A biennial curatorial device. Conceived and directed by Juan A. Esteban Ruiz, it operates as a space for public mediation between contemporary art and the audiences that encounter it. TransArte does not investigate: it mediates. Its work lies in constructing the conditions under which a work may be actualised by those who receive it.
The curatorship is articulated from the theoretical framework of Structural Surplus, yet its function is not theoretical. It is operative: selecting works, constructing exhibition contexts and producing encounters where the artistic event, should it occur, finds a field in which to actualise itself.
Position
The exhibition is not a neutral container. It is already a way of arguing about how one looks, who is looking and from where. TransArte assumes this position with operative consequences:
Curatorial selection articulated to the framework. Works are selected not for thematic affinity or disciplinary representativeness, but for their capacity to produce reorganisations within the relational field that the exhibition constructs.
Tension between languages, not coexistence. Different media and practices are brought into play not as a display of plurality, but as a condition for the emergence of articulations that no isolated medium could sustain.
Technology as language, not as spectacle. Digital, algorithmic or computational resources are incorporated where they activate meaning, not where they accumulate display.
Mediation as a central dimension. How a work is presented, what reading frameworks are activated, what is said and what is left unsaid are all part of the exhibition itself. Mediation is not a subsequent task: it is a curatorial decision.
Editions
TRANSARTE 2022 — BENALMÁDENA.
First edition of the device. Held from 15 June to 15 September 2022 in Benalmádena. An independent initiative, organised with the Benalmádena City Council and supported by Samsung.
The exhibition brought together eleven artists and presented 175 works, articulating visual, audiovisual, digital and performative languages within a single exhibition field. The public programme included six workshops, fourteen guided tours, direct encounters with the artists and a virtual reality extension via Spatial.
Participating artists: Carlos Aznar, Bruno Vázquez, Pol Barbero, Pablo Lara, Mariola Membrives, Okaro, Ignacio Junquera, Adrián García, Ángelo Néstore, Aniel Dominic and José Robles. Pablo Lara and Mariola Membrives presented joint work as an artistic duo.
Recognised at the 2023 EXPONE Awards by the Association of Museologists and Museographers of Andalusia.
TRANSARTE 2027 — In preparation. Second edition. Call for entries scheduled for late 2026. The pause between editions is due to the process of establishing Kripties Fundación as a state entity, which has required priority institutional work.
Institutional vehicle
TransArte is developed through Kripties Fundación. Conceptual authorship, curatorial direction and theoretical articulation are the responsibility of Juan A. Esteban Ruiz; Kripties Fundación operates as an institutional vehicle for production and exhibition.