The exhibition is now open by appointment only.
Please contact london@interstic.io if you would like to visit.

SUPER Preview and Intersticio, in collaboration with Valeria Biamonti, are delighted to present Latent Longing, an exhibition featuring works by Nora Aurrekoetxea, Jack O’Brien and Alfredo Rodríguez.

Entirely subtle yet startlingly emotive. Humble materials and abstract lines do anything but alienate; the exhibition is striving and succeeding, beautifully seductive. Of a personal, sometimes tortured, but truly sober kind, Nora Aurrekoetxea’s iron Makila sticks reach, reinforce, and thrust. Distorting, warping, and scratching into a formal exploration between structure and ornament. The intimate and impassioned calm of Alfredo Rodríguez’s work is visible in the crystalised ephemeral glances that hang around bodies in spacetime. And the intensely curious and vulnerable work of Jack O’Brien, whose materials are deployed with a poignancy and wit, is charged with the erotic. Gentle inspections of notions like shame and taboo. There is something latent—in the truest sense—manifesting here. Aurrekoetxea navigates and exploits the tension between the cultural embedded sphere and materiality. With O’Brien’s rubber, silicon and curls of dried flowers, there is no soppy veneration of marginalized materials. Instead, there is a kind of magnanimity
towards them. Rodríguez’s devotion to the photographic process per sé leads to a unique engagement with the medium. Almost as a rejection of the transient inadequacies of the digital. No apathy is to be found in the deftly and honestly explored ambiguities of the abstract and yet concrete yearning behind these works. Aurrekoetxea, O’Brien, Rodríguez: three artists differently and diligently forging away at the overt tangibility of the abstract, reaching out to something present yet invisible. The works are positively earnest, and they extend an invitation to come closer, to touch with our eyes.

Valeria Biamonti

Nora Aurrekoetxea (Bilbao, 1989) is an artist who develops her practice through writing, sculpture, performance and installation. Her work explores the meeting points between the tangible and intangible, the materiality involved in the emotions, interactions and personal intimate relationships between humans as well as the surroundings they inhabit. Aurrekoetxea is interested in exploring the relational, symbolic and linguistic qualities involved in the material, as a starting point to force encounters or displacements between the physical and the emotional (untouchable). Her installations pursue a radical instability where materiality wants to achieve its own autonomy. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country (Bilbao, Spain) and a MA in Sculpture by the Royal College of Art (London, UK) and is currently studying an Advanced Sexology Postgraduate course at In.ci.sex. (Madrid, Spain). She received the Botín Foundation Scholarship in 2017 and has been an artist in residence at BilbaoArte (2015), Cité Internationale des Arts of Paris (2018), the Solomon R. Guggenheim of New York (2018) and Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo (2022). She has been awarded with the Basque Government production grant (2018 and 2019), the ARCO prize of the city of Madrid (2020) and ERTIBIL (2020 and 2021). Recent shows include a solo exhibition at Intersticio (London, 2020), Juan Silió gallery (Madrid, 2020) or group shows like Claro del Bosque at Intersticio (Madrid, 2020) and We Are Always On Danger Of Magic at Rodriguez gallery (Poznan, 2021). Her work is part of the permanent collection of the museum Ca2m (Madrid, Spain) and Centro Botín (Santander, Spain). Aurrekoetxea is represented by Intersticio and Juan Silio she lives and works in Holland.

Jack O’Brien (Boston, UK, 1993) explores the relationship between the built environment, material, culture and marginalised aesthetics. His practice juxtaposes industrial and craft materials alongside found and personal objects including steel, wood, dried flowers, socks, printed paper, horse-hair braid, rubber, concrete and latex. Drawing on industrial, fashion design, image-making and architectural practice, the artist creates emotive, direct sculptures which consider the political and ideological histories of consumption and the production of desire. Jack O’Brien’s work has been widely exhibited in solo and group presentations, at a number of artist-run organisations that situate themselves at the core of the emerging-London art scene, alongside well-respected LGBT venues and galleries in the UK and internationally. Between 2016 and 2021, these have included White Cubicle Gallery, clearview.ltd, Pervilion, One Room and Becky’s (all London). International exhibitions include KEM (Warsaw) or Peres Projects (Berlin). Jack O’Brien lives and works in London.

Alfredo Rodríguez (Madrid, Spain,1976) works around the photographic medium, subjecting it to experimental processes of variable complexity in his studio and laboratory. As a starting point in his practice, Rodríguez usually takes images referring to the body that ends up being transformed into an equivocal presence, moving away from the singularity of the physiognomy and approaching an idea of expanded flesh. The time of chemistry, photosensitive materials, light, his partner’s body and the material imprint of the photographic go through all the phases of this process, giving rise to a desire to erase or to a fading of the time of the image. In this way, his research pursues a maddened conservation of the ephemeral, by (or ‘while’) trying to provide the whole set of events and materials with a stable permanence, as if it were a crystalisation. Rodríguez is represented by Espacio Valverde in Madrid and has recently exhibited at the Museum Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo (CA2M) in Madrid, Montecristo Project (Sardinia), Matadero (Madrid), Sala Arte Joven (Madrid), ATM gallery and the Istituto Europeo di Design, among others. He studied photography at Art School 10 and specialized in the History of Photographic Processes at ESCRBC in Madrid. Alfredo Rodríguez works and lives in Madrid, Spain.

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Intersticio is pleased to present the first solo show by Ouka Leele with the gallery.

La Luz que reflejan los cuerpos danza dentro de mis ojos, presents a collection of Polaroid photographs by the spanish photographer Ouka Leele commissioned by french designer Philippe Model and taken in 1988 in Paris. For the occasion, the artist portrayed the designer’s collection of accessories in different locations that she projected from her imaginary, using a giant polaroid camera. This machine was the only one in Europe at the time that could produce instant images of 50 x 60 cm and it was transported from Frankfurt to Jouy-en Josas (France) for the occasion. The serie, 26 photographs in total, was presented for the first time at the Cartier Foundation in 1988, within the frame of the Photo Month from the city of Paris.

Ouka Leele, born in Madrid in 1957, is a Spanish photographer whose real name is Barbara Allende Gil de Biedma. Even though she wanted to be a painter, she discovered photography as a medium to express her natural and intensive artistic sensitivity. It is in the 1980s in Madrid during the nation’s “movida” movement when she demonstrated her interest in a variety of artistic disciplines such as drawing, serigraphy, painting and literature resulting in a series of photos labelled as “icons of her time”. In her photography one recognizes the references to the ancient civilizations, mythological stories, literature and intimate worlds of family and friends placed in different settings including portraits and self-portraits. Her unedited photos that are often additionally hand painted is an attempt to show human nature and to reveal the connections between life, emotions and its translations in art language.

She was awarded the 2004 Culture Prize by the Community of Madrid and the 2005 National Photography Award and her works can be found in a number of collections including Collection Arco (Madrid), Foundation Cartier (Paris), Foundation La Caixa (Barcelona), Cervantes Institute (Lisbon), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), Tabaco Gitanes (Paris) or the Archivo Lafuente (Cantabria) in between others. She currently have a retrospective exhibition at the Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid)

Intersticio is pleased to present Martin Llavanera’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, including a new body of work and a site specific intervention in the space.

The reflections of light on this puddled area are disposed as an arrow, as a triangle, as a D. The swallows cross from one side to the other of the fence, after they go down and graze the water with their feathery torso. They drink or they don’t, they refresh in between muddy waters. ‘And what a lovely itinerary, the solar radiation, traversing the universe, circulating through my stomach as atoms of the naná¹.’

Days after I walk to the suburbs, I leave behind Amazon’s industrial unit, I turn, I cross, I continue and I arrive at an area of rubble and mud, I cross again and further down I find the wetland. A ‘mendicane^2’ devastated the region and the airplanes are now landing off the clock. From here, I can see part of the landing tracks, the beach and the mouth of the river. The sand isn’t sand but neither mud, the water opens it’s way in between roads, marshes and rushes. The rhythm of the planes contrasts with the quietness of the area, the slow currents and the paused sedimentation. The time seems to dilate itself until being amorphous.

After some time, I continue walking to the interior of the delta. A few kilometers from the city, I access a viscous labyrinth. Enclosures and puddles form a capricious and chaotic grid, maybe due to the cyclone. A light and humid breeze blows through the fences.

At the bottom, a vessel makes the sand circulate while it capriciously poses on the banks. And it dredges, and dredges, and dredges. I go down the marsh between the ground and the ponds, between a solid and liquid plagued of bulbs and rhizomes. The fertility is chaotic and it contrasts with the order of the goods and the people that surround it, waiting to be carried, displaced and relocated in new positions. Here and there, the foliage is accumulated, between sweet water and saltpetre weird spaces appear. From the mud some yellow labels rise up, pulled by the water and piled up. As the wind, dispersing centuries of taxonomy and objectivity, we go from one place to another.

Around me, a territory as soft as a nest extends itself. This place remains in a decomposition that it is held impassively in front of my eyes. And I continue…From this observation, from the sensation of falling apart on an undefined floor, I have made a cocktail of sentences… ‘inconsistent material…not like that flow of stored goods in airport units, that before arriving at their destination, they go off.’ My crepuscular walks talk and they arrive to a point where the flow it’s opened; where things float and the flow expands until the meaning it’s diluted in the change of scale.

Alba Garza

1. The term ‘pineapple’ was adopted because of its similarities
with the cone of a conifer; the word ananá its originally guarani,
from the term naná naná, that means ‘perfume of perfums’.
‘Ananas’ is a latinization of the previous term. 

2. A Medicane (from the english ‘Mediterranean Hurricane’)
is a meteorological phenomenon similar to a tropical cyclone
that takes place with little frequency in the Mediterranean Sea. 

Martin Llavaneras studied Fine Arts in Bilbao (University of the Vasque Country), Berlin (HTW) and Barcelona (MA in Artistic Production, UB). Some of his most relevant solo exhibitions are “CAU” (POLS, Valencia, ESP); “Turbaturbo” (La Capella, Barcelona); “Fruit Belt” (Espai 13 – Fundacion Joan Miro, Barcelona, ESP); “Humus Recalls Curvatures” (Centro de Arte La Panera, Lleida); “Reenginering Calcium” (Blueproject Foundation, Barcelona) y “Next” (Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria). He has been part of group shows in Centro del Carmen Cultura Contemporànea, Valencia; CAPC – Musee d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux; ADA Project, Roma; Yaby, Madrid; Meetfactory, Praga; House of Egorn, Berlin; Atelier 35, Bucarest; Saliva, Barcelona in between others. He has received awards and production grants like Premi Art Nou, Premios Injuve, Sala Art Jove, Beca per a la recerca i pensament de la Generalitat, Beca Guasch-Coranty; and he has been artist in residence at Ca2M, Centre d’Art i Natura en Farrera and the MUSAC.

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Intersticio is pleased to present ‘Somewhere Along Those Lines’ Katarina Sylvan (b. 1988, SE) first solo exhibition in London. The exhibition is accompanied by a text written by Adam Hines-Green.

They started the interview with the full barrage of necessaries and a little of the informal. The candidate was positioned in the very centre of the room on a swivel chair. The directors sat A to D, clockwise, in each corner. Questions were asked by director A then director B then director C then director D sequentially and very much in that order. Directors A to B headed up health and services, and directors C to D comms and skills, and though none had previous experience they absolutely loved directing. A glass of water was provided but went unnoticed.

Tell us about a time you encountered unhealthy communication. 
[B raises eyebrows to D, who glances momentarily at A]

The candidate recounted a narrative beginning with Once upon a time, and ending with They all lived happily ever after, and in the middle likened themselves to the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. It positioned them in an exceptionally good light. C noted they’d used a mixed metaphor at one stage but otherwise the candidate was uninterrupted. The directors pressed the candidate about the nuts and bolts of the candidate’s candidacy. The candidate said they’d always wanted to join the directors on the other side and described an elaborate but metaphorical trebuchet-like mechanism to propel them there. The directors reminded them that the interview was for ‘Candidate-in-Chief’ and certainly not director, and given the four corners were occupied there obviously wasn’t currently a vacancy for director, but they appreciated the ambition and all simultaneously ticked a box for ambition and scrawled competency aspired to along the straight line beside it.

Tell us about a time when you were overprepared but underexposed.
[A nods to C, and then nods at D too because C isn’t looking in the right direction]

The candidate told a roundabout tale of preventing mischief and mayhem when they worked as a desk clerk in a role they described as deadly serious. They regularly referred to individuals nicknamed the attempteur and the attemptress in various positive and negative lights. Ultimately, no-one came across well except for the candidate, who excelled. Here’s the thing, said B, who pulled out a leather-bound dossier from the basement archives of the practice – a basement the candidate was totally unaware existed. It’s very cold down there – excellently preservative said C. Opened like a book, the dossiers held phalanxes of USBs encrusted by rust on ornamental keychains. But damp too, C went on. These are the cold hard facts of the matter at hand. The candidate made a face to say they recognised these as the dastardly contraptions of a wicked soothsayer. This was the evidence from a wizard who won’t forget. They stopped considering progression and would settle for survival. The candidate said they’d changed tack since then. They started to think of terrible ideas some of which bordered on the nihilistic – wiring in bathtubs and plug sockets dripping in the pouring rain. They started to make sounds which were no more than elaborate ummms, ahhhs and hmmms. They were talking a lot but not saying anything. They felt themselves tilting towards the inept. The directors began to apply pressure – they asked the candidate if they’d be willing to take a hit from the eyebrows up for the team. A started to share plans about warmongering with their fiercest competitors, and aggressive craft-based strategies for foyer remodelling. B said they must have missed a memo, but kept saying missed like it was a longing nostalgia. C recounted the fatal consequences of a noisy voice message which revolved around confusion between miscommunication and missed communication. D shared their ambition to devise a GPS-trackable lawnmower called the Clattermole. These outlined the necessary tangents for the knockout punch.

Tell us about a time when you were adept.
[A to D smirk in alphabetical order]

The candidate asked for the question to be repeated, and said well when you’ve got a hammer in your hand everything looks like a nail and that isn’t the half of it, and said another way to look at things is the nail repeatedly slapped the hammer flush in the face, but died trying and was summarily buried. The candidate started to repeat a-dept like it was a thing perched on their palm, which disintegrated into each letter being enunciated individually, and they riffed on this discovery for some time, replacing consonants for t and k sounds on loop and vowels with guttural umlaut-related noises. They started to cry but it wasn’t clear to anyone whether in the ecstasy of creation or the misery of failure. In the first clear thought for some time they thought of their father, who offered some advice on his deathbed from a career in surgical theatre – Don’t just do something, stand there. And so the candidate didn’t say anything at all, and the directors didn’t ask anything again. The candidate swivelled from director to director clockwise, to the point where it felt like the silence had constructed a podium to start bellowing:

I scream quality despite all the available evidence! I scream quality! I scream quality! I scream quality! and

I’m talking about problems here big problems I’m talking about the car crash of the century and the permanently unfinished second storey and what I call the patination chain I’m talking about a sort of travelator of accumulative flow and tin hats and iron masks dirty bracken and a hard rain falling I’m talking about the problem of relative growth the problem of straight lines the problem of trying really hard and the corresponding problem of absolute and unwavering public humiliation and most of all I’m talking about the influencing machines and their almighty gleeeam can’t you see what I’m talking about can’t you can’t you can’t you see

Push had come to shove. They accidentally kicked the glass of water over on their way out. It made a watermark the shape of a teardrop on the grid of carpet tiles.

Adam Hines-Green

Katarina Sylvan (b.1989) is a Swedish artist based in London working across sculpture, text and sound. After graduating with a BA in Fine Art from Konstfack University of Arts & Crafts in 2014, she worked as a scenic painter for theatre at Riksteatern in Stockholm, and created artworks for venues such as Fylkingen, ФОМО and Into the Valley Festival. She graduated from the MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London in 2019 and has since then exhibited at Non-Space, Aarhus, Platform, Stockholm and De:Formal Gallery among others and is in 2021 looking  forward to solo-presentations of her work at Intersticio, London, Galleri K4, Oslo and Cylinder Gallery, Seoul. Her work has received awards from the Kenneth Armitage Foundation, Gilbert Bayes Trust, Konstnärsnämnden and Konstakademien. She is currently in residence at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.

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