#1. Dora García: Valladolid, 1965

Descovering Doria Garcia was a very nice pleasure.
My first access to her work was through
The Kingdom, a web site in which you are transported to a surreal set that belongs to our daily reality, the Macba, in Barcelona. The idea of the Museum is developed as the concept of a protected and defended space, viewed mainly from outside (making Richard Meyer’s architecture really look like a fortress). There are plenty of things we can do in The Kingdom. We can control a video camera that films some of the main areas of the building (even the outside, where we can catch a glimpse of the caracteristic young skaters, is filmed from the inside, with the long, heavy white bars of the structure reassembling those if a high security prison), we can be part of it, open its secret doors. We can reflect about the it’s function ‘Is the Kingdom an artwork? You decide. If you furiously do not think so, burn it, attack it, defame it. If you think it is not an artwork, but it is a nice thing, just enjoy it and then forget it. If you truly agree with us that the Kingdom is an artwork, treasure it forever and welcome to The Kingdom.’
But there is a lot more about Doria Garcia. Just to finish the internet section, is worth going to All the Stories and also to heartbeat, my mostly recomended piece.
Her work make the thin lines between fiction, reality and art disapear. They also give you the responsability to choose the way you want to aproach to it, not only by escaping linearity and narrativity but also by creating hypertexts that are built according to the viewers own order. Often she uses games and mazes, such as ‘The Kingdom’ or ‘Sí o No (La Esfinge)’, where the spectator is situated in an empty hall, with the words ‘Sí’ or ‘No’ projected on the wall, a cursor and a mouse on a pedestal. A woman’s voice repeats a question so unexpected as ‘Are you in love?’. If the spectator wants the game to continue, he or she must decide and answer. One question is followed by other, and only the correct answer opens the way to the next question; an incorrect answer is greeted by a non-negotiable ‘game over’. But which are the correct answers?
A common line in her work is making you deal between individual and generic considerations, in different media.
The ‘Glass Wall’ (a performance transformed in a film), ‘Dream’ are some of her best works.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2004 Fahrenheit 451. Galería Joan Prats. Barcelona.
Luz Intolerable & La Esfinge. Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid.
2003 El Reino. MACBA, Barcelona.
Galería Ellen de Bruijne, Amsterdam.
2002 Dosificadores de Realidad (Screen Systems). Galería
Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid.
Proxy. Sala Montcada de La Fundación la Caixa. Barcelona.
The Locked Room, Galerie Jan Mot, Bruselas.
2001 1101001000 Infinito. Sala Montcada. Fundación
la Caixa. Barcelona.
Inserts in Real Time, Galerie Jan Mot, Bruselas.
La Pared de Cristal. La Gallera, Valencia.
2000 Coreografías: Sueño-Heart Beat. Établissement d'en
Face. Bruselas.
Sleep project. Ellen de Bruijne Project. Amsterdam.
Va a desaparecer. Galería Juana de Aizpuru. Festival
PhotoEspaña, 2000.
1999 Coreografías. Dora García Galería Juana de Aizpuru.
Madrid.
Secretamente, y sin que nadie se diera cuenta hasta ahora...
Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo. Zona Emergente.
La Cartuja. Sevilla.
Heartbeat Internet Project. LostArt. Amsterdam.- Aleph.
España.- FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier.
1998 BOX. Galería Mot & Van den Boogaard. Bruselas.

WORKS IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Madrid.
Collection Paul Andriesse. Amsterdam.
Collection Gist-Brocades. Delft.
Collection Plompe & Klompen. Rotterdam.
Colección la Caixa. Barcelona.
Collection de Bruyn. Rotterdam.
Museo de Vitoria.
FRAC Languedoc-Rousillon.
Colección Junta de Castilla y León.
Collection Flannan Browne. Reino Unido.
MUSAC. León.