Ester Partegàs
STEADY: Michelle Lopez and Ester Partegàs
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco
Jan 21 - Apr 12, 2025
Ester Partegàs
Ester Partegàs’ work seeks, discovers and produces questions about worth, loss and indifference in the generic objects and spaces that we consume. With a varied formal vocabulary that incorporates sculpture, photography, drawing and painting, Partegàs explores our ways of seeing and establishing relationships with our immediate material world.
Since her first exhibitions in the late nineties, Partegàs has developed a theme that explores the urban landscape of the consumer society. Through her pieces, the artist expresses her interest in the power of the word and its confrontation with the realm of the image. In this way, Partegàs focuses her work on ubiquitous objects and spaces that are part of our daily lives. Thus, residues resulting from our everyday interactions —plastic bags, food packaging, supermarket tickets...— are employed by the artist to explore a dynamic and unstable space that simultaneously enjoys and laments the engagements of contemporary culture.
Selected Works
Shelter
2022
Cardboard, Fast-maché, Fabric, Glue, Glazed ceramic, Rebar
128 x 132 x 115 cm (50 3⁄8 x 51 31⁄32 x 45 9⁄32 inches)
Crying Sun
2022
Cardboard, Fast-maché, Fabric, Glue, WoodStock, Wool Scarf, Receipt, Cast Pigmented Polyurethane
165 x 110 x 55 cm (64 31⁄32 x 43 5⁄16 x 21 21⁄32 inches)
Polylumpious Tetraflacidontics (Yellow sun)
2022
Acrylic on paper
Unframed 153 x 115 cm (60 1⁄4 x 45 9⁄32 inches) Framed 164 x 124 x 4.5 cm (64 9⁄16 x 48 13⁄16 x 1 25⁄32 inches)
Polylumpious tetraflacidontics
2022
Enamel on mylar
130 x 120 x 4 cm (51 3⁄16 x 47 1⁄4 x 1 9⁄16 inches)
knead, penetrate, let go (eggsellent day)
2022
Graphite and stickers on tracing paper
97.5 x 75.5 x 4.5 cm (38 3⁄8 x 29 23⁄32 x 1 25⁄32 inches)
Studies on Mysticism (Blue Icicle)
2017
Acrylic on food packaging
29.5 x 23.5 cm (11 5⁄8 x 9 1⁄4 inches)
Daily collapse (Age hunter)
2008
65 x 81 x 5 cm (25 19⁄32 x 31 7⁄8 x 1 31⁄32 inches)
Daily Collapse (Rush fight)
2007
88 x 67 x 5 cm (34 21⁄32 x 26 3⁄8 x 1 31⁄32 inches)
Barricades (Have I Ever Done Anything Useful?)
2007
Enamel and acrylic on mylar and vinyl, paper
245 x 294 cm (96 15⁄32 x 115 3⁄4 inches)
Les Coses mes importants no son coses
2006
Blue neon sign with dimmer
20 x 300 cm (7 7⁄8 x 118 1⁄8 inches)
Ask your doctor (We the people series)
2006
Inkjet ultrachrome archival print
140 x 112 cm (55 1⁄8 x 44 3⁄32 inches)Ed. 2
Life is Tremendous
2005
Wood, enamel, plaster, resin, acrylic
203 x 91.5 x 46 cm (79 29⁄32 x 36 1⁄32 x 18 1⁄8 inches)
Installation
STEADY, 2024
Ballroom, Marfa
Photography: Heather Rasmussen
STEADY, 2024
Ballroom, Marfa
Photography: Heather Rasmussen
Roma, a portrait. Festival della Accademie e degli Istituti di cultura stranieri, 2023
Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
Photography: Daniele Molajoli / © Azienda Speciale Palaexpo
Insolación, 2023
TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes
Photography: María Laura Benavente
El sentit de l'escultura, 2021
Fundació Joan Miró
Photography: Davide Camesasca
Invasores, 2007
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
Samesation, 2002
Rice University Art Gallery, Houston
The Restless Gardens. Curating the Collection, 2014
Centre d’Art La Panera, Lleida
The Source, 2015
Public Sculpture for Percent For Art, New York
2011 Lúmens, 2011
Museu de Valls, Valls
In_ We Trust: Art and Money, 2014
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus
No Retention, 2020
PURE JOY, Marfa, Texas
The Passerby, 2015
Foxy Production, New York
The Passerby, 2015
Foxy Production, New York
You Are Here, 2014
Anderson Gallery, New York
News
Exhibitions
Meridiano espíritu fantástico
L’Antiga FarineraJun 24 - Aug 27, 2023
Hours:
June 24, 25 & 30 from 17h to 21h
July Thu to Sun from 17h to 21h
August Tue to Sun from 17h to 21h
The Passerby
MadridMar 25 - May 20, 2017
"For me, these typically over-looked materials serve as clues to a shared social and affective reality”
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WATCHDOG-LAPDOG-PLAYDOG
BarcelonaApr 2 - May 7, 2016
“The press is a watchdog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can’t be right all the time. He doesn’t bark only when he sees or smells something that’s dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.” -Dan Rather (American journalist and a former anchor for CBS Evening News)
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Rebava
BarcelonaApr 2 - May 16, 2009
Partegàs recreates an urban landscape inside the gallery space with a multidisciplinary work: video-installation, sculpture and drawing.
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Grasses Saturades
BarcelonaJan 11 - Mar 10, 2007
Ester Partegàs (La Garriga, 1972) presents her second solo show at NoguerasBlanchard, formed by a large wall-mural and a series of digitally manipulated prints that articulate tensions around consumption and excess in a global society.
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Barricades
BarcelonaSep 25 - Nov 20, 2004
Nogueras Blanchard presents the first solo exhibition in a gallery of Esther Partegàs. Barricades has a number of border works between painting, drawing and sculpture to explore urban public spaces and consumer culture, central themes in the artistic practice of Partegàs.
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