Expressing himself through mediums as diverse as drawing, video and performance, Jorge Satorre creates an oeuvre that places actions and the processes of creation in the foreground. Centred on complex investigative procedures, actions, narrations and voyages are staged in such a way as to allow for a return to the way things were at the beginning of the process, leaving only a trace of the event remaining.
The title of Jorge Satorre’s first exhibition at the Gallery Xippas is taken from Herman Melville’s novel The Happy Failure, written in 1854. The protagonist of the story, failing in an endeavour despite his very best efforts, reacts in a startling way when faced with such colossal disappointment. The author’s absurd vision serves as a reference for the motifs from which the present works arose.

In The Barry’s Van Tour, Jorge Satorre conceived an intervention that dialogued with the local history of the Isle of Sherkin, situated to the west of Cork in Ireland. After several investigations and visits to the island, Jorge Satorre noticed the presence of a vehicle that had been abandoned for many years and never moved. A veritable monument, the van belonged to a young fisherman deceased five years earlier. None of the objects in the vehicle had since been touched. Only the effects of time seemed to have transformed the scene, eroding the material and metamorphosing the landscape. Drawing from this story, and with the acquiescence of the local inhabitants, the artist proposed to restore the vehicle. Transported by truck and by boat in order for it to be repaired at the nearest garage, then returned to its original site, Barry’s van definitively acquired the status of a monument.
During the process Jorge Satorre created several works, including a video and drawings, all destined to document its evolution. In this way, the artist gives new life to the myth associated with the vehicle and creates a work whose results embody only the visible processes; the energy used to stage the event, the relationships made with the inhabitants of the island and the words exchanged are all concealed.