Pagès refers to the subjects of her work as “containment architectures,” upholding power through the flow of goods and capital. Pagès' new work for SculptureCenter is a video sculpture recorded in an Islamic water cistern (aljibe) located in Xàtiva (Valencia, Spain), the first city where paper was introduced in Europe through the Silk Road. Filled with graffiti from different periods, Pagès navigates the cistern through the overlapping of time, marks, and sound.
Claudia Pagès was born in Barcelona in 1990. Her artistic practice spins a linguistic web of micro-narratives, queer poetry and rhythmic speech as she explores the possibilities of staging the voice through music and the presence of bodies. She is particularly interested in systems of distribution, circulation and consumption, whether by considering the commodities sold in Barcelona’s Eixample district in Rates i cuques (2020) or by looking at the second-hand trade at Els Encants, the city’s flea market, in Gleaners–Extracción (2018–2019). She often works by recording thoughts or noting snippets of conversation overheard on the street with her phone, shuffling back-and-forth between language and translation to arrive at a form of libretto where graphics and typography also play an important role. These harvested compositions transform into scenic displays where objects accompany chanted voices and movements by both Pagès herself and her collaborators. Arrela’t, nena, arrela’t (2019), for example, was a meandering spoken and textual navigation of Barcelona neighbourhoods being transformed through the distorting economics of capitalist logistics.
Claudia Pagès has a BA in Fine Arts from the Universitat de Barcelona (2013) and an MA in Fine Arts from the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam (2016). Her solo exhibitions and performances include Un rastro involuntario, La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2021); dis- des- duress. tris-tras, giro, fallo, àngels barcelona (2021), and Patio de luces, Yaby, Madrid (2020). She has taken part in several group exhibitions, including Lifting Belly, CentroCentro, Madrid (2020), and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam (2020–2021).
