Stratum 03 — The studio · 2016 — 2019

The studio

The team, the machines, Articruz: obsession industrialized.

one of the active layers of the studio registry · about the archive →

In 2016 Felipe spends over a month at Articruz, the workshop founded in Panama by Jorge Cruz, son of Carlos Cruz-Diez. There he gets his hands on UV printing, laser and CNC cutting and automotive lacquers for the first time, and lays down the technical foundations of W3-Dimensional. The closing exhibition, «Spectra» at Marion Gallery, runs from March 17 to May 21. But what he brings back is not a technique: it is Cruz-Diez's lesson that delegating does not subtract authorship. From that trip on, he builds the studio team in Valencia.

The change is structural, not stylistic. In 2016 the aluminum composite panel with an aluminum frame becomes his go-to support — «cuantos menos defectos, más efectos» ('the fewer the defects, the more the effects'), the Cruz-Diez maxim he himself quotes. In 2018 the studio's own machines arrive: UV flatbed printer, CNC router, laser cutter; now it's possible to print bigger, faster and on practically any material. The gradients he still paints himself, always; the team executes the flat elements.

Between 2016 and 2019 the world becomes a calendar. The 4,000 m² tunnel at the Palais de Tokyo (2016), the 17-story Lisbon tower painted in four days (2017), the functional 30×25-meter QR code in Hasselt (2017), the two towers of Tec de Monterrey (2017). And in parallel, the heavyweight solos: Mirus in San Francisco (2016, the first in the United States), GR Gallery in New York (2017, where Planned Iridescence debuts), Joshua Liner (2018), Danysz in Paris and Shanghai (2018–2019). PAPER does the math in 2019: sixteen solo shows in thirteen countries in five years.

In July 2018 he launches Configurable Art: UV-printed aluminum modules the buyer rearranges with magnets. No signature — in its place, a QR code. In October, Futura 2000 is the project's first guest artist. Meanwhile graffiti doesn't stop: the Ludlow and Delancey wall in New York (2017), an SNCB night train painted with Sozyone (2019). In July 2019 Carlos Cruz-Diez dies; his text on Felipe — «one of the most outstanding contemporary young artists with a new and original discourse» — will remain the anchor of Praesentia.

«Aprendí de Carlos Cruz-Diez que un artista no deja de serlo si su equipo acaba sus piezas... igual que un arquitecto no pone todos los ladrillos de un edificio»

Felipe Pantone, Valencia Plaza / Culturplaza 2019
Data Somersault, Lasco Project #5, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2016. A86 Duplex tunnel, 4,000 m², painted in 5–6 days. Institutional debut.
Data Somersault, Lasco Project #5, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2016. A86 Duplex tunnel, 4,000 m², painted in 5–6 days. Institutional debut.
#LargestQR, Hasselt, May 2017. A functional 30×25 m QR code: 403 cans, 3 days.
#LargestQR, Hasselt, May 2017. A functional 30×25 m QR code: 403 cans, 3 days.
Chromadynamica Dimensional, Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Arizona, 2017. 289 hand-painted conduits, suspended; homage to Soto.
Chromadynamica Dimensional, Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Arizona, 2017. 289 hand-painted conduits, suspended; homage to Soto.
Planned Iridescence 1–8, 2017. UV ink on both faces of the PMMA and anodized aluminum; the movement is activated by the viewer's position. The series debuts at GR Gallery, New York, October 2017.
Planned Iridescence 1–8, 2017. UV ink on both faces of the PMMA and anodized aluminum; the movement is activated by the viewer's position. The series debuts at GR Gallery, New York, October 2017.
Transformable Systems, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, 2018. Full-wall environment of vertical gradients and a rotating circular work.
Transformable Systems, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, 2018. Full-wall environment of vertical gradients and a rotating circular work.
The workshop: a large-format UV flatbed printer printing a gradient onto a panel, FP Studio, Valencia. Since 2018 the machines are the studio's own — the precision is the team's.
The workshop: a large-format UV flatbed printer printing a gradient onto a panel, FP Studio, Valencia. Since 2018 the machines are the studio's own — the precision is the team's.
The FP Studio warehouse: work in production, packing crates, daylight. Sixteen solo shows in thirteen countries in five years ship out from here — the team sustains that pace.
The FP Studio warehouse: work in production, packing crates, daylight. Sixteen solo shows in thirteen countries in five years ship out from here — the team sustains that pace.
FP Studio, two beats of the same craft: the warehouse with a monumental piece on trestles, and a hand smoothing a freshly painted gradient. The gradients he paints himself; the flat elements, the team — the work belongs to both hands.
FP Studio, two beats of the same craft: the warehouse with a monumental piece on trestles, and a hand smoothing a freshly painted gradient. The gradients he paints himself; the flat elements, the team — the work belongs to both hands.
Ludlow and Delancey, New York, 2017. A giant PANT 1 over a magenta-blue gradient. Graffiti doesn't stop during the studio years.
Ludlow and Delancey, New York, 2017. A giant PANT 1 over a magenta-blue gradient. Graffiti doesn't stop during the studio years.
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