ni perro ni pastor , they would be nothing Installation

“THEY WOULD BE NOTHING” Everything moves in Oscar Vautherin´s exibition in San Sebastian. Or they more or have the capacity of doing so. All peaces and items slowly wander, no hurry, towards a less relevant final than the way togo. The questions of the artist address the viewer and it´s the viewer who has the problem now. A problem that need time and attention to, becase the keys of the answers are not in the back of the page and/or in a vertical sense. They are right up front, contained and claiming the effort of the observer. This same effort that you perceive and crushes when contemplating such a development in the execution. However, it´s not in the exercise of making the pieaces where this exibition overwhelms byt in the PROJECTION that the artist makes of the materiality of the objects to the ideas that fill the showroom. It´s in this transit where the proposal and success are. It´s imposible to take regufe in the first stadium How well these iron sheep are made !! Not even the most primary of the observers can remain there and, that towards projection of the contents is an essential code in art, not only contemporary but from all times. In the rock era paintings, the magic of communicacion with us resisides in its capacity for, from its “misse en place” tranfer us all its longings, fears, beliefs and hopes. Ideas, definitely. Perhaps the biggest fifferenc sith these predecesors resides in the INTENTION, because, although the reflection of the inner world puers out equally in both cases, it´s now when the artist rises the communication as essential axis of his doing. A communication that, in the particular case of Oscar Vauterin arises from the observation of its context and his social sensibility, generous with weakness and incisive in front of apathy. The narrative is necessary wuen contents of complaints are developed or a political situation is exemplified. This narratyve develops in an esquematic way as a reflection of the pieces themselves, where their finising is in the right point not to remain it it and transfer ourselves to that search of compromises and complicities with the espectator, as we have said before. In the work entitled “Neither dog nor shepherd” we find nineteen elements built in thick iron bars, clearly showing a live one: the sheep. Can we think of a weaker animal ? It does not even have horns !. Total indefesion, that´s why it´s chosen. These beings, shown in a big circle, with only two partially breaking the absolute line, trying the difference….. they hide a finding. One of them possesses a dead fird in its interior, visible through the grill structure. Up to now what the artist gives us. From this moment you have to start thinking. If the bird is a domeston one and is inside a wire structure, this becomes a cage and therefore, all the rest also do. Walking cages in just one direction, with a possible leader in the difference, but in its inside there is no life. If somebody carries something, carries a dead being. Dramatic simbology of a conducted social project. The cage is a recurrent element with Vautherin, although I dare to think that it´s not the element what interests him, but what it implies in the correlation towards lack of freedom. That big word, so much alleges in other times, can now also be put into a debase even though it seems strange, even though it seems exceeded. Let´s look for the essentiality of the concept and we´ll understand why a contemporary artist can perfectly put it “on top of the table”. The idea of FREEDOM has been historically understoon as a possibility of election, as expresion of one´s will, as an absence of interferences, as liberation vs something of to get something, as execution of a certain need. So to say, there would be two directions: that one of “can do” and the other of a limitation to do. Outlining a lot, we couls say that during the XX Century two types of attitudes are shown in the thoughts, regarding the notion of Freedom. On one side those who consider “analityc” and on the other those who would be more related towards a tyupe of ·existential” reflexion. With the first, the concept of freedom goes along intrinsically with “determinism”. The “determinist” thinkers, such as Spinoza, maintained tha freedom fundamentally consists in following nautre, because this is united to reality. These authors, who based their ideas and thoughts in Aristotle, maintain that every act is determined some way, not finding a conflict between the possibility that act of men would be determined…. and the freedom of the individual. On the other side we would find, generally speaking, to those close to the “existential” current. The concept of freedon as to be a self made person is present in them. Ortega describes that, being human life something that has to be done, there isn´t ano other way than make decissions each and evbery moment. There isn´t, thus, no other way but to continously invent oneself. In this sense, freedos is not something we have but something that we are or will be in our way. Therefore, we are obliged to be free. Sartre goes deep in a similar line with his famus phrase “man is condemned to be bree”, although he reckons that many times human reality tries to disguise its own freedom and therefore his responsibility in front of the anguish both produce him. For Sartre, the human freedon preceeds the essende of man and makes it possible. Mah is not firstly to be free, but there is no difference in the being of the man and his “be free”. In this way, the author denies the debate about if man is free or not, becauwe man can only be “as long as he is free”. To connect this approach with the instalation of Oscar Vauthrin, we find that in that circle of cage-sheep, existance would be being denied to those beings, because their mutilation of freedom would involve their dissipation as beings. They´d be nothing. The piece entitled “Piedad” has five photographic snaps, one of them in big format….. in which you can see a naked baby girl wandering amongst big traps built for the happening. Incence, danger, tension, indefension…. reach out at first sight. But let´s remember that they author requires us to find out mucho more. I consider that the proposal reinforces itself completing each of these sensations in form of chained questions: DANGER : for whom?, who feels the danger: the baby girl, the spectator, the parents ? who arranges the tramps ? of which dangers are we talking about ? INDEFENSION: Must we protect the weak beings ? Must we let tem walk the way, risking that their development could not be desired ? Must a father risk his life or his project of life for his son ? TENSION: Does the espectator need an image of extreme violence, contained or not, to develope humanity ? Has the human being been definitely acustomed to other´s manageable tragedy ? INNOCENCE: if in the previously commented, a supposedly innocent being such as a sheep, turns into a cabe (let´s remember what it is for….. precisely to restrain the innocents of their freedom. In this image I want to question, ot at least raise the possibility of that idea of an innocent baby girl could also not be innocent. If we observe the set of photos we see that is all full of traps. There is a hollow that would correspon to one of them, which is occupied by that symbol baby. The innocent being could even become another ambush, bearing in mind that from all times, children have been used as elements of retention, sujeccion and edification in the basil social nucleus. This is our onw nature. In any case, this personal appreciation ties to all that this image can generate, because its efficiancy resides in the capacity of promoting and arising questions. Besices, Oscar Vautherin´s traps also have a question mark form. The previously argued questions would be valid at the time of commenting another or the exciting installations of the exibition. It´s a new serie of recognizable sheep, this time white, that wander around the room and that have previously been recorded in a video, wher they appear arriving to the sea shore, in the exibition nearby beach. Floating beings such as the corpses that populate the coasts of an unreachable world. Like persons wrecked of sensibility and reflection of the latent wreck that we all have tied to ourselves. It´s again when these questions arise in a chain. And last but not least, comment for fiest that appears in the exibition space. Two iron legs lean in equilibrium agains a support hanging in the air, that works like a sacrifice board wuen the pirates and other navigators made a person walk before being thrown to the sea. The legs are in a walking position, reaching the extreme of the horizontal mast. Let´s take a detailed look…. the finding is there !!. Under the fees, small roots appear, fixing it symbolically fixing it to the base. Oscar Vautherin poses how in the walking, even if this is complicated or even painful, those traces develope in the memory and help you to anchor yourself to your reality and, in any case, they are the small traces that one leaves. However, if at the end of the path you end up falling into the sea, this, in its continous movement will end up returning you to the shore.

Installation:Lights on Iron

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:315 W x 27.6 H x 315 D in

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