àngels viladomiu

The Contemporary Hybrid exhibition articulates around the artistic research developed to create Sant Jordi’s poster ordered by the University of Barcelona to us. The poster represents the process of hybridization of a new variety of rose using the method of automatic fertilization of the renowned Catalan hybridizer Pere Dot (1885-1976).

 

Curious for the great diversity of names that the roses receive, we visited the rose Garden of Cervantes park, and there the gardener Lázaro introduced us to the world of roses. It was December 21 and some roses still bloomed. This visit led us to the plant nurseries of the Dot family, where Pere Dot attended us, grandson of the famous hybridizer and descendant of a roserist family, who explained us the hybridization process in detail and showed us the roses which are still elaborated today.

 

It must be said that the process of hybridization and obtaining a new rose is complex and requires years of work, a lot of patience and perseverance. It also requires a thorough study of the different genetic lines and a constant experimentation with crossings. However, the result is unpredictable and often failed. This is where we detected close coincidences with the work process of artists. The artist shares the generous gesture of the gardener. The hybridization action and the creation action become synonymous, the gardener's tools are confused with those of the artist. In both, the result is the consequence of an artificial crossing, either from individuals of different species, or in the use of means, materials and objects of a different nature.

 

In fact, our era is essentially hybrid: this is one of its main features. We see this in the multiple fields of knowledge and in the socio-cultural environment, where everything can be combined and connected. A fluid mixing, which generates great expectations and at the same time insecurities, but that in the territory of contemporary art is absolutely fruitful and allows to embrace a great heterogeneity of behaviors, means and languages.