D.S.M. Mental Health Department

    

The complete exhibition is formed by five sections:  

I.      Artifacts, installation by Alejandro Gómez de Tuddo
II.     Photographs by Alejandro Gómez de Tuddo
III.    X Rays by Alejandro Gómez de Tuddo
IV.    Sculptures by Eva Gerd
V.     Drawings by Eva Gerd  

Approximately thirty years ago, as a result of the enforcement of the “Psychiatric Reform Law”, better known as the “Basaglia Law”, the Italian madhouses were definitively closed down.
The instruments used in chirurgical operations at such mental health centers, constitute the main object of each section of the exhibition. These instruments, mostly from the sixties, were found by the artist at the operation rooms of the few institutions that have been kept closed and untouched ever since.
Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) of the chirurgical instruments are projected over the walls of the spyral structure of the “Artifacts” installation -built as a container of organs-. At it’s center, a human brain in formaldehide stands lit in the dark.
The series of photographs, shot at the desolate spaces of the old mental health institutions, evoke the memory of its former occupants; while the X rays of the instruments, mounted on light boxes, give birth to the process of expansion of memory.
The sound installation blends with the resonance of the wind while passing through the orifices of an old medieval ruin, and the caw of birds that nest in this hollow building.
These modern medical techniches applied to steady objects, transported to the artistic field, establish a counterpoint dialogue with the pencil drawings of Eva Gerd, transforming the instruments in post-organic bodies in continuous evolution.  

Each one of the rescued objects, coated, sutured and embalmed rest in a larval state, lying on black satin pillows. With such burial in full sight, the ritual of the metamorphosis of the objects comes to its conclusion, but also the artists’ one, who -incorporated to their own work-, participate in the Platonic theory of the ideas and the doctrine of the shapes, where existence is divided in two spheres: the “intelligible” of the perfect ideas and shapes, eternal and undivisible; and the “sensible”, where the concrete and known objects belong.  

    

    

Museums & galleries

DSM
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo AZ
Morelia, 2008
  

          

DSM catalogue PDF  

   

Human contrasts, ambiguity and disturbance  

In Gómez de Tuddo’s photographs of mental health premises, life seems to be suddenly pulled out. The remains: a wheelchair that continues to stair at the light that filters through the window, and other everyday objects, like the toilet paper, slightly unrolled, as if waiting to be used, build a disturbing image of suspended life, nurished by the echoes of a short story.  

Gómez de Tuddo’s photographic compositions that evoke intimacy and light in stark contrast, transfigure into demential words of the objects immortalized by forgetfulnes, free from the absence of those crazy people, who never attended the meeting with the camera, but who´s presence is there, torn around the strings, hidden under the letters, or within the vessel containing a brain in formaldehyde, rescued by the photographer from the the ship of fools’ wreck.  

   

Carlos F. Marquez, La Jornada, Michoacán, 2008  

   

Los ecos de la locura  

Alejandro Gómez de Tuddo se ha dado a la tarea de viajar por el mundo dispuesto a encontrar vida en lo que clínicamente está muerto. Le importa mostrar la belleza en aquello que a primera vista horroriza, o que por violento y cruel nos negamos a mirar.

Sus fotografías se exhiben en museos, galerías y espacios alternativos en diversos países del mundo. En algunos casos se trata de visiones que exhiben la crueldad y la estupidez humanas. En otros, los objetos fotografiados se transforman en una serenidad espectral de hiperrealidad inquietante, mientras que otras son abstracciones de poesía pura. Para exponer gusta de trabajar en formatos grandes (“gigantografías”, se les llama hoy), en los cuales se pueden apreciar muchísimos detalles, ante los cuales el espectador puede emprender diferentes lecturas.

La muestra “DSM” nos propone una serie de visiones envolventes y elípticas, en las que cada imagen se desdobla de su real iconografía para convertirse, al mismo tiempo, en algo distinto. En este juego poético, donde la imagen siempre deviene metáfora, las imágenes de manicomios abandonados fascinan y perturban: Los apuntes a mesas de cirugías, salones abandonados, pequeños objetos abandonados y mordidos por el tiempo, aparecen como flashes mnemónicos de un recorrido por el inconsciente, el mito y el símbolo.

Si, como pedía el escritor cubano José Lezama Lima (1910-1976), “la imagen es la causa secreta de la historia”, ya que es el motivo que penetra e impulsa al hombre, las imágenes en el quehacer de Gómez de Tuddo, hacen suya esta premisa y convierten lo aparente en revelación de lo invisible, “lo pasado” en una puerta a la posibilidad.  

Demetrio Olivo, La voz de Michoacán, Morelia, 2008  

    

Principio de incertidumbre
Universal Forum of Cultures
Centro de las Artes
Curator: Fernando Delmar
Monterrey, 2007  

   

   

I. Artifacts – installation

Artifact     An object produced by human work
Med         Alteration or distortion of an object which is not part of the object itself.  

   

Installation description

A vessel containing a human brain in formaldehide from an abandoned psychiatric hospital stands alone in the middle of a spyral structure, surrounded by a sound installation.
Over the translucid surface of the spyral structure walls, the MRI images of five chirurgical instruments mutate from abstract to tridemensional shapes.
The axial MRI readings are monochromatic, luminiscent projections; while the isometric ones reproduce the instrument’s shape and its artifacts, in constant pendular movement.  

Elements  

a)  Polycarbonate spyral held by a metallic structure
b)  Human brain in formaldehide
c)  MRI projections
d)  Sound installation  

   

  

Artifacts (video)  

  

Technical specifications

a)  Polycarbonate spyral held by a metallic structure
The spyral is made of sixteen polycarbonate pannels (6 m high x 2.80 m wide), held by a metallic structure. Five projectors and six speakers are placed in the upper part of the structure.
When the spyral structure is armed, a white non-reflecting layer is glued to the internal face of the pannels.  

b)  Main piece
A black metallic cilindrical stand (1.30 m x .26 m) is placed in the middle of the spyral sturcture. Within the cylinder, a cold light lamp lits the glass vessel containing the human brain in formaldehyde.  

c)  MRI projections
When the DVD player is turned on, five MRIs are simultaneusly projected in a loop over the spyral’s internal walls.  

d)  Sound installation
The DVD player and the CD player containing the sound installation CD, must be turned on at the same time.  

 

              

 

I. Materials & equipment

  

II. Photographs

(edition of 3 / measures without frame)  

1. Men’s Ward I, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 180 x 120 cm 3. Strings, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 90 x 60 cm 4. Letters, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 90 x 60 cm 5. Operating Room, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 60 x 90 cm 6. Glove, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 60 x 90 cm 7. Surgical Instruments I, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 40 x 27 cm 8. Surgical Instruments II, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 40 x 27 cm

9. Surgical Instruments III, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 40 x 27 cm 10. Recreation Room, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 90 x 60 cm 11. Men’s Ward II, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 90 x 60 cm 12. Women’s Ward, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 90 x 60 cm 13. Bathroom, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 90 x 60 cm 14. Toilet Paper, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 60 x 90 cm 15. Cold Water Baths Chair, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 60 x 90 cm 16. Main Room II, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 90 x 60 cm

17. Votive Mattress, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 60 x 90 cm 18. Wheelchair, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 60 x 90 cm 19. Extreme Unction Case, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 90 x 60 cm 20. Mortuory Chamber I, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 180 x 120 cm 21. Mortuory Chamber II, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 120 x 180 cm 22. Autopsy Room, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 60 x 90 cm 23. Brains' Closet, 2005 Lambda print, 1/3 120 x 180 cm

  

III. X-Rays

(edition of  2)  

1. Forceps, 2006 X-Ray, 1/2 46 x 53 cm 2. Anaesthetic Vial 2006 X-Ray, 1/2 46 x 53 cm 3. Chisel, 2006 X-Ray, 1/2 46 x 53 cm

4. Hook, 2006 X-Ray, 1/2 46 x 53 cm 5. Pliers, 2006 X-Ray, 1/2 46 x 53 cm 6. Separator I, 2006 X-Ray, 1/2 46 x 53 cm

7. Separator II, 2006 X-Ray, 1/2 46 x 53 cm 8. Syringe, 2006 X-Ray, 1/2 46 x 53 cm

  

   

      

    

IV. Sculptures

1. Forceps, 2006 Satin & steel 45 x 30 x 10 cm 2. Anaesthetic Vial, 2006 Satin, steel & glass 45 x 30 x 10 cm 3. Chisel, 2006 Satin & steel 45 x 30 x 10 cm

4. Hook, 2006 Satin & steel 45 x 30 x 10 cm 5. Pliers, 2006 Satin & steel 45 x 30 x 10 cm 6. Separator I, 2006 Satin & steel 45 x 30 x 10 cm

7. Separator II, 2006 Satin & steel 45 x 30 x 10 cm 8. Syringe, 2006 Satin, steel & plastic 45 x 30 x 10 cm

  

V.   Drawings

(measures without frame)  

1. Forceps, 2006 Pencil drawing 29.5 x 42 cm 2. Anaesthetic Vial, 2006 Pencil drawing 29.5 x 42 cm 3. Chisel, 2006 Pencil drawing 29.5 x 42 cm

4. Hook, 2006 Pencil drawing 29.5 x 42 cm 5. Pliers, 2006 Pencil drawing 29.5 x 42 cm 6. Separator I, 2006 Pencil drawing 29.5 x 42 cm

7. Separator II, 2006 Pencil drawing 29.5 x 42 cm 8. Syringe, 2006 Pencil drawing 29.5 x 42 cm