SURPLUS PRODUCTION LINE
Adrian Melis
Loading video, please wait
- 00:00
- Title
- SURPLUS PRODUCTION LINE
- Year
- 2014
- Duration
- 10 min
- Format & Technical
Single channel installation, Colour, Sound, HD video
Melis started a private company in Amsterdam, in order to publish a call-out for a temporary job welcoming native Spanish speakers to apply for the role by sending in their CVs. The successful individual was required to work for two hours per day, five days a week in order to print and destroy by means of a shredder all of the CVs gathered through the call. By doing so, Melis initiated a production process based on destruction, one that mobilised the expectations of the unemployed who had applied for the job (and whom he never met) and transformed them into raw material for the company to shred.As an ironic comment on liberal economist Joseph Schumpeter concept of creative destruction (capitalism generates new wealth by destroying existing economic and social structures) labour and work are revealed to be annihilating enterprises under their current, neoliberal guise.
Stills
Adrian Melis is based between Cuba and Europe. He is a former resident at the Rijksakademie van Beldeende Kunsten of Amsterdam (2014/2015). In 2010 he graduated from the University of Art (ISA) in Havana, Cuba and between 2006/2008 participated at the Catedra of Behavioural Art directed by Tania Bruguera.
Since 2010 his work has been represented by ADN Galeria in Barcelona where he has had four solo shows since: Selective Memory (2018), Surplus Production Line (2015), Time To Relax (2013) and New Production Structures (2012). The first two exhibitions that took place in 2012 and 2013 received the Award Art Nou by the Association of Galleries in Barcelona and the GAC Award for Best Exhibition in a Private Gallery in Barcelona, respectively.
Selected solo shows include: Absolute silence does not exist, 2017, Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia (Cerezales, Spain), The Value of Absence, 2013, Kunsthalle Basel (Switzerland); STOCK, 2014, Museum of Modern Art, MAS (Santander, Spain), New Production Structures, 2013, Adn Galeria (Barcelona, Spain).
Last update: October 28th, 2020.
Related artist videos
— Log in to watch the artist video if you have been given an access
Première
- Title
- Engagement Rate Formula
- Gallery
- ADN Galeria, Barcelona | Paris
- Year
- 2019
- Duration
- 9 min
— Log in to watch the artist video if you have been given an access
Première
- Title
- Glorias de un futuro olvidado
- Gallery
- ADN Galeria, Barcelona | Paris
- Year
- 2016
- Duration
- 5 min
- Format & Technical
Three channel installation, HD video, colour, sound
Edition of 3 + 1 AP