Sebastián Díaz Morales

Sebastián Díaz Morales’s examination of perception and reality is based on the assumption that reality itself is by nature highly fictional. Thus, his films do not simply transport the viewer into another, surreal, or phantasmal realm, but they strip reality of its familiarity and distort it, making it seem like something else. With Diaz Morales, the viewer’s imagination does not function as a basic counterpart to the real. Rather, it operates as a force capable of evoking space and producing it diegetically, one that, beyond generating a direct visual impression, fills in the gaps in seeing and, as the film unfolds, gradually reveals to the viewer the constructedness of what we call reality. Reality is presented here as a phantasm, as something that always eludes its defining in images. It is therefore always “a little bit ahead” of the image and the viewer’s gaze.

In 2009 he was awarded with a Guggenheim Fellowship. Díaz Morales has exhibited in venues such as STUK Museum, Leuven, Belgium; Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Siegen; Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing; CAC Vilnius, Vilnius; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Art in General, New York; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; De Appel, Amsterdam; Bienale São Paulo; Biennale of Sydney; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; MUDAM, Luxembourg; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. He participated in the 57th Venice Biennale curated by Christine Macel. His works are included in the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Fundación Jumex, Mexico City; Foundazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Sammlung-Goetz, Munich; and the Fundacion de Arte Moderna, Museu Berardo, Lisbon. Díaz Morales’ upcoming exhibitions in 2022 include carlier | gebauer, Madrid, DOCUMENTA Fifteen, Kassel, and De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg.

Biography

Selected Works

Sebastián Díaz Morales

Pasajes II
Digital video on led-monitor with copper frame
38,5 × 64 × 7 cm
15 min

Sebastián Díaz Morales

#6 Into a Silent World (Spinning Car), 2018 – 2019
2-channel video, 4K format
12 min

Sebastián Díaz Morales

Insight, 20212
HD video, stereo sound
11.31 min

Sebastián Díaz Morales

Box, Handkerchief, Water, 2003
MiniDV transferred to DVD

Sebastián Díaz Morales

Pasajes, 2012
Digital video on led-monitor with copper frame
27,5 × 44,5 cm, 12.35 min

Sebastián Díaz Morales

The Way Between Two Points (Terra Incognita), 2009
Produced with financial support of the Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
2-channel synchronized video, 2-channel sound,HD format on DVD
18 min