Armando Andrade Tudela

Andrade Tudela’s Balzer Reliefs (Relieves Balzers), like Fontana’s series of works Concetto Spaziale or Oiticica’s early Metasquemas, use cuts and geometry as a way to convey ideas of space beyond the pictorial surface. Typically composed of two geometrical apertures, Andrade Tudela’s hollow reliefs can be seen as schematic architectural diagrams of transitional space such as corridors, hallways and terraces – places that involve a flow of movement and can exist in states of both occupation and non-occupation.

Through these cuts we can glimpse patterned, grid-like paper that has been positioned at varying angles. The paper comes from Andrade Tudela’s local bakery depicting repeated logotypes and restrained expressionistic gestures, both essential components to the modernist syntax. The interaction of these two geometric systems – the cuts and the patterned paper – creates a subtle shifting tension between the works’ two and three dimensionality, between connecting and corresponding surface and space.

The sculptures in the show are also constructed following a geometric system, though here the angle, or the intersection of spaces and matter plays an additional role. Made from materials such as concrete, aluminium profiles, coloured Plexiglas and built using simple processes such as casting, leaning and layering, the sculptures are like abstractions of low-grade commercial buildings – sculptures that in their fragmentation and scale evoke passages to a larger environment.

Armando Andrade Tudela (1975, Lima) resides in both Berlin and Saint-Étienne. He studied at the Universidad Pontificia in Lima, the Royal College of Art in London and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. His work has been presented in Barcelona (MACBA), Dijon (Frac Bourgogne), Berlin (DAAD), Birmingham (Ikon Gallery), Frankfurt (FKV), and Basel (Kunsthalle Basel).  He has also participated in major group exhibitions in Lima, Warsaw, Vienna, New York, the Shanghai and Sao Paulo Biennials. Salle de Répétition is the artist’s third show at the gallery.