Ignasi Aballí studied Fine Arts at Barcelona University. At the end of the 1980s, he started to produce conceptual works using non-intervention strategies as regards his materials in order to question traditional art notions. The contingent and time components thus become decisive aspects of the result of the work, in a distancing that counterbalances the artist’s subjectivity and the manual component. He applies a highly controlled methodology and prior conditions that must not be altered. Aballí also uses linguistic concepts, mainly in relation to paintings, to create tensions between their elements and the classification terms and systems defining them. Another fundamental aspect of his work is his questioning of the mechanisms to depict the everyday used by the mass media by means of compiling, accumulating, classifying and serial presentation of photographs and press headlines. He then decontextualises them and turns them into abstract references, resulting in a distancing from the real and forcing the viewer to consider the complexity of the everyday and the range of nuances involved.
Aballí has taken part in international events such as the Sydney Biennale (1998) and the Venice Biennale (2007). His solo shows have been held at the Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2002 and 2015); the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2005); the Ikon Gallery (Birmingham, United Kingdom, 2006); the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe, Germany, 2006); the Today Art Museum (Beijing, 2009); the Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo, 2010) and Atrium Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country (2012).
Ignasi Aballí studied Fine Arts at Barcelona University. At the end of the 1980s, he started to produce conceptual works using non-intervention strategies as regards his materials in order to question traditional art notions. The contingent and time components thus become decisive aspects of the result of the work, in a distancing that counterbalances the artist’s subjectivity and the manual component. He applies a highly controlled methodology and prior conditions that must not be altered. Aballí also uses linguistic concepts, mainly in relation to paintings, to create tensions between their elements and the classification terms and systems defining them. Another fundamental aspect of his work is his questioning of the mechanisms to depict the everyday used by the mass media by means of compiling, accumulating, classifying and serial presentation of photographs and press headlines. He then decontextualises them and turns them into abstract references, resulting in a distancing from the real and forcing the viewer to consider the complexity of the everyday and the range of nuances involved.
Aballí has taken part in international events such as the Sydney Biennale (1998) and the Venice Biennale (2007). His solo shows have been held at the Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2002 and 2015); the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2005); the Ikon Gallery (Birmingham, United Kingdom, 2006); the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe, Germany, 2006); the Today Art Museum (Beijing, 2009); the Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo, 2010) and Atrium Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country (2012).