Leading-edge artist returns to the Middle East with his new solo exhibition

Daniel Canogar returns to the Middle East this January with his first solo exhibition in the region. Canogar’s “Dynamo”, the audiovisual project installed in the Spanish Pavilion, was a highlight of EXPO 2020 for many, and 2021 also saw the artist present “Bifurcation”, a building-sized laser projection at Noor Riyadh, Saudi’s annual light and art festival. Now, his new solo show “Loose Threads” will launch at Galloire in City Walk, Dubai on 23rd January. The exhibition gathers artworks which reference fabric and textiles in order to explore the technological reality of today.

Many historians consider the Jacquard loom as the first computer in history: the patterns in textiles were mechanically created via the binary code of punch cards. Today, our screens have replaced the fabrics from the past, stitching together cables, base plates, input ports, data flows, ones and zeros… The pieces in this exhibition explore the textile dimension of technology, weaving informational threads together in an attempt to process and visualize the vast amount of data that shapes our digitized present. Canogar considers the United Arab Emirates as the perfect location to bring a set of artworks around this concept; 

“The Arab world has a fascinating history and deep tradition in fabrics and textiles, having led the world in artistry and quality for a time. More than just items to be gifted or traded, fabrics represented and told the stories of culture, society, politics and economics.  Combining that history with the backdrop of today’s Dubai, very much a city of the future and leading the way in so many aspects of the digital age, made It the perfect place to present Loose Threads“, said Daniel Canogar.

Plexus demonstrates the artist’s earliest interest in textiles and craftsmanship: his hand is multiplied, filling the screen with a collective choreography reminiscent of mass production processes. This key work represents a starting point for the subsequent pieces included in the show of the “dataworks” series, which incorporate generative behaviour. These screen pieces have content that mutates and never repeats itself and is created in real-time based on incoming data.

In recent years, mobile devices have transformed our lives, encouraging overstimulation and an addictive need for constant updates. In this media environment, extreme visions of reality—fake news, conspiracy theories and apocalyptic alarmism—have taken root. The resulting informational indigestion generates a crisis of the perception of reality. The “dataworks” capture this overwhelming amount of information and transform it into semi-abstract animations in a constant state of flux, a gesture that helps to process the disjointed information we receive. In Ripple, for example, we see real-time images from CNN cascading down the screen, leaving behind a trail that covers and obscures previous news items: The final result is an abstract and dynamic composition echoing endless folds of fabric. Whilst in Billow, the materiality of textiles is represented by sculptural, curved LED screens that challenge the orthodox rectangular flat shape and provide a new corporeality to the technological device. These works evoke fabrics unfolding through the exhibition space whilst all the time responding to viral data collected across Google platforms. Finally, the Pixelweaver serieshas been created with an algorithmic tool that simulates the workings of a loom and enhances the creation of infinite combinations of warp, weft and information. The series comprises Chyron, which displays updated news as a loose and restless fabric; Abacus, which uses stock-market tickers to create a mechanical composition; and Túnica, an homage to COVID-19 victims that suggests a gauze with the names of those deceased and born in the Community of Madrid between 2020 and 2021.

The exhibition questions wide ranging aspects of the modern world, from financial fragility to life and death in the face of a global pandemic. Throughout their mantric and meditative aesthetics, the artworks seek to provide a calm and reflective experience amid the turbulent reality we live in, allowing us to better process some of the fundamental issues of our times.

Exhibition Details

Exhibition: Loose Threads, a solo exhibition by Daniel Canogar

Dates: Monday 23rd January 2023 – Friday 24th February 2023

Location: Galloire, City Walk, Dubai

Timings: Opening Times: Daily 10am – 10pm