Olga Mesa, benchmark of new dance, looks back on 30 years of creativity at CGAC

Immerse yourself in over three decades of work from Olga Mesa (Avilés, 1962), benchmark of the new contemporary Spanish dance. This is the possibility offered by the Galician Center for Contemporary Art (CGAC) in the retrospective of the artist that opened yesterday. But it is not the typical tour of his career. This is proven by the fact that 90% of the pieces, as his associate points out Francisco Ruiz de Infantewere produced for this sample Olga Mesa Review(s). Close your eyes and get ready for the big jump. “I could go to the source with full freedom, it’s an update and an attempt to distill the essence. […] You can go into the past only from the present, recover what can be interesting to pass on to new generations. It’s not about bringing the stage works to video and watching the performance, but drawing out thoughts and feelings,” emphasized the choreographer and fine artist yesterday at the opening, showing that she was very excited about the opportunity that the Compostela museum offered her to revise her career.

The retrospective is articulated through an immersive tour, where the visitor also has an active role, sometimes walking over different elements, since the viewer’s gaze plays a very important role for the artist. “It is a complex exhibition, but at the same time easy to see and experience. Sensations will take precedence over anything else,” emphasized the director of CGAC, Santiago Olmo, adding that the exhibition will allow us to understand “how dance, the body works, acts as a catalyst; dance is putting the body in the foreground”.

In the itinerary of the exhibition, the hybridization of Olga Mesa’s art is visible, that work started in the stage field that moves towards the plastic arts, as a forerunner in the research of the relationship between the audiovisual and the physical. “There are two fundamental axes: new body processes that Olga Mesa proposes, almost as a pioneer; and the discoveries he makes with that relationship between time and camera,” said curator Nekane Aramburu. The artist, who understands the body as a mediator, pointed out that dance opens the door to audiovisual language, words, theater, images…

Olga Mesa – “a living memory of dance”, as described by the general director of Culture – opened the exhibition yesterday with three performance together with his collaborator in the last decade, Francisco Ruiz de Infante.