pinned.events

The Museu d’Història de València, MHV, is presenting the exhibition Guillermo Alarcón. Matter, Machine, Memory through next June. Curated by art specialist Ana Gandia Casasnovas, the show offers a broad selection of black-and-white works by the Valencian photographer (1957–2019). It traces his practice through the tension between the human gaze and the logic of the machine. Rather than following a linear narrative, the exhibition is organized as a circular journey built around the three ideas in the title: Matter, the mark of making; Machine, order and rhythm; and Memory, the silence of work. These themes are set in dialogue and invite visitors to actively construct meaning. The exhibition highlights Alarcón’s transformation of industrial spaces and metal structures into scenes of strong visual and symbolic intensity. His images offer a poetic approach to matter, silence, and the geometry of production. The first section, focused on matter, emphasizes the physical elements of the industrial environment, including metal, stone, dust, and smoke. Alarcón’s photographs reveal the texture and density of these materials, giving them an almost sculptural presence. The second section, centered on the machine, explores the parallel between the photographer’s eye and the engineer’s eye through compositions marked by lines, rhythms, and repetitions shaped by industrial logic. The final section, Memory: The Silence of Work, reflects on the passage of time, where empty factories and disused workshops become silent places in which the absence of activity turns space into a latent archive of memory. The photographic image does not only preserve these places; it also reactivates their memory beyond their original function.