Parabolic Structures

Solo exhibition

Chiquita Room, Barcelona, Spain

15 September - 29 October 2022

With Parabolic Structures, Phillip Maisel addresses family histories and broader notions of displacement, belonging, and what remains in our absences. Through an intertwining of personal experiences and historical events, Maisel became interested in the old Jewish cemetery in Montjuïc and the gravestones that were later used as building material in Barcelona, taking pictures and making frottage in situ. He collects old pictures of groups and families in Catalunya, which invite speculation about their lineage, pulling them into dialogue with photos of family gatherings from his own archive, as well as sound structures encountered during his time in Montjuïc. These acoustic mirrors resonate with the artist, formally and metaphorically, with their promise of the possibility for connection over spatial and temporal distances. Weaving various stories and histories, Maisel combines and collages the materials to present a fragmented visual world with a non-hierarchical associative flow, where many readings are possible.

View installation photos

More information at chiquitaroom.com

Read full text by artist and curator Pedro Torres

Two Concrete Things

Artist book

Cut, collaged, and drawn on HP Indigo prints

5.5 x 3.5” / 8.8 x 13.8 cm

Signed edition of 50

A publication containing 42 printed images on which the artist has applied cuts, collages or drawings. Maisel collects everyday materials, utilizing them to create sculptural arrangements in shallow spaces and then he photographs the arrangements, continuously readjusting and rephotographing the materials in place. As the same objects are reoriented through a series of images, the elements gain distinct visual traction through their repetition and reappearance.

Numbered edition of 50 copies with two different versions of cut, collages and drawings. 

Printed in HP Indigo on 240g Classic Smooth Pergraphica Paper and bound in black or silver wire-o.

The publication is protected with a case designed by the artist and silk-screened by hand on 270g Adriatic Colorplan paper

Purchase here

Video illustrating the subtle variations between the two different versions. In some, collage appears as print and in others, print appears as collage.

Seeing Is and Is Not Believing

Running time: 5’ 18”

Video made for Paratext 43 at Hangar, Barcelona

Text, sound, and video by Phillip Maisel, 2020

The Night Before (5515/9646)

Cut archival pigment print, colored paper, ‘skin colored’ bandage

12 x 8” / 30 x 21 cm

2020

Poble-Nou, Poble-Sec (5702), 2020

Archival pigment prints & watercolor collage

12 x 8” / 30 x 21 cm

2020

Wet Meadow (3415)

Archival pigment print

11 x 8.5" / 28 x 21.5 cm

2019

Elizabeth & Emilia (6842)

Archival pigment print

12 x 8" / 30 x 21 cm

2020

The Night Before (5510)

Archival pigment print & watercolor collage

12 x 8” / 30 x 21 cm

2020

Encants (5184)

Archival pigment print

25.5 x 17” / 65 x 43 cm

2020

Park Nap (3409)

Archival pigment print

10 x 8" / 25 x 20 cm

2019