LONGITUDES

Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.

Wolfgang Tillmans’ “Truth Study Center (NY)” (2010)

The cover of “The Last Observer” featured Wolfgang Tillmans’s “Truth Study Center (NY)”. Issue 6 of the catalogue-in-progress of “The Last Newspaper” (New Museum, 2010). Edited by Latitudes.

In the frenzied weeks of autumn 2010, we had the chance to “live with” artworks during the course of ten weeks while we live-edited a weekly tabloid that ultimately constituted the ten-part catalogue of “The Last Newspaper” (October 2010–January 2011) exhibition at the New Museum. For almost the entire duration of the show, Latitudes commissioned articles, opinion columns, adverts, interviews, and focus pieces, and also wrote about the featured artworks, artists, events, and issues covered (or missing!) in the exhibition we were embedded in.

For ”The Last Observer”, the sixth of the ten issues of “The Last Newspaper” (pdf here), we commissioned then-writer Lorena Muñoz-Alonso to interview artist Wolfgang Tillmans about his work “Truth Study Center (NY)” (2010). Tillmans’ work shared the floor with our temporary office and is a project he began in 2005 with a show at his London gallery Maureen Paley.

Photo: LeBal Books here.

Forward ten years. In 2021, the interview “Is This True or Not?” was included in the 352-page reader “Wolfgang Tillmans: A Reader” (ISBN 9781633451124), published on the occasion of his
 retrospective “To Look Without Fear” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and edited by Roxana Marcoci and Phil Taylor – see pages 171 to 173.

(Above and below) Wolfgang Tillmans, “Truth Study Center, 2005–”, installation view at the New Museum, 2010. Photos: Latitudes, Barcelona. Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley Gallery.



We recently received a request to use our Tillmans’s New Museum installation photograph in the highly anticipated publication “Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance” (Verso Books
by our former teacher, and now professor in the Ph.D. Program in Art History at CUNY Graduate Center in New YorkDr. Claire Bishop

In “Disordered Attention...”, Bishop “identifies trends in contemporary practice – research-based installations, performance exhibitions, interventions, and invocations of modernist architecture – and their challenges to traditional modes of attention. Charting a critical path through the last
three decades, Bishop pinpoints how spectatorship and visual literacy are evolving under the pressures of digital technology.”

The book will be available from June 2024. An excerpt was published in Artforum in April 2023, titled “Information Overload”.

Cover of the forthcoming book “Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance” (Verso Books, 2024). 


RELATED CONTENT:

  • Night at the (New) Museum, 11 Dec 2010
  • At Last...The Last Newspaper catalogue!, 10 Dec 2010
  • 'THE LAST OBSERVER' AVAILABLE NOW! #6 issue of the 10 Latitudes-edited newspapers for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, New Museum, 10 Nov 2010
  • Max Andrews reviews in frieze: ‘A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’ (LUMA Foundation, Arlès) and Pere Llobera's ‘Acció’ (Bombon Projects, Barcelona) and ‘Kill Your Darlings’ (Sis Galería, Sabadell), 4 January 2019
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Cover Story–June 2020: Mataró Chauffeur Service, since 2010

Latitudes' homepage www.lttds.org

The June 2020 monthly Cover Story ‘Mataró Chauffeur Service, since 2010’ is now up, check our website www.lttds.org

“The premise was simple. Latitudes needed to get to Tate Modern and so Martí Anson was going to drive us to London and back. He would form a one-man one-car taxi company in his home town of Mataró, pick us up early in the morning in Barcelona and we’d head for the ferry. Mataró, Barcelona, Santander, Portsmouth, London, ‘No Soul for Sale’ festival, happy 10th birthday Tate Modern. Pim pam. His great-grandfather had been a taxi driver in Montevideo and his father-in-law a driver for the boss of Schweppes.”

→ Continue reading
→ After June 2020, this story will be archived here.

Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial activities.


RELATED CONTENTS



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Latitudes' redesigned portfolio – projects since 2005


After weeks and long hours facing the screen and mining hard disks, we've uploaded Latitudes' redesigned portfolio, at last! Go to download page and choose format:

For desktop/laptop/tablet view (83pp, 30.9 MB)
For mobile (164pp, 15.8 MB)
For print (164pp, 155.3 MB)


The pdf gathers a selection of projects produced since 2005 and includes a refreshed version of our biographies – which have also been updated on our website.

We have also included short individual biographies available for download as pdf – see below highlighted in yellow.

PDF designed and edited by Latitudes.

RELATED CONTENT:
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Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2010–11 season

Following a tradition started in 2009 (see the 2010 post) we say goodbye to the 2010-11 season with an 'out of office' post with some unseen and 'behind the scenes' moments of the last 11 months. Happy holidays/felices vacaciones!

– Latitudes | www.lttds.org

 17 September 2010: Opening of 'Antes que todo' at the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles (Madrid). Latitudes contributed artist entries to the exhibition catalogue (+ images)

20 September 2010: BCN-NYC. Ahead are 11 intense weeks of hard work as a partner organisation of 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, for which Latitudes produced a weekly newspaper in a live situation from the New Museum galleries for 10 consecutive weeks. Weekly blogs and videos of each newspaper (now 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition catalogue): #1 The Last Post; #2 The Last Gazette; #3 The Last Register; #4 The Last Star-Ledger; #5 The Last Monitor; #6 The Last Observer; #7 The Last Evening Sun; #8 The Last Journal; #9 The Last Times; #10 The Last Express. (+ images)
 
25 September 2010: Studio visit with Ester Partegàs (+ images). Partegàs was the 'advertising department' in the 10 tabloid newspaper series edited by Latitudes for 'The Last Newspaper'.

early October: Final touches to 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition curated by Richard Flood and Benjamin Godsill. Show opened 6 October 2010. (+ installation images)

21 October 2010: Presentation of 'Vic Cambrils Barcelona...' project at the Midway Contemporary Art's library, Minneapolis. A selection of 50 self- and micro-published books and paper editions by Catalan artists, designers, curators... (+ images)
  22 October 2010: Yves Klein gala dinner at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

13 November 2010: final checks of issue #7 'The Last Evening Sun' with the brilliant TLN part-time staffers Janine Armin and Greg Barton. (+ images of the exhibition)

18 November 2010: 'The Last...' graphic designers Chad Kloepfer and Joel Stillman discussing with New Museum's Daniel Thiem and Latitudes' the final bits & pieces of 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue.

24 November 2010: Issue #8 'The Last Journal' delivered! Won-der-ful cover by Fernando Bryce.

late November 2010: Checking the headlines of 'The Last Times' (#9) featuring Peter Piller, Robert Gober, Andrea Bowers, Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere amongst others.
 Late November: The board is almost filled with the weekly mini-posters with 'The Last...' headlines. Underneath pictures of the team that made TLN possible.

10 December 2010: This is how 10 weeks of full-time work look like when you pile them up.
  10 December 2010: Packaging the 10 newspapers + cover/index with New Museum's Daniel Thiem and the ever helpful Irina Chernyakova.

early January 2011: Delivery of our copies of 'The Last Newspaper' to our home, what-a-moment! (+ images)

19 January 2011: Installing with Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller their solo show at the Aarhus Art Building, Centre for Contemporary Art, Århus, Denmark. (+ images)

Roman & Christina installing 'End of Life - Contribution to the inefficiency of poetry' (2010). They know what they are doing!
 21 January 2011: Leaving our cozy temporary homes before the opening of the exhibition.

26 January 2011: The crates are here! First installation of 'Amikejo: Pennacchio/Argentato' at the Laboratorio 987, MUSAC. (+ images)

Placing one of Pennacchio Argentato's slabs with the installation crew.

Amikejo wonderful helpers Pilar and Maria from the Escuela de Arte Superior de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales, León. Gracias for being there!

Final touches... Filming a short interview with Pennacchio/Argentato at the Laboratorio 987, MUSAC. You can watch it here.
 21 February 2011: Delivery of Martí Anson's works in Meessen de Clercq, Brussels, for the exhibition 'Expositition International des Arts...' (+ images)

Unpacking Martí Anson's furniture, trying to make sense of their parts.

Unpacking bits and pieces of Sarah Ortmeyer's VITRINE MAURICE (2011).

Lunch break with Maria Loboda, Martí Anson and Max of Latitudes. Eating delicious baguettes from next door's deli.

Placing Maria Loboda's new pieces in the Wunderkammer.

Charlotte Moth's nine photographic prints before being installed.

23 February: Placing Martí Anson's furniture on the (finally dry) platform.

2 March 2011: Studio visit with Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum in Rotterdam deciding the display of their forthcoming exhibition at the Laboratorio 987, MUSAC. Above: home-made maquette of the Laboratorio. (+ images)

2 March 2011: Klaas van Gorkum grandfather's lathe in action in the artists' studio (+ info)
 2 March 2011: Trying out different displays and selecting the objects made by Klaas van Gorkum's grandfather for the exhibition, would they all fit in the platform?

3 March 2011: Laying out each page of the forthcoming publication 'Lara Almarcegui. Projects 1995-2010' in the artist studio in Rotterdam.

5 April 2011: Installation day 1 of Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum show at the Laboratorio 987.
Tricky part: placing the platform on the wooden legs manufactured by the artists using Jos van Gorkum's lathe.

Klaas discussing with über-fabulous 'Amikejo' coordinator Carlos Ordás, 'Amikejo' helpers Pilar and Maria and the technicians from Artefacto how to install the photographs on the wall.

8 April 2011: Press conference at the Laboratorio 987 (+ info)
 9–13 May 2011: Week-long seminar with A-Study participants discussing curatorial practices. Photo: Gerda Kochanska.
 20 May 2011: Studio visit with Lee Welch at Piet Zwart in Rotterdam, to discuss his ideas for the final Amikejo show (opening 24 September) at the Laboratorio 987 in collaboration with Fermín Jiménez Landa.

early June 2011: Navigating Venice by vaporetto... (photo tour Giardini, Arsenale and Eventi Collaterali)

early June: and navigating Venice by foot...
 
21 June 2011: Unwrapping Irene Kopelman's sculptures to be exhibited as part of Uqbar's exhibition, the third chapter of Amikejo at Laboratorio 987, MUSAC.

22 June 2011: Irene Kopelman and Mariana Castillo Deball unwrapping Mariana's sculptures.

23 June 2011: Installing Uqbar, stairs going up and down...

24 June 2011: Final piece to install. Mariana and Irene Kopelman giving 'left, right, up...' instructions to Artefacto crew member. (+ images)

25 June 2011: Uqbar presents their show to the press and museum staff.

29 June 2011: Third day of 'Campus'. Participants chat outside and look at the project vinyls placed on the façade. (+ images)

4–8 July 2011, week #1 with Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson. Mapping participants to ideas, mapping ideas to participants.

4–8 July 2011, week #1 with Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson. Ólafur and Antoine see the world in 3D.

11–15 July 2011, week #2 with Renata Lucas.

18–21 July 2011, week #3 with Peter Piller.

18–22 July 2011: Mariana invited by the Mondriaan visitors programme to tour Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht's galleries, museums, art centers and artist studios. Above poster campaign signed by 'Disgruntled Dutch Artists' posted in several institutions in relation to the HUGE change Dutch arts will suffer due to unprecedented cuts. (+ images)

25–29 July 2011, week #4 with Adrià Julià.

29 July 2011, 19.30h: Display of the projects and ideas-in-the-making developed during 'Campus'. After 5 weeks of group talks, video screenings, tutorials and production, a one-month exhibition opens at Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, the same space occupied by 'Campus' during the last five weeks.

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted in the photo caption).
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Publication release: 'Mataró Chauffeur Service', a project by Martí Anson and Latitudes for 'No Soul for Sale: A Festival of Independents'


[ENG]

Photo Gallery | Press coverage | Short Video | web 'No Soul for Sale'

Edited by:
Martí Anson and Latitudes
Published by
: Save As... Publications
Texts by: Martí Anson and Latitudes
Graphic Design: ferranElOtro Studio
Format: 210 x 150 mm softcover with folded poster jacket / 59pp / offset, black-and-gold
Language: English, Spanish & Catalan
Print-run
: 500 copies
Printer: Cevagraf SCCL; Gràfiques Macià
Date of Publication
: January 2011
Price: €16 via La Central
ISBN: 978-84-936956-9-9


The publication 'Mataró Chauffeur Service' gathers documentation of the collaboration with artist Martí Anson realised on the occasion of Latitudes' participation in the London edition of 'No Soul for Sale', for which the artist set up his own chauffeur company and drove the curatorial duo from Barcelona to Tate Modern and back.  

(+ info... )

Project kindly supported by:

Sponsorship-in-kind by:

[ES]

Galería de fotos | Covertura prensa | Video | web 'No Soul for Sale'

Editado por: Latitudes
Publicado por: Save As... Publications
Textos: Martí Anson y Latitudes
Diseño gráfico: ferranElOtro Studio
Formato: 210 x 150 mm tapa rústica y poster semicubierta / 59pp / offset, negro y dorado
Idiomas: Edición trilingue Inglés, Español y Catalán
Tiraje
: 500
Imprenta: Cevagraf SCCL; Gràfiques Macià
Fecha publicación
: enero 2011
Precio: €16 a través de La Central
ISBN: 978-84-936956-9-9


La publicación 'Mataró Chauffeur Service', documenta la colaboración entre Latitudes y Martí Ansonel pasado Mayo en ocasión de la participación en la edición londinense de 'No Soul for Sale'. Para la ocasión, Anson inició su propia empresa de chófer ‘Mataró Chauffeur Service’ y condujo al dúo curatorial de Barcelona a Tate Modern y de regreso. 

(+ info...) 

Proyecto cuenta con el apoyo de:

Con el patrocinio de:

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Selection of press coverage of Latitudes' weekly newspaper for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition at the New Museum

Following is a selection of press reviews that have appeared in relation to 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition (New Museum, 6 October 2010–9 January 2011), in particular, those who focused on Latitudes' edition of a weekly newspaper as catalogue-in-formation:

Holland Cotter, 'Art and News, Intersecting in the Digital Age', The New York Times, 7 October 2010:

"And at the behest of the
New Museum a print-savvy group called Latitudes from Barcelona is issuing another tabloid, this one weekly and edited from the third-floor gallery, that will double as an exhibition catalog. That publication would, of course, be the ideal place for the curators and participating artists to go on the record, at un-Twitterish length and polemical breadth, about the viability of analog journalism — and analog art — in the digital age. (...) Meanwhile, the Latitudes news team — Max Andrews and Mariana Canepa Luna are the editors — has invited everybody and anybody, meaning you and me, to submit editorial suggestions and pitch stories, either in person or by e-mail (newspaper@lttds.org). In the loosey-goosey spirit of the show, their paper will change names weekly, from the “The Last Post” to “The Last Gazette” to “The Last Register,” etc. But a genuinely “last newspaper” is still nowhere in sight. And you read that here."


Danielle Aronowitz, 'New Museum exhibit is black and white and read all over', Columbia Spectator, 8 October 2010:

(...) "A second group, Latitudes—a curatorial organization based in Barcelona, Spain—will compile, edit, and publish a weekly newspaper that will catalogue information about the exhibit and the contributing artist groups over the next 10 weeks. To emphasize its importance, [exhibition curator Richard] Flood referred to this publication as “the journal of the exhibition.”

Luc Sante, 'Disappearing Ink', The New York Review of Books' blog, 1 November 2010:

(...) and a tabloid, edited by the Barcelona-based curatorial office Latitudes, that has been variously called The Last Post, The Last Gazette, and The Last Register. (...) The tabloid, which focuses on newspapers, as well as on the show itself, is rather puckish. The Last Gazette includes, for example, a record of a quixotic attempt by Ines Schaber to approach the underground facility in western Pennsylvania where the photo agency Corbis keeps its archive of some 70 million pictures. The story evokes the cold-war espionage genre—an unremarkable setting masks a culture of such militant secrecy that the best the author could manage is a murkily distant photo of the facility’s parking lot. Its meandering text and bland snapshots, on the other hand, evoke the whimsical record-keeping of 1970s conceptual art, which is rather more in keeping with the spirit of the show.

Valerie Seckler, 'Hyper-local Newspaper as Museum Piece? Not exactly', The Urban Times, November 2010:

“How is a museum, such as New Museum, no longer (just) in the artwork display business?” asks an editorial in The Last Post. “Is it a producer, a publisher, or a distributor? Should a museum or a newspaper be a community, a platform or a network, for example?” The newspapers themselves are hybrids: actual publications and art object. (...) The Last…” newspaper series comprises “final” editions with names like “The Last Observer,” “The Last Monitor,” and (the first edition) “The Last Post.” They are dedicated to illuminating “The Last Newspaper” fine art on exhibit. Some of the reportage ranges beyond it. (...) The Last Post” itself is an arch reference to the never-ending practice of posting 21st-century news online. “The Last Post’s” Oct. 6th edition’s screaming front page headline makes the humorous proposition: “Ink vs Link.” Smaller decks stacked below it read: “Lippmann vs Dewey, Fact vs Interpretation, Editor vs Curator,” and conclude with the query: “How do you get your information?”

Adam Chadwick, 'Art and journalism …sometimes a fine line…', http://fittoprintfilm.wordpress.com, 1 December 2010:

This past Saturday members of the group Latitudes – an independent Barcelona-based curatorial office – hosted an event for the “Fit to Print” production team at the New Museum in the Bowery neighborhood of lower Manhattan. (...) I was too intrigued by the wall-to-wall displays of vintage newspaper front pages in one of the rooms. It was hard not to examine the way in which newspapers implemented multiple sub-headlines back in the early part of the twentieth century. In a way, many start-up news websites are creating similar sub-heads to draw reader attention in the vast wild west of search engine optimization. This would be a topic our guest speaker, Jason Fry, would speak about during our panel discussion.

[Read an edited transcription of the event here.]

This is tomorrow, 'The Last Newspaper', 5 December 2010:

Latitudes, the Barcelona-based curatorial office, and a diverse team led by Joseph Grima and Kazys Varnelis/Netlab, are on-site producing weekly newspapers.

'THE LAST POST' / 'THE LAST GAZETTE' / 'THE LAST REGISTER'... is the evolving-titled 12-page free weekly newspaper and an incremental exhibition catalogue edited during a 10-week editorial residency by Latitudes. Produced from a micro-newsroom placed on the third floor of the museum the tabloids will be an archive in formation companioning The Last Newspaper’s exhibition, artworks, and events, as well as being a platform for critical reflection on the wider agency of art and artists with respect to concerns about how information is produced, managed, recorded, re-ordered, and disseminated.

With kind permission from Latitudes we are reproducing two selected texts from their catalogue/newspapers, written by The Last Newspaper London correspondent and 'this is tomorrow' features editor Lorena Muñoz-Alonso (continue reading...)

Kristin M. Jones, 'Chronicles of a Medium in Crisis', The Wall Street Journal, 16 December 2010:

(...) Via a micro-newsroom, Latitudes, a Barcelona-based curatorial team, produced a tabloid whose name changed each week. The spirited articles include stories on artists, filmmakers, and topics ranging from ProPublica to the history of cast-iron newsstand paperweights; its issues will be bound together after the show ends in lieu of a catalog. The editors commissioned profiles and interviews related to the show but also solicited story ideas, headlines inspired by personal events, and other information from the public.

Read more articles and reviews here.
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Night at the (New) Museum

Coinciding with the end of our New Museum editorial project we'd like to share these great shots of what has been our working space during the past 10 weeks at the New Museum: our micro-newsroom during the night.

The photos have been taken by New Museum night guard and photographer Steven Slawinski during the third week of our editorial residency – when 'The Last Register' (#3) was the newspaper of the week. We would like to thank Steven for sharing his archive, and to New Museum guard Carol Fassler for putting us in touch.



We would like to express our thanks to everyone at the New Museum. Thank you to Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director, and The Last Newspaper co-curators Richard Flood, Director of Special Projects and Curator at Large, and Benjamin Godsill, Curatorial Associate, for hosting us and inviting us to collaborate in this expansive and timely project. Our sincere gratitude and praise are due to Richard and Benjamin for their support and trust and for the brave exhibition whose works have become our local community.

Thank you to Joshua Edwards, Exhibitions Manager and Shannon Bowser, Chief Preparator for sharing expertise on producing Luciano Fabro’s Pavimiento-Tautologia. Praise is due to Desiree B. Ramos, Curatorial Fellow; Eungie Joo, Keith Haring Director & Curator of Education & Public Programs; Cris Scorza, Manager of Tours and Family Programs and Joseph Keehn II, Associate Educator; to Gabriel Einsohn, Communications Officer and Annie Wachnicki, Marketing Manager for their help in many ways. We are most grateful to each of the inspiring New Museum guards and guides for their support and interest in our weekly progress and for taking care of our working space.

We would like to express our gratitude to Marta Rincón and Eloisa Ferrari for securing the financial support offered by The State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad (SEACEX), which has made it possible for us be in New York during these months.

The graphic design of the newspapers has been an absolutely critical element to the tone of the project and we salute Chad Kloepfer and Joel Stillman, who have been so generous with their time and incredible talent in establishing the visual identity of The Last... newspapers, and in giving up their weekends laying them out. Thank you to Daniel Thiem, Retail Operations Manager at the New Museum, for taking care of the afterlife of this print adventure, and to Tammy Lin at Linco Printing for making the printing and delivery run smoothly.

Sharing the third floor of the New Museum with the other partner organizations has been a memorable experience and we are particularly appreciative of Alan Rapp as well as Virginia Millington and Natalia Fidelholtz – our temporary neighbors at the New City Reader and StoryCorps respectively.

The project would also not have been possible without the assistance of our news team, who have been crucial in their dedication and good humor, and in toiling late hours, and while juggling other commitments, in writing sterling words. Kudos to Editor-at-Large Janine Armin, to Greg Barton, Irina Chernyakova, Collin Munn and Gwen Schwartz. We would also like to highlight the generous contributions of Adam Chadwick, Julienne Lorz, Andrew Losowsky and our London correspondent Lorena Muñoz-Alonso.

We have been pleased to have been able to involve an incredible network of writers, curators, artists and journalists that week after week have graced, and been splashed over, the pages of 'The Last...' Visual artist Francesc Ruiz, project cartoonist with his series ‘The Woods’, and our advertising department, artist Ester Partegàs, we thank especially for their amazing work and for their stamina in signing up to the weekly deadlines.

We are indebted to all of the participating artists and organizations as well as many other individuals for their efforts, for having trusted our editorial skills and for having given time and contributions pro bono – Ignasi Aballí; Lars Bang Larsen; Judith Bernstein; Dara Birnbaum; Pierre Bismuth; Andrea Bowers; Fernando Bryce; Luis Camnitzer; Sarah Charlesworth; Emily Cheeger; Doryun Chong; City-As-School class; Ana Paula Cohen; Scott Cole; Christine Cooper; Holly Coulis; Marc d'Andre; Chris Dercon; Patricia Esquivias; Jacob Fabricius; Luciano Figueiredo; Angela Freiberger; Jason Fry; Simon Fujiwara; Dora García; Martin Gran; Hans Haacke; Ilana Halperin; Rick Herron; Ridley Howard; Marcel Janco; Adrià Julià; Maria Loboda; Nate Lowman; Renzo Martens; Rob McKenzie; Simone Menegoi; Aleksandra Mir; Rodrigo Moura; Nick Mrozowski; Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere; Sophie O'Brien; Damián Ortega; Alona Pardo; Amalia Pica; Michalis Pichler; Ed Pierce; Peter Piller; William Pope L.; Michael Rakowitz; Christian Rattemeyer; Yasmil Raymond; Kolja Reichert; Mauro Restiffe; Kathleen Ritter; Kirstine Roepstroff; Julia Rometti & Victor Costales; David Salle; Mike Santisteven; Joe Saltzman; Ines Schaber; Paul Schmeltzer; Charity Scribner; Manuel Segade; Adam Shecter; Harley Spiller; Stephen Spretnjak; Alexandra Tarver; Mi Tijo; Wolfgang Tillmans; Rirkrit Tiravanija; Nicoline van Harskamp; Pablo Vargas Lugo; Sergio Vega; Marie Voignier; Mark von Schlegell; Haegue Yang; Carey Young; Sarah Wang; Warren Webster; and Jordan Wolfson. Thanks too the New Museum Facebook and Twitter contributors: aodt; Kristi Collom; Michele Corriel; djnron; Isadora Ficovic; A.J. Fries; Rachel Elise Greiner; Sioux Jordan; Eleanor Martineau; Acht Millimeter; Sofia Pontén; Jenny Pruden; Bonnie Severien; Kate Shafer; Liz Shores; Goso Tominaga; and Anne Wölk.

We would also like to thank those who have helped us obtain images or permission to reprint texts: Barbican Art Centre, London; Edoardo Bonaspetti, Mousse magazine; Bugada & Cargnel, Paris; Janine Iamunno, patch.com; Nick Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com; Jeff Khonsary, Fillip; Lisa Middag at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; kurimanzutto; Michele Robecchi; Benoit Pailley; Peres Projects, Berlin; Katie Sokolor/Gothamist.

– Latitudes (Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna), December 2010.

Excerpted from 'FROM THE EDITORS’ DESK – Last words, clarifications, frequently asked questions, and thanks from Latitudes' originally published in 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue.
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'THE LAST EXPRESS' AVAILABLE NOW! #10 and final issue of the Latitudes-edited newspapers for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, New Museum

FINAL ISSUE! Issue 10: 'The Last Express'
(READ IT ON ISSUU)

Table of contents:


Cover:
Hans Haacke News (1968–2008)
Exclusive interview: Inhotim curator Rodrigo Moura talks to artist Mauro Restiffe

Dirt Sheet column: Janine Armin on TLN Dexter Sinister's 'The First/Last Newspaper (November 4–21, 2009)'
Report: 'Fit to Print?: The newsroom reinvented', conversation at the New Museum between ‘The Last...’ columnist Adam Chadwick and web veteran Jason Fry
100 years ago...: 'Los Angeles Herald' (Los Angeles, California) 1900-1911, December 8, 1910
Focus:
Blu Dot's self-assembly office furniture for the ‘The Last Newspaper’ partner organizations
The Next Newspaper (Profiling the organizations, projects, initiatives and individuals redefining ink-and-paper news): The Daily

Focus: 'Do you love milk and honey?', Greg Barton on Emily Jacir's TLN work 'SEXY SEMITE' (2000-02)
Picture Agent-Our singular picture agency: Simon Fujiwara
Media Habits: Michalis Pichler

'Embrace the Ambiguity', ‘The Last Newspaper’ curators Richard Flood and Benjamin Godsill reflect on the project’s journey.
Focus: 'Reading the Reader', Greg Barton and Irina Chernyakova on TLN partner organisation the 'New City Reader' 
Exclusive interview: 'The Wires', Janine Armin talks to TLN artist Hans Haacke
Cartoon: 'The Woods: The End' by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising Department:
Ester Partegàs



Watch this and other issues on Latitudes' youtube channel.

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT!

REPORT
'Fit to Print?: The newsroom reinvented'



27 November 2010: Public gathered for the talk on the 4th floor's 'Peace Arena'.

On November 27, Latitudes organized a conversation at the New Museum between ‘Fit to Print’ filmmaker (and ‘The Last...’ columnist) Adam Chadwick, and Jason Fry, an expert in the challenges faced by newspapers in the digital world. 

Jason Fry: I started at The Wall Street Journal in 1995 when they were a single free section and after thirteen years I had seen it become a full paper and go beyond its roots of being a financial paper to become a source of general news. It became a subscription site far ahead of anyone else. One reason why so many jobs are disappearing in newspapers now is that some top publishing executives do not understand the business they are in and are only slowly realizing that is suicide. They have become very confused between the mission of journalism and the business of journalism. The business is decaying, leaving the mission looking for new financial backing.


Jason Fry during the talk

Adam Chadwick: How did journalism come to this breaking point? It began in the early 1960s, starting with how television affected the newspaper industry as it became the media where most people got their information from. Newspapers started changing their priorities back then...

Adam Chadwick during the talk

JF: Newspapers were mostly family-owned operations, others were true public servants. Soon after some became owned by corporations and that changed the calculus for the business and how they made money. They were depending on performance and shareholders. Even in the 1990s newspapers were making a profit margin of 30% year after year, without really understanding the business they were in. Television has certainly created a star mentality amongst reporters which is not entirely working to the benefit of journalism. Newspapers have been historically successful because publishers essentially had a localized monopoly on printing and distribution. Retail stores would communicate their products by placing ads in a newspaper – the publishers owned distribution mechanisms. In the last ten to fifteen years that has changed, as advertising has moved to the internet – everything from furniture to job listings. Advertising was the business that funded journalism – the financial underpinnings have been knocked down.

AC: 80% of the content that is broadcast on National Public Radio comes from newspapers. It’s the same with CBS News – Russell Mitchell, for instance, has told me they are pulling content from The New York Times and The Washington Post. So the erosion of the newspaper is also hugely affecting the TV.


Public watching the trailer of 'Fit to print' screened at the beginning for the talk.

JF: Newspapers used to compete with whoever started a new one locally; now they try to compete with the entire world. There is way too much content out there. How many thousands of movie reviews can you find online of the latest Harry Potter movie? And how many do we actually need?

AC: Is the web an echo-chamber of news, particularly with search engine optimization and ‘content farms’ dragging traffic? Or, if you boil it down, is it all only coming from The New York Times or The Washington Post? What is being lost now that the business model is broken? Investigative reporting?

JF: I’m not worried about journalism, I am worried about newspapers. We cannot confuse the two. The web has been wonderful to open up voices and to demystify reporting while letting a lot more people use their own expertise. But yes, investigative journalism is missing and it takes a long time and it’s very expensive. If The New York Times wants to cover a story on the dodgy doings of an organization, they will continue doing it, even if the organization goes into battle with lawyers, they won’t be intimidated. But that won’t happen if you are a blogger or freelancer no matter how smart or committed you are. I wonder if that kind of reporting has to be done institutionally though.



The public gathered for the talk on the 4th floor's 'Peace Arena'.

AC: ProPublica is one of the only models, they are a non-profit for investigative reporting organisation with about thirty reporters and editors. [See The Last Post, page 9] They have deep pockets which enable them to pay competitive salaries. Other smaller examples are Investigative Voice from Baltimore led by Stephen Janis, who started it with Alan Forman, a former Baltimore Sun journalist. It focuses on crime and corruption in west Baltimore, which if you’ve seen The Wire you’ll know about. They don’t compete with the Baltimore Sun, as they cover stories they wouldn’t. They also operate thanks to donations but don’t know for how much longer they can continue working like this. How sustainable this model is, nobody knows. Even with grant organisations like the Knight Foundation, there is only so much money they can throw in. Carmen, what is your experience at The Trenton Times?

Carmen Cusido: I’m a full-time reporter now, we have five members in the staff – it used to be more than twenty. It does get tougher because we don’t have the resources to cover investigative stories. I have to pull out the resources on my own. I cover education, county news, and immigration news because I’m the only Spanish speaking reporter. When we were a larger organisation, we used to have lunch breaks and discuss things as a group, but now you really need to prioritise. It’s hugely difficult as you have to take work home with you and there are no boundaries with your private life; it’s a 24/7 job. Before you could go out and talk to people, get their trust and understand their perspective. Now I cannot even leave the desk, as I have to cover three stories and have to do everything over the telephone.



Carmen Cusido during the talk

Question: Do people really want hard news anymore? Do newspapers understand their readers?

JF: Take the recent health care discussion: a hugely complex issue to follow and one that matters to all of us. Newspapers would cover the most recent political victory, but never show the bones of the story. This isn’t easy stuff. To the shock of newspaper editors, a lot of people read Wikipedia to understand complex situations as you get a straight forward recitation of what’s going on. That’s a model newspapers haven’t done as they continue to follow a telegraph system for getting the news out. It’s not satisfying readers’ needs.

AC: Most people I’ve spoken to want the hard news, the meat and potatoes of good journalism. Readers have stopped trusting newspapers for various reasons, some felt they were not catering a certain demographic of people or literally because news organizations have removed the newspaper dispenser boxes from poorer communities, to reach out to richer ones that would potentially advertise with them.

Question from the audience: What is your view on paywalls?

JF: News organisations should realize they are competing with the web. The success of The Wall Street Journal’s paywall has been in that it is targeted mostly at business readers, yet The New York Times covers everything. You pay for something, therefore, you think it’s valuable. Paywalls are getting in trouble in two ways: the hassle of entering a password, finding a reliable payment method. It’s not very immediate. Secondly, in the way they are implemented. If you are seeing nothing of the content you are about to buy you’re taking a blind leap of faith in paying for something you are likely going to read only once.

AC: It’s not cheap to produce content for the iPad either. If you put up a paywall you are no longer part of the linking culture such as The Huffington Post.

IF: You cannot create a walled garden that nobody can get into. You have to tease readers and let them share.

 
Question from the audience
: Is hyper-local journalism the way to go? Or to be more brutal, what will ultimately save journalism?

AC: Paying reporters and establishing a sustainable business model. Does the non-profit model work? It does right now – but for how long?

– Transcribed by Mariana Cánepa Luna


All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
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'THE LAST TIMES' AVAILABLE NOW! #9 issue of the 10 Latitudes-edited newspapers for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, New Museum

Issue 9: 'The Last Times'
(READ IT ON ISSUU)
  
1 December 2010

Cover:
Peter Piller, Pfeile (Arrows), Archiv Peter Piller 2000-2006.
Exclusive interview:
‘Bedeutungsflächen, In Löcher blicken, Ortsbesichtigungen...’, Julienne Lorz talks to Peter Piller
Focus: ‘Press Victim’, Collin Munn on TLN artist Mike Kelley's Timeless/Authorless Series (1995) + ‘Mike on Mike’, New Museum Guard & Tour Guide Mike Santistevan on Mike Kelleys's work
Picture Agent: Pablo Vargas Lugo
100 Years Ago…: The Seattle Star (Seattle, Washington) 1899-1947, December 1, 1910

Next newspaper: Web aggregation
Focus: Sarah Sex Sport-Trait’, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso on TLN work Fat, Forty and Flab-ulous (1990) by TLN artist Sarah Lucas
Media Habits
: Carey Young

Dirt Sheet: Janine Armin on Allen Ruppersberg‘s TLN work Screamed from Life (1982)
Focus: 'Dutiful Scrivener' by TLN artists Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere + Mark Twain’s ‘Amended Obituaries’ (1902)
Focus and exclusive interview: ‘Graphite Testimony’, Greg Barton on Andrea Bowers’ work Eulogy to One and Another (2006) featured in TLN
Exclusive interview:
‘Having It All’, Latitudes talks with TLN co-curator Richard Flood about TLN artist Robert Gober’s work Newspaper (1992)
Cartoon:
'The Woods: Fahrenheit 451' by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising:
Ester Partegàs



 
Watch this and other newspapers on Latitudes' YouTube Channel


EXCLUSIVE CONTENT!

Picture Agent: Our Singular Picture Agency
Pablo Vargas Lugo, artist


In 1996, NASA released images of the probable remains of extraterrestrial life in a meteorite of Martian origin found in Antarctica. Back then I quickly latched on to the enthusiasm caused by this news, and rather opportunistically used this image as part of an ambitious newspaper project. However, shortly afterwards, scientists disputed the authenticity of these supposedly fossilized bacteria, citing the possibility of an inorganic origin. Obviously, the said newspaper project lost its edge once the findings were disproved, and was shamefully filed at the end of my portfolio.

Last year the original scientific team found traces of organically produced materials on their treasured meteorite, using more potent microscopes; but the cheers didn’t last for long, as their evidence was contradicted by another group working in a lab across the hall, and headed by the brother of the leader of the first team. As questions on the urgent matter of extraterrestrial life are appropriately resolved between siblings in close quarters, and hoping for further validation of the original findings, I file this picture in this other newspaper project, as a personal reminder of the troubled relationship between art, trustworthiness and whatever we choose to call news.

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'THE LAST JOURNAL' AVAILABLE NOW! #8 issue of the 10 Latitudes-edited newspapers for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, New Museum

Issue 8: 'The Last Journal'
(READ IT ON ISSUU)
 

24 November 2010

Cover:
Fernando Bryce, from the series L'Humanité (2009–2010)
Feature: 'L'Humanité', Yasmil Raymond on Fernando Bryce
Feature: 'Independent Gazette', Lorena Muñoz-Alonso reports from London on two newspaper-inspired exhibitions: 'The Independent' (Damián Ortega at The Curve, Barbican) and ‘Can Altay: The Church Street Partners' Gazette’, The Showroom. Plus Damián Ortega exchanges impressions with curator Alona Pardo on his show.
Media Habits: Ester Partegàs, TLN advertising department artist
Brazil Focus: 'The Imaginery Newspaper', Chris Dercon on Luciano Figueiredo & Ana Paula Cohen on 'Jornal 28b', the newspaper produced during the 28th Bienal de São Paulo.

Focus: 'Boetti e His Double', Christian Rattemeyer on TLN artist Alighiero e Boetti's Corriere Della Sera (1976)
The Next Newspaper (Profiling the organizations, projects, initiatives and individuals redefining ink-and-paper news):
CROWD-SOURCING – SPOT.US / EMPHAS.IS

Exclusive interview: 'The Days of This Society...', Desiree B. Ramos interviews TLN artist Rirkrit Tiravanija
Focus: 'Paper view'
Gwen Schwartz asked New Museum visitors about their experiences of TLN

Focus: 'What's CUP?' by Gwen Schwartz and Max Andrews
Picture Agent-Our singular picture agency: Adrià Julià
Focus: '29 Days Later', Sarah Wang on TLN work Untitled Green Screen Memory (2010) by Larry Johnson + 2009 California Fires by Collin Munn
Cartoon:
'The Woods' by Francesc Ruiz
Advertising Department:
Ester Partegàs


Browse this and other newspapers on Latitudes' Youtube channel.










'THE DAYS OF THIS SOCIETY...'
New Museum curatorial fellow Desiree B. Ramos meets ‘The Last Newspaper’ artist Rirkrit Tiravanija

 

Above and below: Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled (the days of this society is numbered/September 15–October 12, 2008), 2010. Acrylic and newspaper on linen. 13 parts, all measuring 86 1/8 x 84 1/8 x 1 inch each. Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brownʼs enterprise.


There I am; it’s 5pm sharp, and I have just arrived at Gavin Brown’s newly-expanded Meatpacking District art gallery. I’m checking out the new space while I wait for Rirkrit, who suddenly pulls up around the back door with a few groceries; turns out he’s cooking a paella dinner for a few friends. We walk around the space for a few minutes and before heading towards the kitchen in the back of the gallery. There I see a few art handlers setting up pots, tables, and chairs for Rirkrit’s guests. “We don’t have much time, fire away,” he says, looking at the recorder and the paper I am holding in my hands. We sit on a wooden bench and start our conversation. I have met with Rirkrit several times, and besides being a great artist he is really down to earth and approachable. Every time I talk to him it is quite a busy scenario all around.

Desiree B. Ramos: How did you become an artist?

Rirkrit Tiravanija: By accident! I actually wanted to be a photojournalist and then mistakenly took some art history classes and became curious about art. I left the university from the history department, and I went to art school and I went to talk to the counsellor about the idea of studying art. So I had an appointment, I went to the meeting and I had to wait in this kind of lobby library. I was just standing there, looking around the shelf, and there was a book that stood out from the shelf from the Ontario College of Art, so I just pulled it out, took down the address and left. So it was kind of accidental.

DB: What was your first art piece?

RT: Umm, that’s a debate. It was actually an image that my father took of me; I made this plasticine sculpture on my ear, it was like an ear extension so that I looked like a Vulcan. So I would say that was my first sculpture.


DB: Do you still have it, or a record of it?

RT: I have a picture that my father took, but I don’t have the actual plasticine. I guess I could always remake it.

DB: That would be fun...

RT: Yeah, that would be fun. Wow, you just gave me a new idea!

DB: What was your first political work?

RT: Well, it depends on what is political, you know, if personal is political. The first work I made in art school, officially made in art school, was about identity, about me being in the West and trying to figure out what that was. It was the first letter of the Thai alphabet drawn on cardboard, and then it had a Thai dictionary explanation with this alphabet in English. So in a way, that had a kind of cultural politics in it. I would say my work is always asking those kinds of personal political questions, I mean, about the self and about identity.

DB: What got you into cooking?

RT: It was the simplest thing I could do. I was working in Chicago on questions of, about, cultural artefacts. I worked on this conceptual work with the idea that these artefacts were displays, again, about identity also, and that they were missing; they were fragmented in a kind of gap, or there was a gap that I thought needed to be questioned.


 
DB: So it was natural for you to mix cooking with art?

RT: Exactly, because I was looking at pots, bowls and plates, and Buddha statues, and these were all objects of everyday use in my culture, so first I basically decided to just cook so that these things would always be in play and from that it became, well, it was always about the people. Of course, these are things that were used every day, which have been taken out of context, put onto display because they were valued in a different situation, and looked at through the Western eye as if they were somehow valuable in relation to the idea of culture. But for me, it was really about the life around the object.

DB: What’s your favorite thing to cook?

RT: I don’t have a favorite thing to cook.

DB: Nothing that gets you more into the act of cooking and engaging with people?

RT: It’s not so much about the cooking, not about the food or any particular dish; it’s about the act and then ... I think it’s always more communal to cook a big pot of curry than to make a piece of steak. But I actually just recently cooked a lot of steak for 2,000 people so I’m actually wrong, I could cook steak for a lot of people but, of course, it’s about the activity of cooking. When we made this kind of barbecue grill, Argentinean style, the asado, it’s a communal activity in itself. So, it was just a matter of scale. People normally do it with families but here we extended it so we could involve even more people at the same moment, so it became something else.

DB: Where do you get your ideas from? Are you inspired by something in specific or do they randomly come to you? Do you get them from looking at things, reading, or conversing with people?

RT: I think it’s all of that. It’s an ongoing process that I have and I think many artists have, which is like you’re always thinking, looking and everything that you experience becomes a question or a possibility. It’s a combination; I’m looking at certain things that I’m interested in but, on the other hand, I’m always very receptive to what is happening around me, and that becomes a trigger for other things.


 
DB: I’m wondering how you go on varying so much in terms of media when it comes to your work. Is it difficult to manoeuvre all these different types of expression, ranging from cooking to investigations about architecture...?

RT: I’m not interested in style, I’m interested in content and if all the elements make sense, they all have certain roots or they all certainly have a relation to each other. It could be an eight-hour video or a ten-hour cooking session, yet they all bring people to the same place.

DB: Do you consider your piece now on view in The Last Newspaper at the New Museum, Untitled (the days of this society are numbered/September 21, 2009), part of a series along with other text works you have recently produced?

RT: I consider them like signage, like stop signs, road signs. They form a series but they can make you pay attention to a certain place and a certain moment when you are confronted by them. I think about that layering of the newspaper, which is an activity I’m very interested in, and in the activity of information being gathered. There are just a lot of layers there for me, from the ads to the typeface of the newspaper itself. There’s a lot of coincidence – or accidents, or maybe even intentions – in the way that certain things get laid out on these pages. The sign makes you stop and pay attention to the other things happening behind it.

DB: Would you be able to explain further how that text, in particular, explores the social role of the artist?

RT: ‘The days of this society is numbered’ is attributed to the situation in 1968; obviously, at that time it was a provocation within the context of a manifestation against the society, or rather of society against a particular group of people, the institution, people in control. And I would say that, of course, those moments reoccur, those conditions can still exist.

DB: I’m sure everybody asks about the grammar…

RT: Yes, well, it’s a bad translation of French. The mistake makes people react.

 
 

DB: And the dates on the newspaper…

RT: Well some in the series do make a reference to, for example, the market crash of 2008, just at the end of George Bush’s presidency. It has all been commentary about the Bush years and certainly in conjunction with the market crash.

DB: What will we see from you in the near future? What are you working on now?

RT: I’m working on a film which will be about a retired Thai farmer in the countryside, and I hope that people will get to see it, or that it’s good enough for people to see it.



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