Javier Peñafiel

Javier Peñafiel - Lonely Strangers 3 (Barefoot Town Planner)

Technique: Ink on paper

Artist Biography: Javier Peñafiel is an artist born in Zaragoza in 1964, trained in philosophy and social activism in the 80s. He gained access to art through contemporary art workshops such as Montesquiu, the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid and Arteleku in Donostia. He lives and works between Barcelona and Mallorca, and his work includes installations with objects, drawings, images and texts, performative lectures and dramatized readings, dramaturgical texts for video, artist's books and publications. His work focuses on a reflection on the contemporary subject and a critique of the foundational myths of modernity, using irony, humor, nihilism and the everyday absurd as tools to articulate a heterogeneous work that focuses on rebellion and critical insubordination. Peñafiel gives capital importance to language, which he uses with great metaphysical and poetic skill to show the hidden face of the subject, of reality and of language itself. He has presented his work in various international venues such as the Pablo Serrano Museum in Zaragoza, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói in Brazil, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, the Sâo Paulo Biennial, La Panera in Lleida, the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of Santiago de Chile and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Castilla y León. In addition, his work is part of the collections of "la Caixa", the CGAC in Santiago de Compostela, the MUSAC in León, the Museu de Granollers and the MACBA in Barcelona, among others.