Daniel Canogar, Madrid, 1964.
Daniel Canogar´s life and career have bridged between Spain and the U.S. Photography was his earliest medium of choice, receiving an M.A. from NYU at the International Center of photography in 1990, but he soon became interested in the possibilities of the projected image and installation art.
He has created permanent public art installations with LED screens, including Aqueous at The Sobrato Organization (Mountain View, CA, 2019); Pulse, at Zachry Engineering Education Complex in Texas A&M University (College Station, TX, 2018), Tendril for Tampa International Airport (Tampa, FL, 2017) and Cannula, Xylem and Gust II at BBVA Bank Headquarters (Madrid, 2018). He has also created public monumental artworks in different mediums such as Amalgama El Prado, a generative video-projection projected on the Museo Nacional del Prado façade and created with the Museum’s painting collection (Madrid, 2019); Constellations, the largest photo-mosaic in Europe created for two pedestrian bridges over the Manzanares River, in MRío Park (Madrid, 2010) and Asalto, a series of video-projections presented on various emblematic monuments, including the Arcos de Lapa (Rio de Janeiro, 2009), the Puerta de Alcalá (Madrid, 2009) and the church of San Pietro in Montorio (Rome, 2009). Also part of the series is Storming Times Square, screened on 47 of the LED billboards in Times Square (New York, NY, 2014).
His solo shows include “Billow” at bitforms gallery (New York, NY, 2020); “Liquid Memories” at sala Kubo-Kutxa (San Sebastian, 2019); Surge a temporary installation for the Grand Lobby Wall at Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA, 2019); “Echo” at Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum (Lafayette, LA, 2019); “Melting the Solids” at Wilde Gallery (Geneva, 2018); “Fluctuations” at Sala Alcalá 31 (Madrid, 2017); “Echo” at bitforms gallery (New York, NY, 2017) and Max Estrella Gallery (Madrid, 2017); “Sikka Ingentium” at Museum Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, 2017); “Quadratura” at Espacio Fundación Telefónica (Lima, 2014); “Vórtices”at the Fundación Canal Isabel II (Madrid, 2011); Synaptic Passage, an installation commissioned for the exhibition “Brain: The Inside Story” at the American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY, 2010) and two installations at the Sundance Film Festival (Park City, UT, 2011).
He has exhibited in Reina Sofia Contemporary Art Museum, Madrid; Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio; Offenes Kulturhaus Center for Contemporary Art, Linz; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfallen, Düsseldorf; Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin; Borusan Contemporary Museum, Istanbul; American Museum of Natural History, New York; Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh; Palacio Velázquez, Madrid; Max Estrella Gallery, Madrid; bitforms gallery, New York; Art Bärtschi & Cie Gallery, Geneva; Eduardo Secci Contemporary, Florence; the Alejandro Otero Museum, Caracas and the Santa Mónica Art Center, Barcelona.
In 2016, Daniel Canogar and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, jointly and honorably, received the ARCO-Beep Electronic Art Award
Works at the collection: - QWERTY - Gust - "Scrawl"
QWERTY, 2015
QWERTY shows the keys of a discarded keyboard recovered from a recycling centre. A projection falls with precision on the keys and seems to give new life to the old keyboard. As tools of communication with the outside world, and as repositories of many of our thoughts, we acquire a very intimate relationship with our keyboards. I try to reveal memories, both personal and collective, that seem to be trapped in keyboards, memories of a time in which the keys had a completely functional life.
The work explores the way that language appears to have a life of its own that at times escapes us and at other times serves as a precise tool for the communication of thoughts. Other questions that we consider are the constructed nature of language and the incendiary potential of the word as a means for profound social change.
Gust, 2017
Gust is a screen made with flexible LED tiles, a technology that allows the artist to create curved screens. The generative animation reacts in real-time to local wind speed and direction.
The artist has observed a substantial change in our relationship with screens. From small wrist devices that monitor our biorhythms to monumental LED billboards that wrap around buildings, we are surrounded by their flickering and bright surfaces. Screens are acquiring a new materiality, a membrane quality that extends over multiple surfaces, objects and buildings. The "Echo" series responds to this new concept of screen-skin.
"Echo’s" screens seem to melt, drained by our overzealous need to represent the world. In their undoing, they discover a new role as creatures that no longer represent but sense their ecosystem. Connected to the Web, they perceive planetary phenomena that escape our sensory possibilities, and yet are so vital to our survival as a species.
"Scrawl", 2023
Is a generative piece that reacts in real time to trending topics on X, formally know as Twitter. The custom made software gathers periodically the most talked about topics in the X community. These topics are translated in real life to the graphic aesthetic of graffiti and street protest which, contrary to professional graffiti or street art, are created quickly and anonymously, often because of the harshness or sincerity of its content, sometimes as a simple gesture of statement. As a piece in constant change, "Scrawl" tries to capture the multiple tensions that coexist in social spaces like X, where the individual identity –always hidden behind the screen- expresses itself in its rawest version, and paradoxically, maybe the most real and honest one.
"Scrawl" pace replicates the layers of urban walls, where graffiti texts are constantly covered by plain paint, creating a new canvas for a new succession of graffiti. This result in a struggle between the citizens’ yearning for individual communication and the institutional desire to erase and clean the chaotic world of graffiti. The outcome is an algorithmic piece shifting constantly between the aesthetic of social protest and abstract painting.
XIX ARCO/BEEP ELECTRONIC ART AWARD.