Galería Elba Benítez

Juan Cruz

Palencia, Spain, 1970
Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

Juan Cruz explores how the expanded field of translation — literally and metaphorically, culturally or linguistically, in texts or in objects — performs a central role in artistic practice, while at the same time undergirds the construction of identity that extends beyond the confines of the artistic realm.

In Cruz’s work, the translational process serves as a metaphor for visual representation, which Cruz carries further to a wide range of media, including text, performance, drawing, audio, video, sculpture, and photography. Even at its most ephemeral and de-objectified, Cruz’s work explores the relationship between narrative and physical space, demonstrating how experience can be subtly manipulated through even the slightest of means.

A central concern of Cruz’s is the construction of a means of transmission not only of the material submitted to the process of translation, but also of the resultant communication from one ‘self’ to another, whether those selves be the author, the artist, the translator or the ‘reader’ of the work.

Download artist’s CV

Juan Cruz. A Translation of La Sima (The Chasm) by... Pio Baroja, 2009
Juan Cruz. A Semblance of Activity, 2008
Juan Cruz. A Semblance of Activity, 2008
Juan Cruz. A Semblance of Activity, 2008
Juan Cruz. Mensch, 2009
Juan Cruz. A Translation of Don Quijote, 2006
Juan Cruz. A Translation of Don Quijote (detail), 2006
Juan Cruz. Translation of ‘El arbol de la... ciencia’ (The Tree of Science) by Pio Baroja, 2009
Juan Cruz. In the shape of what we know, 2007
Juan Cruz. In the shape of what we know, 2007
Juan Cruz. Perdendonsi, 2011
Juan Cruz. Perdendonsi, 2011
For inquiries, write us to info@elbabenitez.com