Martín Soto Climent: La Volonté de la Volupté

Soto Climent is well known for his surrealist manipulation of images and objects. His practice refers to the forms of the body and the psychology of desire embedded within an economy of consumption. By re-contextualising ever so slightly and executing delicate re-arrangements by ways of appropriation and juxtaposition his works often have the humble quality of the ready-made or appear to be fragile assemblages exploring issues of temporality, desire, decay, and marginality. Soto Climent creates objects, installations, sculptures and photographs sourcing materials and imagery from the quotidian and his interventions into everyday objects are occasionally temporary.

La Volonté de la Volupté will be Soto Climent’s third solo-exhibition with the gallery and, similarly to El Sendero de la Poeta, a large survey exhibition currently on view at the Museo de la Ciudad de México in Mexico City, it unites several different bodies of work in the artist’s œuvre, from the seminal Gossip series to drawings, photographs, painting and objects made of leather, wood and metal. 

Spanning from Greek mythology to Freud, Eros, the god of love, and Thanatos, the god of death, are viewed as mutually exclusive opposites. Soto Climent’s work argues the opposite – they are both flesh and they are one and the same, not parallel but interlaced and interdependent. His works are nor objets trouvés nor ready-mades, he manipulates matter in a way that appears surrealist but speaks to intimacy, with gestures at once subtle and powerful.