Iñaki Garmendia

Iñaki Garmendia (Ordizia, 1972) belongs to a generation of Basque artists who have carried out their work in a context marked by paradoxical trends: cultural nationalism and globalisation have provided the ingredients for an aesthetic in which diverse meanings often overlap. Video, music, youth subcultures and certain industrial products heighten the tension between the different readings of his work. His processes often begin with the creation of derivatives, versions of cultural objects to which he remains secretly attached and on which he works following a logic of attrition. This is most apparent in his video production over the past 20 years. The extensive footage with which he typically presents his works seems to plunge us into the very event captured by the camera. Despite this, his works remain opaque, void of a traditional narrative, and exist within some sort of abstraction reminiscent of one of the most basic principles of expanded cinema. Furthermore, his tendency towards punk-derived aesthetics lends a certain resistance to orality to his work. Overall, Garmendia’s works avoid an immediate ascription of meaning and reject the instrumentalization of presignified images and scenes.

Iñaki Garmendia has participated in a number of exhibitions, including “Cine y casi cine” at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), and “Després de la noticia” at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). In 2004, he took part in the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York, the VI Yugoslav Biennial of Young Artists, Manifesta 5 and Underdox 3. Document und experiment festival in Munich. In 2006, he published the book Only Kids Love Other Kids. In 2011, he carried out a project at the Contemporary Image Collective (CIC) in Cairo and exhibited at La Virreina Centre de la Imatge in Barcelona. In 2014, he exhibited at Tenderpixel in London. At present, his works are exhibited at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao (bilbao museoa), the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo (CGAC), the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country (Artium Museoa) and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Between 2003 and 2007, he organised Eat THIS Document! in collaboration with artists Asier Mendizabal and Mark Chandler, a series of independent, self-organised screenings of rock documentaries in his studio in Bilbao. In 2021, he presented Ratatatat and Foku #1 in the ATOI space (Tractora Koop) in Bilbao. In 2023, he intervened in the Tíboli 15 space in Bilbao with his project Tramar lo gótico. N634, and joined the Technical Commission of eremuak, a space dedicated to advancing the contexts in which artistic practices take place in the Basque Country. He is currently working on an exhibition project at the Oteiza Museum in Alzuza (Navarra).

https://foku.info/en/bibliografia/inaki-garmendia-en/