JULIO MARTÍNEZ BARNETCHE, Mexico
JULIO MARTINEZ BARNETCHE in the outdoor section of his ‘jungle’ workshop, with finished and semi-finished sculptures.
“The aesthetic marriage of materials is forever a dance between tension and harmony, permanent and transient and soft and hard.”
ABOUT
Julio Martínez Barnetche (b. 1974, México City) is a Méxican stone sculptor and designer working precious and semiprecious stones, woods and metals. His oeuvre entails not only sculpture, but also furniture in special wood, stone and metal combinations, jewellery, as well as sculptural tableware and cooking devices in volcanic stone. Martínez Barnetche moves easily between pure sculpture, furniture and objects. He often takes his materials as he encounters them naturally. In the case of the wood, he finds it in nature, in the garden of friends or from architectural salvage sites. In some pieces handcrafted forgery is applied. This is where the artist explores the target, the piece's final destination. One piece for example became a small side table, reminiscent of a heart. The series Shi Ho is a furniture series created in 2014. Shi Ho, is a word from the Mazateco language, from the area of Oaxaca, meaning a 'union'. An essential aspect of the Shi ho collection is its unique approach to combining the soft and hard, natural and man-made materials to create contrasting sensations. Shi Ho relies on a variety of origins, types and methods of handling and combining wood, stone and metal. There is a spiritual side to the entire creative process.
‘CLAVADISTA’ - light sculpture, with two impressive amber specimens, from Chiapas, Mexico
WATCH THIS VIDEO OF JULIO IN HIS WORKSHOP - CARVING PROCESSES
EXAMPLES of FURNITURE & SCULPTURE
Two light sculptures by Julio: a technical brass and wood structure holds a beautifully carved quartz and amber piece and lets them dance in the air to create flickering shadows through the light source directed at it.
Direct carving in amber, from Simojovel, Chiapas, Mexico / brass and Tlacapulin wood. Stone dimension: 11 x 8 x 5 cm, whole piece dimension: 40 x 22 x 42 cm, unique piece.
Direct carving in rutilated quartz, from the Season mine in Belo Horizonte, Brazil / brass and Tlacapulin wood. Stone dimension: 12 x 4 x 6 cm, whole piece dimension: 40 x 22 x 32 cm, unique piece.
“My lifelong relationship within the small communities nestled in the mountainous landscape has become an integral and intimate part of my life and an inspiration for my creativity. ”
THE POETICS OF STONE
The first impression one gets when facing the work of Julio Martínez Barnetche is of a series of sculptures of petrous materials, with overwhelming strength, and developed with a virtuous use of materials and technique.
His sculptures work as petrous dispositives in which the interlocutor begins an interpretative journey that can be compared to one’s experience of a mental construction; the inner images denoted are of a formal assertiveness paradoxically intertwined with a subtle and delicate beauty. This allows the creation of an expressive whole executed accordingly with each glance, with each tactile interaction, with each kinesthetic sensation that surrounds the piece.
When mentioning the dispositif we refer to Deleuze’s concept: Lines of visibility, of enunciation, lines of strengths, lines of subjectivation, lines of caesura, of fissure, of fracture, that intertwine and mix, compose the dispositives. Some lines end up meeting with others, generating new ones by means of variations or even by mutations due to appropriation. The work of Julio Martínez Barnetche has enunciating lines that link the scientific and artistic discourse: it connects both languages. We can appraise a sensitive approximation through the shape, the space and the volume with an intimate dialogue with bi-dimensional images, which present us the microcosm of the work itself. It is so that the dispositif generates stress lines between the macro and microcosm. The appropriation does not end with the contemplation, we own the piece when we find and remove the limit between what can be physically perceived and the richness of the other visual proposal, which is evident through the petrographic analysis. With these approaches we can erase the borderline between art and science.
The projects of Julio Martínez Barnetche are dispositives that can transmute, that allow experimentation, that can establish a dialogue and demand a creative interpretation from the observer, who is always looking for the latest, considering this as what is “current”, something we own in this moment, and tending to what Boris Groys mentions as a “positive requirement” in his book `On the New ́.
TEXT BY: Ofelia Martínez García
COOKING UTENSILS
SCULPTURES FOR COOKING
OVENS AND STOVES
WATCH THIS MINI-VIDEO OF JULIO IN HIS WORKSHOP - POLISHING PROCESSES OF QUARTZ AND AMBER
JEWELLERY by Barnetche
WEARABLE ART / SCULPTURE FOR THE BODY
BIO/CV
EDUCATION
2000-2008 Experience in alternative farming techniques.
1995-1998 Introduction to sculpting under the guidance of Fernando Arnaud (architect, painter and sculptor), Manuel Fuentes (sculptor).
1997 Carpentry course at CECAO (Arts and Trades Training Center), Valle de Bravo, Mexico State, a branch of CETIS (Technological, Industrial and Service Studies Centre), ICATI (Industrial and Technical Job Training Institute).
1995-1997 Undergraduate degree in Industrial Design from the Metropolitan Autonomous University, Xochimilco, Mexico City.
1994 Film studies at City College of San Francisco, California. Artistic and Professional Activities
2006 - 2010 Creation and design of the La Jó Glí sculpture collection.
1999 - 2010 Founding, teaching and coordination of the C. Tlasahuates workshop, which operates as a training and work centre for the production of original sculptures in wood and stone.
PUBLIC & MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
2016 Creation of the sculpture "Breaking Waves" for the Naval Military School Antón Lizardo; Secretary of the Navy. Veracruz, Veracruz.
2015 Carried out a sculptural ensemble of 7 pieces for the Secretary of Tourism of the State of Tlaxcala, Mexico.
2014 Created two sculptures commissioned by the Art in Embassies program of the United States, for the new Consulate in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.
2014 The Jade Museum and Pre-Columbian Culture. San José, Costa Rica acquires a sculpture for its permanent collection.
2007 Created a monumental sculpture for the Universal Forum of Cultures, which is currently located at the entrance of the Center for the Arts in Parque Fundidora, Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 Flor y Alimento. Consonantia, Zona MACO, CDMX
2016 Rompe Olas, Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, Ciudad de México.
2016 La Jo Glí, Vitrina del MUAC/UNAM. Ciudad de México.
2014 Uso, alimentación y ritual, Casa Lamm. Ciudad de México
2013/14 Mares Pétreos. Escultura en jade. Palacio de Minería, UNAM. Ciudad de México.
2013/14 Vasijas de Pulque y otros utensilios para la alimentación; Cuarto Congreso Nacional del Maguey y el Pulque. Museo de la Memoria Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala.
2000 Los cantos de la piedra. Galería Gilberto Aceves Navarro UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA METROPOLITANA Xochimilco, Ciudad de México.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Marion Friedmann Gallery show at at Zona Maco Art Fair, Mexico City
2023 Marion Friedmann Gallery show at Zona Maco Art Fair, Mexico City
2022 LIZZADRO Lapidarian Museum Chicago
2022 Marion Friedmann Gallery show at MDF Mexico Design Fair in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico
2018 MEXICO DESIGN TIME. Marion Friedmann Gallery show. London, UK
2016 Silla Mexicana. Museo Franz Mayer. Ciudad de México.
2014 De ida y vuelta. Diseno contemporáneo en México. Centro Nacional de las Artes, Ciudad de Mexico.
2006 Bienal de escultura de pequeño formato del Estado de Morelos, Jardín Borda, Cuernavaca, Morelos.
2002 Tiempo, Piedra y Barro. Exposición que se inauguró en el Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte, Ciudad Universitaria, en la Ciudad de México, para despues itinerar por Oaxaca, Merida, Toluca y Puebla, entre otras ciudades.
1998 Exposición Colectiva de Escultura y Pintura CENTRO MÉDICO SIGLO XXI. Ciudad de Mexico.
PUBLICATIONS
2017 Ana Elena Mallet. Silla Mexicana. Secretaría de Cultura. Dirección General de Publicaciones Arquine, S.A. de C.V.
2015 Monterrey Mexico Art Collection of the U.S. Consulate General Art in Embassies, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
STATE
2007 Ofelia Martínez y Víctor Toledo, Hábitat: del riesgo a la sustentabilidad. 2003 Dra. Lily Kassner, Tiempo, piedra y
barro, UNAM, CDMX.