Mundo, performance at Picnic Ses-sions CA2M (Móstoles)- Cómo doblar tu dinero. Espacio F (Madrid)- Nostalgias Ajenas. Marta Cervera Gallery (Madrid)

2009- Cien formas de doblar tu dinero. Michel Mejuto Gallery (Bilbao)- Y Dios creó la política. Espacio Abisal (Bilbao)

2007- Constellations in the parking lot. Intervention in the Centro Cultural Conde Duque’s main courtyard (Madrid)- The definitive mechanism. Young Art Centre, Madrid- A7-A54, screening at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Pho-tographie d’Arles, École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence, and Le Patio CECDC Jas de Bouffan (Aix-en-Provence, France)- Shooting Stars, École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix Gallery (France)

Group Exhibitions (selection)

2011- After… ((Rellena con el nombre del artista). Espacio Menos Uno (Madrid)- Me & My Friends. El butrón (Sevilla)- Summer Calling ’11. 3+1 arte contemporanea (Lisboa)- 20 años del cultural. Museo ABC (Madrid)- Nulla Dies Sine Linea. Instituto Cervantes Chicago- Proyecto Circo. 2ª muestra de videocreación. Galería 23 y 12 y Centro Wilfredo Lam (La Habana, Cuba)- Sólo Vídeo: libro+dvd, Sant Andreu Contemporani, Barcelo-na- Play, repeat and claim. Multiplicity in the Spanish emergent art. Brukenthal National Museum. Sibiu, Romania, Internatio-nal Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC). Ljubljana, Slovenia, Centre for Printmaking at the Faculty of Fine Arts (University of Arts in Belgrade). Belgrade, Serbia, New Museum of Contempo-rary Art. Zagreb, Croatia.

2010- The Big Screen Project, 6th Avenue between 29th and 30th Street (New York)- Ecología Expandida. Centro Cultural de España en México (Mexico City)- Complutense Young Art Price. American Museum (Madrid)- Paradeisos, oil cultures and contemporary art. Palacio de la Merced (Córdoba)- Restless (E) motion. MOCA - National Museum of Contem-porary Art (Seoul)- Noche en Blanco. Residencia de Estudiantes (Madrid)- Nulla dies sine linea. Freies Museum (Berlin) and Madang Sangsang Gallery (Seoul)- What makes someone like you in a place like this? Art Cen-tre La Regenta, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria- Play, repeat and claim. Multiplicity in the Spanish emergent art, Instituto Cervantes in Vienna (Austria).- María José Jove Foundation Award (La Coruña)- La vida en ningún lugar. Iniciarte collection in Matadero (Madrid)- Superstructures. OTR Gallery (Madrid)

2009- Exhibition grant BilbaoArte (Bilbao)- Unoneallcentro submerged art gallery (Newark, New Jersey)- Insert coin. Para / Site Art Space (Hong Kong)

- Injuve. Circulo de Bellas Artes (Madrid)- Circuitos. Young Art Centre (Madrid)- Purificación Garcia. Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid)- ABC Award. ARCO’09 (Madrid)- Ambulart. Visual art exhibition. Roaming: Guadalajara (Mexico), Quito, Guayaquil, Tumbaco and Hamburg.

2007- Alter Arte (Murcia)- New Proposals. La Nave Gallery (Valencia)- In times of video. Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (San Juan, Puerto Rico)- Madrit! Entresijos y gallinejas, Centre d’Art Santa Mònica (Barcelona)- Des Marches Creatives. École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence (France)- Destino Futuro. Botanic Garden (Madrid)- Madrid Abierto. Video projection at the Madrid Subway

2006- Heavy Traffic, Gallery 356, San Juan (Puerto Rico)- In Spanish. An arts festival. Organized by the Asociación Amigos de ARCO at the Instituto Cervantes (New York)- Izolenta (St. Petersburg), organized by the Club Griboedov and the Film Museum (St. Petersburg)- Somewhere Beyond The Sea, The Artists Cinema, Arnolfini (Bristol)- Waterproof, Caixa Galicia (Santiago de Compostela)- Community of Madrid Video collection, ARCO’06 (Madrid)- Circuitos, at the Young Art Centre, Community of Madrid

2005- Somewhere Beyond The Sea Program, The Artists Cinema, Frieze Art Fair (London)- A-30, New photographer in Madrid, Museo de Arte Contem-poráneo de Castilla La Mancha Fernando Picornell (Hellin)- J’en rêve, Fondation Cartier (Paris)- Generación 2005, Caja Madrid, La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Mercado del Este-Museo de Bellas Artes de Santander, Hos-pedería de Fonseca (Salamanca), Royal Dockyards (Valencia), Espai Cultural Caja Madrid (Barcelona)- Euroscreen21, tour exhibition in Europe- Experimentem amb l’Art, Verdi cinemas (Barcelona)

2004- Benicàssim International Festival Video screenings

- Rundgang, at the UdK (Berlin)- Prima Kunst (Kiel, Germany)- Emergentes. Castellana Art Gallery (Madrid)

2003- Monocanal, video show in the Museo Reina Sofia, Centre d’Art Santa Monica (Barcelona), Koldo Mitxelena Kulturenea (San Sebastian), Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago de Compostela), Obra Cultural CajAstur (Gijón), Sala Diaz Cassou (Murcia) Museo Patio Herreriano (Vallado-lid) and Centro José Guerrero (Granada)- Pronombres personales, in PhotoEspaña’03 (Madrid)

Awards and scholarships

2009- Residencia de Estudiantes Scholarship (Madrid)- Accesit ABC Awards- Residence at Bilbao Arte Foundation (Bilbao)

2007- Research stage at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Méxi-co (Mexico)

2006- Artists in context Programme, pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes, the École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence and the association Anonymal (France)

2005- First Price at Generaciones 2005 Award, Caja Madrid- First Prize Citemor video contest. TV 2005, Montemor-o-Velho (Coimbra, Portugal)- Collaboration grant at Drawing II department, Faculty of Fine Arts, UCM- Descubrimientos, Photoespaña’05

2003- Erasmus scholarship at the Universität der Künste (Berlin)

Fairs

With Magda Bellotti Gallery: Digital & Video Art Fair (New York). With T20: DFOTO (San Sebastian), ARCO (Madrid) South Forum (Cáceres), Art Salamanca 2005, MACO (Mexico

City). Marta Cervera: NADA (Miami), Espacio Atlántico (Vigo), ARCO (Madrid)

Work in collections

ABC, Community of Madrid, IVAM, Ordóñez Falcón Photogra-phy Centre, Iniciarte, Caja Madrid Foundation, BIZ Bank.

Bibliography

Images or texts in catalogues and publications

Ramirez, Juan Antonio. Art system in Spain. Catedra Ed. P. 35.Díaz-Guardiola, Javier. XX edition / Circuitos’08. Every step counts. Pp 98 to 107. Publisher: Community of Madrid. 2009. ISBN: 84-451-3253-9. 120 pp.INJUVE 2009. Youth Institute. Ministry of Equality. 2009Visual Artists Archive Madrid. Matadero. 2009The visual language. Acaso, María. Paidós Ed. 2006. P. 142J’en rêve. Catalogue d’exposition: bilingual édition français / anglais, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris / Actes Sud, Arles, 2005VV.AA. Generaciones 2005. Madrid. Caja Madrid, 2005. De la Villa, Rocio. Circuitos art and photography 2005. Publis-her: Community of Madrid.Pardo, Tania and VV.AA. Monocanal. Madrid. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. 2003Castro Flórez Fernando. Circuits in Plastic Arts and Photogra-phy 2001. Publisher: Community of Madrid.VV.AA. Coordinates Villa, Manuela. Emerging art in Spain. Ed Vaivén. Madrid 2006.

In newspapersRevista de Occidente, nr. 358, mars 2011. Illustrations. ISSN: 0034-8635ABCD, n.981. January 22th, 2011. Díaz-Guardiola, Javier. P. 26-27El Cultural. January 21th, 2011. Hontoria, Javier. P.31Mugalari n. 543. Gara’s cultural magazine. September 25, 2009. Hurtado, Eduardo. p. 63.Deia. September 24, 2009. R. Aranguren, María. p. 63.

ABCD, n. 888. Madrid. ABC. 7 to 13 February 2009. Díaz-Guardiola, Javier. Renewed strength. P. 39.Yo Dona, n. 14. Madrid. Unidad Editorial SA 6/VIII/2005, Fernández, Lola. Brain drain. pp. 46 et seq.El País. Madrid. 18/II/2005. Villa, Manuela. Daniel Silvo: Arts riser. P. 16 et seq.Vanidad, n. 94. Madrid. IV/03. Canal, Mario. Video makers: the next generation. p. 81.El País. Madrid. 14/II/2003. Canal, Mario. To see and hear. pp. 18 et seq.

Writings of the author

Space and time in the digital age. Digital Encounters’ catalo-gue. Ed Universidad Complutense. Madrid, 2010. Pp 27-33. Sharpen your awareness. ABCD No. 925. Week of November 28 to December 4, 2009. Pp. 40 - 41.It is always so round ... Beauty. Instant Manifesto, No. 11. November 18. 2006Television in Germany, article for the magazine Vanidad. 2004VV.AA. Crusader dialogues. Categories for a diagnosis of con-temporary Spanish art. Madrid. Institute of the Arts Founda-tion. 2001. Pp 47-52.

Other activities

2010 Lugares de Tránsito. Photographic project in Havana in collaboration with the Cuban artist Humberto Díaz.2010 Curator assistance in the exhibition Digital Encounters, Complutense Arts Centre. Madrid2008-2010 Professor of editing and postproduction in the School of Communication Studies, Technology and media for advertising. Centro Universitario Villanueva (Madrid)2005-2010 Director of Transvisiones, radio space on media art, within the art program, Hablar en Arte, Radio Círculo 100.4 FM2006-2007 partnership with Anonymal making video projects to promote integration in neighborhoods in Marseille and Aix en ProvenceParticipation in the piece The Objective of this object, Tino Sehgal, in La Casa Encendida (Madrid)