THE TREE OF MONEY: a live reading from the artist| 钱之树：艺术家现场读书会

Saturday night at the Studio Gallery project space was a time to remember.

上个周六，我们与各位朋友在项目空间度过了一个难忘的夜晚。

Artist Miguel Moreno Mateos presented the culmination of two months of his investigative work and gave the public insight into his fascinating process.

艺术家Miguel Moreno Mateos展示了他两个月的艺术研究工作并向公众展示了他独特的工作过程。

Miguel showing his process, and the collected images he has pinned up at the project space

June 1st. 2019.

His work, drawing from a variety of materials, found, collected, and created, was on full display, and the audience had the ability to see upfront the ephemera of inspiration behind his final piece, an art book, “The Tree of Money: an Urban tale”.

Many of his materials in the studio were hung up on lines, traversing perpendicular from wall to wall, and visitors were free to walk between and examine more closely the vast material Miguel collected during his two months, many pieces sourced from a local construction site.

他的作品，取材于各种各样的材料，或是现成品，抑或是他自己的创作。这些材料在当天被给予了充分的展示，来让观众们看到他最终作品背后灵感诞生的短暂瞬间。这是一本艺术书籍，名为the Tree of Money: an Urban tale。许多Miguel在工作中使用的照片和图案都被悬挂在绳子上，连接着两边的墙壁，参观者可以在这些材料之间自由走动，更近距离地观察Miguel两个月来收集的大量原始照片，其中许多就取材于当地的一个拆迁工地。

Miguel examining his collected materials at the project space, June 1st, 2019.

The artist in conversation with visitors at the project space, June 1st, 2019.

After this preliminary introduction, Miguel took the audience to the temple, to view the tree on display there, who acts as a witness to the destruction of society throughout the years. Connecting this back to the construction site mirrored the erasure of culture and storytelling in the ever-changing culture and infrastructure of Shanghai.

在这个初步的介绍之后，Miguel带着观众来到附近的寺庙，去观察那里的一棵大树，它见证了这些年来这片区域的演变。将其与附近的拆迁工地联系起来，其实反映了上海在文化融合和城市建设中本土文化和故事的消逝。

Viewers following the artist to the hundred year old Shanghainese house, where he will do a live reading. June 1st, 2019.

To finish up the night, Miguel did a live reading of his book in a local Shanghainese house, space which has withstood change for more than 200 years.

最后，Miguel在当地的一间已经经历了200多年的变迁的老宅里现场诵读了他的故事。

Viewers transfixed by Miguel's book. June 1st, 2019.

In a Shanghai that is going through rapid growth, Mateos acts as a buffer against the strong currents of change, wading through history and collecting, magpie-like, glimmering phantom objects of the past, embodiments of history. And yet, the ethereal nature of this idea is grounded in Miguel's almost scientific approach to the work, and his interest in ecological issues, connecting it back to the local Shanghainese contemporary housing issue, and the fast infrastructure growth that can be observed throughout almost every neighbourhood, the artist noting that "neighbourhoods I visited at the beginning of my stay in Shanghai didn't exist anymore after six months". Through almost observing the micro-societies that exist within this vast city, Moreno makes a powerful statement about what we as a society choose to value, and the pricelessness of community. And yet, the almost political lens is not screamed out, nor do the pieces command one to reconcile their viewpoints or question morality, the pieces exist almost like a poem, the meaning fading in and out of one's periphery like the ambiguous and alluring subjects in his cyanotypes. Mateos findings culminated and embodied the form of a book, a fitting format for how community-based his investigation has been. The reading felt intimate; for half an hour the audience was transfixed by the storytelling, the present inhabiting for a short, powerful time, the structure of time past.

在这样一个快速发展的上海，Mateos就像是一个缓冲器，抵御着变革的洪流，在历史的长河中涉水洄游，收集着过去那些熠熠生辉的剪影和那些实物化的历史。然而，这样一个飘渺的想法，本质却是一个几乎完全科学化的工作方法，和他对生态问题的兴趣。结合上海的现代住房问题，和几乎每一个社区基础设施的迅速完善，艺术家讲到：“我之前在上海驻留期间去过的居民区，六个月后有些已经不复存在”。通过观察这座大都市中存在的微型社会，他有力地阐明了社会中的我们要去珍惜什么，以及人类社群的巨大价值。带有政治倾向的内容并没有过多出现，他的作品也并没有强迫人们改变他们的观点或质疑道德上的标准，这件作品就像一首诗，个中深意仿佛那些蓝晒照片中模糊而诱人的景象一样，在你我身旁若隐若现。Mateos的艺术研究成果最终以一本书的形式呈现，是最适合他以社群为基础的调查方式。读书会让人倍感温馨亲近，半个小时的时间里，观众们被故事情节所吸引，仿佛身在当下，思维却已回溯到过去那段短暂又精彩的时光。

Miguel Moreno Mateos reading "The Tree of Money". June 1st, 2019.

To follow the happenings of Miguel, sign up for our newsletter, and refer to his website, all linked below.

Text / Adriana Furlong

2019

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Miguel Moreno Mateos was born in Madrid in 1978. His first studies were Forest Engineering. Here is where he configured his mind between structuralism and his irrational approach to nature. All his work since then was focused on landscape, covering two Masters in Landscape Architecture and 15 years of experience. A merely technical approach to landscape and environment became insufficient to accompany his deep perception of nature and its changes, and he started to focus his efforts on raw creation. Creation conceived as the closest way to transmit and investigate his perception of time, ecology, art and humanity.

http://miguelmorenomateos.com