15 videos by juan cruz, 2018-19
this work is characterized by a rather desperate, sentimental and hubristic desire to avoid aging, irrelevance and death. cruz grapples with the shame and embarrassment of being an artist and the bizarre irony of wanting publicly to deal with that shame through the form of the exhibition. cruz’s gestures strive to be slight and self-effacing while battling the essential ego required to do anything at all and think that others might want to see it. in this regard, the work speaks to cruz’s ongoing interest in the poetry of his namesake, the mystic poet san juan de la cruz and his famous assertion ‘i live without living in me’.
video stills by juan cruz, represented by Matt’s Gallery (London)