pinned.events

The Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània (CCCC) is presenting the first retrospective in Spain devoted to the video work of Castellón artist Pepe Beas, a pioneer of video art whose practice ranges from late-1970s independent cinema to video installation and video sculpture. Known artistically as pepebeas, he is associated with figures such as Antoni Muntadas, Antoni Padrós, Grup de Treball, Eugènia Balcells, Antoni Miralda, Francesc Torres, Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell. On view in the Ferreres gallery until 12 April, the exhibition traces his career through nine large-scale installations that function as immersive stage-like environments and address migration, violence, identity and philosophical ideas such as hermitage and the endless repetition of life. After his early film works, the display follows a broadly chronological route through pieces including En el sueño del emigrante (1992), which reflects on dehumanisation and the individual in an alienating world; La videoboda / Presente ilustrativo (1989), which places visitors inside a wedding banquet to consider marriage as a social construct; and later works such as Los Eremitas (2002), Deshielo y mandorla (2011–2012) and La realidad es serial como algunos asesinos (2007/2008), where Beas turns to philosophical texts and the idea of life as an infinite sequence of repetitions. Other works explore the tension between the bodily and the spiritual, the symbolism of mud as a metaphor for human existence, and themes of power and transformation. The exhibition concludes with pieces focused again on identity and migration, including Laudas funerarias como sábanas tendidas al sol (2019) and two new videos, Persona and Tierra de promisión (2002–2025).