I Don’t Understand Anything, the title of this exhibition, is an apt description of how spectators are expected to react to contemporary works of art. A curious, interested viewer might say, “I don't understand any of what I’m seeing, but I will make an effort to look, analyse and reflect on the works around me.”

In the work of Arturo Comas (Seville, 1982) we find a series of operable mechanisms, objects the author activates while inviting us, the visitors, to imagine that we are also participating in that action. The altered table tennis table presiding over the room will be activated during the opening by two professional players, but for the remainder of the exhibition it can be used by spectators. This simultaneously athletic and artistic experience makes us aware of a situation of inequality, as the rules of this particular game give one player an advantage over the other.

A set of three photographs shows us other altered objects whose precariously balanced arrangements have been frozen by the camera. Two hand carts, two trainers, a wooden slab, a shovel, a sergeant and a banana peel are the building blocks of these three constructions. However, the static image gives us the unreal impression that everything is in order, that nothing will go wrong and that the banana peel will not fall to the floor and make us slip.

We also see a device that spectators can operate, consisting of a drill connected to a HOVSTA frame from IKEA still in its packaging. Visitors can make this object spin on the wall as they wish, turning an element intended to protect artistic or decorative images into the artwork itself, which in turn is safeguarded by a thin layer of transparent plastic and four cardboard corner protectors.

Comas’s devices possess the nonsensical quality of uselessness and at times lead us to project all our fears and frustrations on them. As in nightmares, our bodies refuse to do our will. In other cases, the motivation behind his creations is humour, halfway between the deadpan seriousness and gestural understatement of comedian Eugenio and the surreal, over-the-top imagery of Chiquito de la Calzada’s routines. The ubiquitous cloud of irony that hangs over Comas’s production stems from his subversion of the utility of everyday objects.

For Arturo Comas, frustration and laughter are two sides of the same coin.

The Club Tenis de mesa Hispalis (Table Tennis Club) and the videocreator Joan Lara Gallego of Gazpacho Entertaiment participate in this project.

The exhibition catalogue features an essay by Daniel Silvo.

Openning: May 24, to 8pm

Educational workshop: June 2 and 17, 11.30am to 1.30pm

Guided tour: June 17, to 1pm

Presentation of the catalog: June 17.