Ars ex Industria - Itsasmuseum

Our work Naturaleza Muerta con Recipientes is currently on show in Bilbao. It is part of the group exhibition "Ars Ex Industria, art as a mirror of Basque culture and industrial heritage" at the Itsasmuseum. Organised by the Basque Association of Industrial Heritage and Public Works (AVPIOP), it is one of the central activities of the events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Association.

Naturaleza Muerta con Recipientes (2016) consists of porcelain objects, cast from plaster molds that were recuperated from an abandoned factory near Donostia-San Sebastián. These molds had been slowly disintegrating before they were retrieved from under the rubble of the plant. Roots penetrated the molds and seeping rainwater ate away at their soft and brittle walls, remodelling the void contained within. These hollow spaces have spawned a collection of objects that might thus be considered hybrid artefacts, shaped by the intersection of human histories and natural cycles of growth and decay.

By retrieving the molds from the rubble of the factory, restoring them, and putting them back into use, they have been saved from further deterioration and transformed into ambivalent heritage objects. Ambivalent because they no longer simply represent the private history of the factory, but have also become encapsulated in our own contemporary narrative of appropriation and (collective) authorship.

After producing the 276 porcelain objects of Naturaleza Muerta con Recipientes, the molds were stored in a large chest for ten years, hidden from public view. The exhibition "Ars Ex Industria" aims to expose the traces and scars of industry in the Basque Country and offers us a fitting context to bring these objects back into the spotlight. For the first time, we will be displaying them alongside their porcelain counterparts, in order to engage the museum's visitors into the visual interplay between the various shapes and their reflections in the negative spaces of the molds.

Ars ex Industria
Itsasmuseum Bilbao
From 2 December 2025 to 26 April 2026

With artists: José Abel, Mikel Alonso, Luis Badosa, Alfonso Batalla, Iñaki Bilbao, Carlos Cánovas, Rafael Cantera, Itxaso Díaz, Juan Carlos Eguillor, Joan Fontcuberta, Marisa González, Agustín Ibarrola, Iñaki Izquierdo, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas Van Gorkum, Jesús María Lazkano, Vinicius Libardoni, Carlos Marcote, Jesús Ángel Miranda, Aitor Ortiz, Ana Olías, Xabier Otero, Rafa Paz, Fidel Raso, Igor Rezola, Javier Riaño, Juantxu Rodríguez, Ana Isabel Román, Ixone Sábada, Dora Salazar, Alberto Salcedo, Miguel Sbastida, Ana Schmidt, Eduardo Sourrouille, Niko Vázquez, Santiago Yaniz.

Our participation in this exhibition is supported by CBK Rotterdam (Centre for Visual Arts Rotterdam).