Pep Vidal is a scientist as well as an artist, and he develops his artistic work in the space of intersection, of encounter and disagreement between both ways of seeing the world. Infinitesimal changes and measurements are his main starting points when defining his projects. One of the things that the scientific and artistic fields have in common is curiosity, that of starting from concrete questions. Oli d’una olivera (Oil from an olive tree) starts from a question that may seem naive and for that very reason is capable of triggering a fascinating process of investigation: How much oil comes out of an olive tree? The process that has led to the final formalization of the project has been very similar to that of the production of oil. If the production of oil involves filtering waste, the production of Oli d’una olivera (Oil from an olive tree) has involved filtering ideas and variables.
At the beginning of the process, Vidal started from the importance of controlling production, taking this maxim to the extreme: why not maximise oil production and minimise the size of the tree that produces the olives? Starting from the question: how much oil does a bonsai olive tree produce? And how much oil does a traditional olive tree produce? he put in relation a specific olive tree, planted in the Baix Penedès area, and a bonsai olive tree that the artist himself bought. The relation of the patterns of different objects or systems that present similarities and differences had already occupied previous projects by the artist. We remember f(t) = f(t-tº) (curated by Marina Vives at the Capella de Sant Roc, Valls, 2015) in which she placed an eight-year-old bonsai on the soil it would need if it had not been modified into a bonsai or A Humble Sock (Fundació Tàpies, 2014), a replica of Tàpies’ sock at a size of 20 microns, among others.
Ultimately, the most significant aspect of the comparison, or in other words, the link that unites olive and bonsai is artificiality. The artificiality to which man subjects the bonsai to control its size and the artificiality to which man subjects the olive tree, planted in a specific environment so that it produces the olives that will give rise to the oil, an oil that has a close relationship with its origin.
Measuring was and is the essence of the project, but measuring also implies the impossibility of being precise. And discarding the option of a traditional pressing of the production of a single olive tree, the alternative was a do-it-yourself, homemade and manual pressing, and from which, as in every experiment, discoveries appear: the waste, the solids and the liquids. What is most valuable, the oil, is calibrated and weighed with the maximum precision and professionalism possible and with a certificate included. But, unlike traditional production, in Pep Vidal’s process, the waste is not eliminated, but rather forms part of the final result, because the waste is also part of what comes out of an olive tree, which is not a generic olive tree, but rather a very specific olive tree, an Olea Europaea planted in Baix Penedés.
Fotografías: Naty Creci
Oil from an olive tree is a production by Cal Cego Contemporary Art Collection
