Iñaki Bonillas, Words and Photos

Opening reception for Iñaki Bonillas's Words and Photos commissioned by Dia for the Artist Web Projects series.

Thursday, June 12, 2014, 6:30 pm
Dia:Chelsea, 535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor

Admission is free.

At the launch event, a conversation with Iñaki Bonillas and Dia assistant curator Manuel Cirauqui will begin at 7 pm.

About Words and Photos
In 2003, Iñaki Bonillas (Mexican, b. 1981) introduced a vast photo archive that he inherited from his grandfather, J. R. Plaza, into his conceptual investigation of photography. Since then, this extraordinarily rich material (thousands of portraits, many of them theatrically staged by Plaza; landscapes; souvenirs; and casual snapshots) has been subjected to a number of operations that have explored its formal and material qualities.

For his Dia Artist Web Project commission, Bonillas is digitizing the archive, while simultaneously creating an extensive index of associated words that “mirrors” the image database. The relation between these two levels unfolds as the visitor explores the possibilities of matching text and image. Starting with a set of about 400 core images, the work will progressively expand until the entire J. R. Plaza Archive (approximately 3,800 images) is mapped out.

Iñaki Bonillas is collaborating with Mexico-based artist and programmer Iván Abreu and the design studio Taller de Comunicación Gráfica on this project.

Iñaki Bonillas was born in Mexico City in 1981, where he currently lives and works. Recent solo exhibitions include The Story of the Sinking Ship Which Is a Ship and Yet Is Not, LIGA Space for Architecture, Mexico City (2013); J.R. Plaza Archive, La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona (2012); and Double Chiaroscuro, Les Rencontres d'Arles, France (2011).