Hypotheses Series: Anteproyectos
The term anteproyecto (blueprint, preliminary design) is often used in architecture and design, but not in art. I prefer it, however, to croquis or boceto (sketch), which are too close to gesture and improvisation. By contrast, an anteproyecto is a premeditation on a problem, the distillation of a trial run, the outcome of a suspicion. I've always made preliminary designs for my works, some of which have remained in the blueprint state, while others have been fully executed. My Hypotheses Series [Serie de las hipótesis] is on ongoing investigation into the relations between monochromes (painting without image or composition) and signs (grammatical or mathematical). Though the one and the other are both visible presences, my interest is pointed not only toward what one sees, but also toward what one thinks about what one sees.
Generally speaking, the relations between things interest me more than the things themselves. My anteproyectos come out of the temptation to mark, activate or resolve something relating to correspondences, links and analogies between monochromes and signs. Yet it's not a lot that I mark, activate or resolve. Rather, I repeat the premeditations and suspicions that have been nagging at me from the outset. Over and over again. In my art practice, I always try to test out what I have to say, do, and show, before knowing what it is I have to say, do, and show.
Horacio Zabala
CARTA. Revista de pensamiento y debate del Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, N°1, primavera-verano 2010 [CARTA: A Magazine of Thought and Debate from the Queen Sofía National Museum Art Center, Madrid, Issue no. 1, spring-summer 2010]