STANDARD COLORS / COLORS STANDARD

Jordi Colomer aims to outwit the authority of codes and representations by using simple pieces of paper; classrooms move to the street, traffic distorts, and through concrete actions, myths find their alternatives defying standard models.

Colomer pinpoints a visit to the house-studio of the architect Barragán in Mexico City –a paradigmatic example of the use of color in architecture– and the encounter with the geometric paintings of Josef Albers hanging on its walls. The Mexican architect made reproductions of the paintings through mechanical impressions, perhaps to resize them and scale the images to the room accordingly. Even though the copies are displayed in the house, the original paintings remain hidden in the archive. As a pedagogue and theorist, this use of printed paper was also familiar to Albers who proposes its use instead of the mixture of paint in "Interaction of Color" (1963), one of the most important books on the study of color and a classic of art education. The book provides exercises around the principles of color such as relativity, intensity, temperature, or optical illusions; exercises that Colomer himself had practiced as a student. After visiting Barragán's house-studio, Colomer proposes to reinterpret the "Interaction of Color" exercises freely, this time outside the classrooms, in the context of the street.