Monroy Cuevas' contribution to the DOPA collective's Cosmic Race project consists of a series of drawings made with black pigment that are part of the Eisenstein series; and a set of photographs from the Rey Cobarde project. All these pieces follow a line of work where the artist focuses on the role that cameras play in the construction of reality.
The series of drawings entitled Eisenstein are inspired in the time Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein lived in Mexico during the production of his project Que viva México!, in 1930. The drawings refer to the failure of Eisenstein's Mexican film project, imagining the scene of a radical cinematographic failure: the camera catching fire, losing the possibility of producing moving images and memory. The drawings have been produced with a technique developed by the artist where he uses black pigment extracted from candles, impregnated into the paper using adhesive tape.
Eisenstein I-V
About the Rey Cobarde project the artist has stated: “I have created some sort of character thinking it could be the shadow of an outdated surveillance camera. Now it is just a shadow lost in the video frame. His name is Rey Cobarde wish means “Coward King”. Its name reflects the context where this character lives, a large concrete wall close to the sea, the wall divides the beach from the land. Rey Cobarde's gaze covers the entire territory that protects the concrete wall. In his shadow condition Rey Cobarde does not have three-dimensionality, he is an entity of a single two-dimensional plane. He is always looking at the camera, fixed on the scene, mirroring the position of the camera. Obstructs vision and blocks and absorbs light, changing the measurements of time. Rey Cobarde is always hidden in the shadows, he gets lost in the landscape. It is only the shadow of melancholy. It has remained fixed in the scene, always present. At one time it was threatening and now it is just a hindrance. Rey Cobarde is a shadow that wants to see everything, hear everything. It is a guard who acts as an intruder. Its shape corresponds to that of the design of a peripheral vision camera, which was quickly replaced by smaller and more intelligent facial recognition cameras. That is why the Rey Cobarde is just a shadow, a dummy, an indelible memory….”
Eisenstein I-V
Rey cobarde production still
