134 LA MAR 2022:
The artistic output of 2022 delves into the internal and environmental landscapes of stability and isolation, moving from the foundational structures of Basal to the emotional turbulence of the Unstable Love series. This period is marked by a deep contemplation of the human condition, capturing the quietude of Solitude and the restorative state of Deep Sleep alongside the atmospheric exploration of Grey. The works often find inspiration in natural elements and specific localities, such as the coastal essence of La Mar and the luminous quality of the Cádiz light, blending sensory observation with abstract representation. Together, these pieces form a cohesive study of resilience and the shifting boundaries of the self during a year of significant creative introspection.
2022: A Relational Cartography of LAPIEZA’s Deep Sleep
If 2020 was the year of retreat (Recreo) and 2021 was the year of the road (The Road to Restoration), then 2022 is the year of the body. The series produced in this year—BASAL (127), SOLITUDE (129), UNSTABLE LOVE / THE COLLAPSE (130), GREY (131–132), DEEP SLEEP (133), and LA MAR (134)—trace a movement from the physiological to the geographical, from the internal rhythms of sleep and solitude to the external expanse of the sea. The nodes span from 1470 to 1550, a dense block of production that marks the culmination of the Recreo epoch. But 2022 is not simply an extension of the slow time that began in Ávila. It is a transition: the project is preparing to re-emerge, but it is doing so carefully, attending to the foundations (basal) before building upward. The year is characterized by a deep attention to states of being—sleep, solitude, greyness, instability—that are usually considered negative or unproductive. LAPIEZA treats them as generative conditions. In the space of withdrawal, the archive learns to breathe differently. And in that different breathing, new possibilities emerge.
BASAL (Series 127)
The year begins with BASAL (nodes 1470–1481). The term comes from geology and biology: basal refers to the foundation, the base, the lowest layer. In the context of the Recreo epoch, BASAL names the project's turn toward fundamentals. After years of nomadic expansion (2013–2019) and the initial retreat into rural Ávila (2020–2021), LAPIEZA is now asking: what is the ground beneath our feet? What are the non-negotiable conditions of practice?
The series consists of twelve nodes, each a distinct fragment:
1470 PARADISE NOW A PLANT IN MY HEART – A link to Labotanica (2021), suggesting a fusion of botanical and emotional life. The plant is not outside the self but in the heart. Paradise is not a place to be reached but a state to be cultivated internally.
1471 STONE GARDEN SO MANY SWORDS – Stones and swords: hardness, conflict, but arranged as a garden. The image suggests a martial aesthetic, a beauty that does not deny violence but incorporates it.
1472 BASAL FOOD JIMEZ DIAZ – Basal food is the most fundamental nutrition, the calories required to keep the body alive. The reference to Jiménez Díaz (likely a Spanish surname) suggests a specific person, a specific meal. The basal is not abstract; it is material, shared, named.
1473 MEAT 800 GETTING READY FOR THE TAXI – Meat is the body, the flesh, the animal that we are. Getting ready for the taxi suggests a departure, a movement from one state to another. The number 800 refers to a node count: the archive is now so large that even meat has a number.
1474 CEMENT GEOMETRY – Cement is the material of modern construction: cheap, durable, ubiquitous. Geometry is the science of form. Together, they suggest the built environment as a basal condition. We live among cement geometries; they shape our movements, our perceptions, our possibilities.
1475 COPOS 547 LAPIEZA 1475 – Copos (flakes) appears here for the first time, two years before it will become the culminating series of 2025. Node 547 is a much earlier work; the series is looping back, retrieving a previous flake. The archive is not linear; it is a network of cross-references.
1476 ORANGE – A single word. Orange: the color, the fruit, the intersection of red and yellow. Orange is a wavelength, a taste, a sensation. The node is a haiku of attention.
1477 SPANISH BAR – A link to a work from 2017–2019. The Spanish bar is a social space: informal, noisy, convivial. It is the opposite of the white cube. BASAL includes the bar as a foundational condition of relational practice.
1478 YELLOW BAG – A link to a work from 2015. The yellow bag is a recurring motif in LAPIEZA (along with blue, red, and green bags). The bag is a container, a portable architecture, a carrier of meaning. Yellow is the color of warning, of sunshine, of memory.
1479 LAGOS BIENAL ONLINE – The first mention of Lagos, which will become a major site of engagement in 2023 and 2024. Even in 2022, during the retreat into rural Spain, the project is already reaching toward Africa. The biennial is online: distance is mediated by screens, but the connection is real.
1480 DOBLE CARA LA GOMERA LO REAL – Doble Cara (Double Face) is a conceptual dance series that will premiere in Madrid in 2023. Here, in 2022, it is already being rehearsed, tested, documented. La Gomera is one of the Canary Islands; Lo Real means "the real." The series is asking: what is the real, and how do we approach it from both sides?
1481 TRIENAL II ESTADO DE VIGILIA – Estado de Vigilia means "state of wakefulness." The triennial (likely the Trienal de Arquitectura Urbana) is a site of public engagement. But the title emphasizes wakefulness: the condition of being alert, present, not asleep. BASAL ends with an invitation to stay awake.
BASAL is a series about foundations. It gathers together the project's most fundamental elements: plants, stones, food, meat, cement, color, bars, bags, cities, dances, wakefulness. The series does not argue for any single foundation. It argues that foundations are multiple, heterogeneous, irreducible. To be basal is not to be simple; it is to be basic in the sense of underlying everything else. The twelve nodes of BASAL are the twelve strata of LAPIEZA's geological column. Below them, there is only rock. Above them, everything else is built.
SOLITUDE (Series 129)
From the foundations of BASAL, the project moves to SOLITUDE (nodes 1482–1499). The blog post offers a careful distinction: "A distinction has been made between solitude and loneliness. In this sense, these two words refer, respectively, to the joy and the pain of being alone." Solitude, for LAPIEZA, is not a pathology. It is a state—one that can be positive or negative depending on the situation. Short-term solitude is valued as a time for work, thought, or rest without disturbance. Undesirable long-term solitude may stem from soured relationships, loss, illness, or employment circumstances. The series holds both possibilities together.
The node list includes a remarkable range of artists and collaborators: Joan Cornellá (1499), Dimitris (1498), Deep Breath (1498), LLLL Art Agency (1497), E1000 (1496), Laust Hoejgaard (1495), Prudence Flint (1494), Miray Seramet (1493), Tom De Peklin (1492), Sarah Lee (1491), Isabella Di Sclafani (1490), Rubén Bonet (1489), Erica Lessers (1488), Gretchen Albrecht (1487), Stano Cerny (1486), Julius Hoffman (1485), Eric Magasssa (1484), Te De Coca (1483), Matija (1482). Each name links to an individual post, a node in the larger field. The series is a constellation of solitudes: artists working alone, in their studios, in their cities, each producing work that is then gathered into the relational fabric of LAPIEZA.
But the most striking element of the SOLITUDE post is the prose poem that follows the artist list:
Extreme Idiocy
The Result Of The Cloning
Deep Breath
The linearity of urban railings.
A Force Spanning A Field
An Afternoon Without Mist
A Few Folded Intentions
Pink Waterfalls
The Mirrored Road
Not So Surprised
Born To Dare
Acid Lemon Days No Sugar
Half Moon Waves
The Transparent Fruit
Permanent Drill
The Stronger The Bite Will Be.
I Brought Sharp Teeth To Say Goodbye.
No Tigers Around.
This is solitude speaking. The fragments are not explanatory; they are expressive. They do not describe solitude; they perform it. The linearity of urban railings. An afternoon without mist. A few folded intentions. Pink waterfalls. The mirrored road. These are the images that arise when one is alone, when the mind is free to wander without the pressure of conversation. The final line—"No Tigers Around"—is a quiet joke. The tiger is the threat, the danger, the other. In solitude, there are no tigers. But there is also no one to protect you. Solitude is the absence of threat and the absence of safety. It is a state of radical exposure to oneself.
UNSTABLE LOVE / THE COLLAPSE (Series 130)
UNSTABLE LOVE (Series 130) is announced as "THE COLLAPSE" and centered around node 1500—a numerical milestone. The archive has reached one thousand five hundred nodes. The series marks this achievement not with celebration but with a title that suggests breakdown. Unstable love is love that cannot be relied upon, love that shifts and falters, love that collapses. The collapse could be personal, relational, structural, or all three. Unfortunately, the specific content of this series is not accessible in the provided links (the label search returns an error), but the title alone is sufficient. In the context of 2022, after two years of pandemic retreat, after the slow time of Ávila, after the foundations of BASAL and the solitude of SOLITUDE, the project acknowledges that withdrawal has a cost. Love becomes unstable when it is not practiced. Relationships collapse when they are not maintained. The archive reaches 1500 nodes, but that accumulation does not guarantee connection. The series is a warning: infrastructure is not enough. The relational must be constantly re-enacted, or it will fall apart.
GREY (Series 131–132)
GREY (nodes 1518–1522) is a series about the brain. The blog post explains: "Gray matter contains most of the brain's neuron cell bodies: it is found in regions of the brain involved in muscle control and sensory perception, such as sight and hearing, memory, emotion, speech, taking decision making and self-control." Grey matter is the substance of cognition, the physical basis of thought, feeling, and action. The series is thus a meditation on the materiality of mind. The color grey—neither black nor white, neither pure darkness nor pure light—is the color of nuance, of complexity, of the intermediate. To think in grey is to refuse binary oppositions. To be grey is to be alive.
The blog post is minimal: the definition of grey matter, the word GREY repeated vertically, and the system architect signature. The brevity is deliberate. Grey does not need to be elaborated; it needs to be inhabited. The series is an invitation to spend time in the grey zone, to resist the demand for clarity and certainty, to accept that most of life happens in the spaces between extremes. In the context of 2022, after the collapse signaled by UNSTABLE LOVE, GREY offers a way forward: not through heroic action or dramatic transformation, but through the patient, ongoing work of the brain's grey matter. Sensation, memory, emotion, decision, control: these are the functions of the grey. They are also the functions of art.
DEEP SLEEP (Series 133)
DEEP SLEEP (nodes 1519–1540) continues the physiological turn. The blog post explains: "Without deep sleep, the hippocampus doesn't properly store new experiences as memories, meaning it's harder to learn. Also during deep sleep is when the pituitary gland secretes important hormones, such as human growth hormone, which lead to the growth and development of all tissues, from skin and nails to liver and muscles. Without deep sleep, our body breaks down from lack of maintenance. Deep sleep is the phase in which body functions and brain waves slow down."
The series is a defense of sleep. In a culture that valorizes productivity, wakefulness, and constant activity, deep sleep is often dismissed as wasted time. But LAPIEZA argues the opposite: deep sleep is when memory is consolidated, when the body repairs itself, when learning happens. Without deep sleep, we cannot learn. Without deep sleep, we break down. The series is thus a methodological statement about the Recreo epoch itself. The retreat into Ávila, the slow time, the attention to breath and landscape—these were not escapes from work. They were deep sleep. They were the conditions that made continued work possible.
The node list includes a remarkable roster of international artists: Ed Broner (1540), Plum Cloutman (1539), Von Wolfe (1538), Erris Huigens (1537), Shimano Goro (1536), Hans van der Leew (1535), Xander Zhou (1534), Void (1533), Angela Dalinger (1532), Marina Iglesias (1531), Sleepers (1530), Weiminghui (1529), Tania Marmolejo (1528), Ocheja Johnson (1527), Brooke Didonato (1526), John Mackie (1525), Pulp Brother (1524), James Haguer (1523), Yes But (1522), Bianca Nemelc (1521), Bijijo (1520), Xevi Sola (1519). Each is a node in the network, a collaborator in the relational field. But the series frames them under the sign of deep sleep: not as active producers but as dreamers, as unconscious contributors, as the background hum of the archive. The series suggests that the archive is not only made of wakeful work but also of the sleep that makes work possible.
LA MAR (Series 134)
The year closes with LA MAR (the sea) (nodes 1541–1550). The blog post is minimal: a list of numbers (1541, 1545, 1546, 1549, 1550), the word TRAFALGAR, the word CÁDIZ, and the year 2022 repeated with visual spacing. Trafalgar is the cape in southern Spain where the British navy defeated the French and Spanish fleets in 1805. It is also the site of a lighthouse, a place of navigation and danger. The sea is the horizon, the limit, the beyond. After a year of turning inward—toward the basal, toward solitude, toward the collapse of love, toward the grey matter of the brain, toward deep sleep—the project finally looks outward. La Mar is the opening. The sea is what lies beyond the retreat. It is the promise of future voyages, future encounters, future series.
But the sea is also the element of uncertainty. You cannot control the sea. You can only navigate it, respond to its moods, accept its power. LA MAR is a series about humility. After all the foundations, all the solitude, all the sleep, the project recognizes that it is not in control. The sea will determine the next phase. The project can only prepare itself—by attending to its basal conditions, by accepting solitude, by sleeping deeply, by thinking in grey—and then set sail.
2022 as a Year of Preparation
The six series of 2022 trace a movement from the internal to the external, from the physiological to the geographical. BASAL establishes the foundations. SOLITUDE explores the joys and pains of being alone. UNSTABLE LOVE / THE COLLAPSE acknowledges the fragility of connection. GREY attends to the materiality of mind. DEEP SLEEP defends the necessity of rest. And LA MAR opens onto the horizon. Together, they form a coherent arc: the Recreo epoch is not an escape from the world but a preparation for re-entry. The project has spent three years (2020–2022) slowing down, turning inward, attending to fundamentals. Now it is ready to return. The sea is calling. The biennials of 2023 and 2024 await. And the archive, having slept deeply, is ready to remember.
1540 ED BRONER http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/11/ed-broner.html 1539 PLUM CLOUTMAN http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/11/plum-cloutman.html 1538 VON WOLFE http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/10/von-wolfe-1538.html 1537 ERRIS HUIGENS http://lapiezalapieza.blogspot.com/2022/07/erris-huigens.html 1536 SHIMANO GORO http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/10/shimano-goro.html 1535 HANS VAN DER LEEW http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/10/hans-van-der-leew.html 1534 XANDER ZHOU http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/10/xander-zhou.html 1533 VOID http://lapiezalapieza.blogspot.com/2022/07/nest-series1509.html 1532 ANGELA DALINGER http://lapiezalapieza.blogspot.com/2022/07/angela-dalinger.html 1531 MARINA IGLESIAS http://lapiezalapieza.blogspot.com/2022/07/marina-iglesias.html 1530 SLEEPERS http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/08/thecity.html 1529 WEIMINGHUI http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/10/weiminghui_14.html 1528 TANIA MARMOLEJO http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/10/tania-marmolejo.html 1527 OCHEJA JOHNSON http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/10/ocheja-johnson.html 1526 BROOKE DIDONATO http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/10/brooke-didonato.html 1525 JOHN MACKIE http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/09/john-mackie.html 1524 PULP BROTHER http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/09/pulp-brother.html 1523 JAMES HAGUER http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/07/james-haguer.html 1522 YES BUT http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/07/yes-but.html 1521 BIANCA NEMELC http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/07/bianca-nemelc.html 1520 BIJIJO http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/07/biji-jo.html 1519 XEVI SOLA http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/07/xevi-sola.html
ULS
1499 http://lapiezalapieza.blogspot.com/2022/07/joan-cornella1499.html JOAN CORNELLÁ http://lapiezalapieza.blogspot.com/2022/07/dimitris1498.html DIMITRIS 1498 DEEP BREATH http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/07/deepbreath.html LLLL ART AGENCY 1497 E1000 http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/07/e10001496-lapieza-solitiude.html 1496 LAUST HOEJGAARD 1495 http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/laust-hoejgaard.html PRUDENCE FLINT 1494 http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/prudence-flint.html MIRAY SERAMET http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/miray-seramet.html 1493 TOM DE PEKLIN 1492 http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/tom-de-peklin.html SARAH LEE 1491 http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/sarah-lee1491.html ISABELLA DI SCLAFANI 1490 http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/jeudi.html RUBÉN BONET http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/05/bonet-ruben-bonet.html 1489 ERICA LESSERS http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/05/lessers.html 1488 GRETCHEN ALBRECHT http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/05/gretchen-albrecht.html 1487 STANO CERNY http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/05/stano-cerny.html 1486 JULIUS HOFFMAN http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/05/sunday_8.html 1485 ERIC MAGASSSA http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/blog-post.html 1484 TE DE COCA http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/june_2.html 1483 MATIJA http://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2022/06/june.html 1482
