Latitudes’ “out of office” 2023-24 season
Mon, Jul 29 2024 
Work by David Shrigley.
Time to put work-related activities on ice. Below is an account of some of the projects, texts, trips, exhibition preparations, talks, and research conducted by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes this past season.
Check earlier OUT OF THE OFFICE posts from 2008–9, 2009–10, 2010–11, 2011–12, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 and 2022–23. All photos are by Latitudes unless otherwise noted in the photo caption. For further notes, inspirations, and more, check out our Instagrams, here and here. See you in September!
23 August–3 September 2023: The second part of “The Pilgrim” research residency took us to Dublin, Sligo (including an excursion to Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery), Askeaton (with day trips to Foynes Flying Boat & Maritime Museum, the Rock of Cashel, Holycross Abbey, Philip Quinn’s stone-carving workshop, and the Ardnacrusha Power Station), and Limerick to attend the opening events of EVA International. See photos here.
As part of our thinking around relics, pilgrimage, and twinning, the team of Askeaton Contemporary Arts (ACA) asked Michael Holly to put together a video in part inspired by “The Pilgrim”. Tour guide maestro Anthony Sheehy not only appears giving his account of the Pilgrim’s story in the former Franciscan Friary, but also plays a song on his harmonica. It was through one of Anthony’s tours back in 2018 – he has led tours of the Friary and the Castle for 56 years! – that Latitudes first learned about the Barcelona pilgrim who is buried in Askeaton’s friary.
Train from Dublin to Sligo.
Our host Ruth Clinton (right) playing the violin at Mc Lynn’s Bar, Sligo.
Photo: Eulàlia Rovira
(Left to right) Mariana, tour guide Anthony Sheehy, Eulàlia, and her son Nil and Max in front of Askeaton's former Franciscan Friary. Photo: Aníbal Parada.
Latitudes, filmmaker Michael Holly and Michelle Horrigan of ACA discussing locations around the Friary. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.
Anthony Sheehy is being filmed. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.
Anthony Sheehy playing his harmonica in the Abbey. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.
September 2023: Montse Badia writes about Gallery Climate Coalition and GCC Spain in Bonart magazine #198, September 2023–February 2024 issue. Read in Català, Español, English or in Français.
Photo: María Gracia de Pedro.
27 September 2023: Max travels to Bilbao to cover the exhibition “Picasso escultor. Materia y cuerpo” [Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body] at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, for what will be a two-part Picasso review for frieze magazine. In line with Latitudes’ Environmental Policy to reduce our carbon footprint, and as a 2022 Active Members of the Gallery Climate Coalition, Max took the train to cover this 6h50min journey.
Exhibition curator Carmen Giménez was interviewed during the press tour.
October 2023: The October 2023 issue (#238) of frieze magazine includes a printed version of Max Andrews’ review of Miralda’s exhibition at Bombas Gens Centre d'Art, València, published online on June 29. This turns out to be the last exhibition we'll see in this venue, as a few months later, their programme sadly took a radical change to become (yet another) digital centre programming virtual exhibitions – beginning with an immersive show dedicated to Dalí. 😖
9 October 2023: 6h15min train to Málaga to join the press trip organised by the Museo Picasso to celebrate its 20th anniversary and the exhibition “The Echo of Picasso”. The exhibition will be featured in an upcoming two-part review for frieze magazine by Max Andrews. Both the exhibition and the one seen a few days back in Bilbao, are organised within the framework of the international celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973).
For this trip, Latitudes used its 2022 Strategic Climate Fund (SCFs) of €190 to cover the journey costs to reduce our carbon emissions (a return train journey from Barcelona to Málaga emits 0.01 tCO2e, a return flight – although considerably cheaper – emits 0.21 tCO2e according to GCC’s Carbon Calculator). This made it possible for Mariana to visit the exhibition and other art spaces including Pompidou Málaga and CAC Málaga.
Following GCC’s revised 2021 SCFs guidelines and adapting to the financial possibilities of our modest freelance operation, financing effective lower-carbon options is a direct way to achieve real and short-term change. Going forward, instead of tying the calculation of our SCF to our previous emissions, we will follow GCC's 2023 revised recommendation and set aside a percentage of our year's revenue to be allocated to our 2024 needs.
Sunset over Málaga from the 14th floor of the hotel.
Museo Picasso Málaga from the roof terrace. At the top is the 11th-century Muslim Palace-fortress Alcazaba.
Views from the terrace of Palacio de Buenavista (Museo Picasso Málaga), towards the Iglesia de San Agustín and the Cathedral de la Encarnación de Málaga.
Sharing the great knowledge of an excited librarian who has worked in the museum for +20 years.
Browsing publications found these shots of Picasso’s paintings and sculptures being shipped in the 1960s, a much more relaxed era of art handling and insurance protocols.
(Above and below) “The Echo of Picasso” exhibition curated by Éric Troncy had delightful moments such as the above pairing of Louise Bourgeois’ “Woman in a Shape of a Shuttle” (1947–49) and a 1928 ”Couple of the Seaside” by Picasso, and great works such as Francis Bacon's “Portrait of Michel Leiris” by and a Philip Guston drawing. Yet, on the ground floor, the gear changes (for the worse) starting with an overhang display of sculptures and paintings by (all by men) Markus Lüpertz, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Rashid Johnson, Markus Jahmal, Miquel Barceló, Georg Baselitz and the puzzling inclusion of a “Downton Abbey” (2022) family portrait by Genevieve Figgis.
25 October 2023: Launch at Onomatopee, Amsterdam, of the publication “Sketches of Transition. An Atlas on Growth and Decay”, edited by Italian-born, Amsterdam-based artist Michele Bazzoli. The book includes a reprint of Latitudes’ text on Lara Almarcegui’s project “Graves” originally commissioned to accompany Almarcegui's solo exhibition at Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida, curated by Cèlia del Diego and on view between February and June 2021. More here.
Reprint scans courtesy of Michele Bazzoli.
27 October 2023: Max Andrews’ review “Celebrating Five Decades of the Picasso-Industrial Complex” goes live on frieze website. The review focuses on the two concurrent shows at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Museo Picasso Málaga appraising the artist’s legacy, although taking a troubling tour through an ethical minefield.
“What else is there to know about Pablo Picasso 50 years after his death? Something, evidently. With the support of the French and Spanish governments, the Musée Picasso–Paris and the artist’s grandson and heir, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, are marking the anniversary with a programme of some 50 exhibitions and events worldwide. ‘Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body’ at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and ‘The Echo of Picasso’ at the Museo Picasso Málaga are two of the more prominent exhibitions of this “Picasso Celebration 1973–2023” series. But what exactly is being celebrated?” Continue reading
11 November 2023: Visual artist Laia Ventayol presented in Palma, Mallorca, a lecture on Eulàlia Rovira’s video “A knot which is not” (2020-21) in the framework of the LXVIII Anglo-Catalan Society Conference at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. Rovira’s video was commissioned for the exhibition “Things Things Say” (October 2020-January 2021 – watch the trailer with the artist as the narrator of the exhibition) at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, and was premièred online once the exhibition ended, and the exhibition spaces were once again empty.
Read more here (in Spanish).
Photo: @laia_ventayol
20 November 2023: Heath Lowndes, Managing Director and co-founder of Gallery Climate Coalition, gives a short presentation of GCC during his participation in the “II Jornadas de Instituciones Artísticas y Sostenibilidad”, organised by Fundació MACBA in Madrid. During his presentation, Lowndes talked about the (so far) six International Chapters, one of which (GCC Spain) we have the pleasure of being part of. On Heath’s long train journey from London to and back from Madrid, he stopped over in Barcelona where we had the chance to finally meet in person. Fundació MACBA’s Jornadas continued on November 20 in Barcelona.
Photo: @max.andrews
Photo: mlopezambrana
Photo: @galerialuciamendoza
24–28 November 2023: Trip to Madrid to see some shows at Fundación March, Fundación Mapfre, Museo Reina Sofía, La Casa Encendida, Museo Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, CentroCentro, Sala Alcalá 31, Museo Nacional del Prado and TBA21, as well as in commercial galleries such as NoguerasBlanchard, Travesía Cuatro, Galería Ehrhardt Flórez, Elba Benítez, Mira1 and Maisterravalbuena. One of the highlights was attending the preview of the long-awaited solo show of Ibon Aranberri at the Museo Reina Sofía, titled “Vista Parcial” (Partial view) which featured as our December 2023 cover story.
Press presentation of Ibon Aranberri’s exhibition (with microphone).
Aranberri and (back) Bea Herráez (curator of the exhibition with Manuel B. Villel, and director of ARTIUM, Vitoria).
16 January 2024: First general assembly of GCC Spain members and non-members to present the activities carried out by the Committee in 2023 and forthcoming plans for 2024, resolved questions about membership and carbon reporting.
16 February 2024: Exhibition preview & publication launch of “Betwixt 2024”, an exhibition and book showcasing the work of 20 emerging artistic practices from Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Sheffield taking place across four sites in central and north London between 17–23 February 2024. One of the participants is the artist, writer, and researcher Crystal Bennes. Latitudes wrote the text on her latest work “O (Copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)” (2024) for the publication accompanying this Freelands Foundation initiative.
On 16 March 2024, following the London presentation, Bennes participated in a group show at Talbot Rice Gallery, the public art gallery of the University of Edinburgh, in a survey featuring ten Scotland-based artists from the last two cohorts of the Freelands Artist Programme, the nationwide initiative launched in 2018 that has supported 80 artists across the UK. Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and live performance, Bennes’ new project addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton.
Betwixt 2024. Courtesy Freelands Foundation.
(Above and two below) Installation view of Crystal Bennes’s “O (copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)”, 2024. Including a bespoke table, conservation boxes, constructed archive, Financial Times pink paint and divination robe – with scheduled performances. Three photos by Sally Jubb, courtesy of the artist and Talbot Rice Gallery.
Walls in pavilions 7 and 9 of ARCOmadrid.
21 March 2024: Starting today and until April 14, the Fundación Díaz-Caneja is screening Jan Dibbets’ film “6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective” (2009). The Fundación is a contemporary art museum in Palencia dedicated to landscape, the environment and rurality.
9 April 2024: We are pleased to be on the second cohort of 125 Active Members announced by Gallery Climate Coalition. As part of Latitudes’ ongoing environmental commitment, and as Committee members of GCC Spain, we submitted our individual 2023 carbon footprint calculations to Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) to renew our status for the second year running. We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 “Climate Action”, as well as the Paris Agreement to reduce global carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and as custodians of the Reduce Art Flights website, a campaign devised by artist Gustav Metzger in 2007.
The production of the 8-minute-long film was the inaugural project of Portscapes, a series of commissions taking place throughout 2009 in and around Maasvlakte 2, the 2,000-hectare expansion of the Port of Rotterdam. The film premiered at the FutureLand information centre of the Port of Rotterdam in June 2009 and during Latitudes’ participation in the New York festival No Soul For Sale – A Festival of Independents (24–28 June 2009). Portscapes was produced by the Port of Rotterdam Authority in collaboration with the sadly now-defunct internationally operating Dutch cultural organisation SKOR | Foundation Art and Public Space (1999–2012).
23 March 2024: Three-hour online session for the third module on “The Curatorial Imagination”, part of the postgraduate diploma on EXHIBITIONS. Curatorship, Design and Spaces, a course organised by EINA Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona, and led by Manuel Cirauqui, director of EINAidea.
9 April 2024: We are pleased to be on the second cohort of 125 Active Members announced by Gallery Climate Coalition. As part of Latitudes’ ongoing environmental commitment, and as Committee members of GCC Spain, we submitted our individual 2023 carbon footprint calculations to Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) to renew our status for the second year running. We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 “Climate Action”, as well as the Paris Agreement to reduce global carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and as custodians of the Reduce Art Flights website, a campaign devised by artist Gustav Metzger in 2007.
Latitudes’ carbon emissions were 17.4tCo2e (2019), 3.8tCo2e (2022), and 1.5tCo2e (2023). We reduced our emissions by 78% in the first year of the calculations, and over 60% in the second year. The calculation of our carbon footprint considers emissions across various work-related activities: travel (train, air, coach, taxi, car, and ferry), hotel accommodation, and energy consumption (water usage in 2019 and 2022, and gas usage from 2023 onwards). We use the GCC Carbon Calculator (primary calculator) and DEFRA conversion factors to ensure consistent and accurate reporting.
Our 2024 Strategic Climate Fund is €75 (calculated at €50 per tonne emitted in 2023). We set these funds aside to spend on low-carbon purchasing options that would otherwise be unaffordable.
April 2024: Max contributed artwork descriptions and other texts alongside Sofia Lemos, for the publication “Meandering: Art, Ecology, and Metaphysics”, edited by Lemos and copublished by TBA21–Academy and Sternberg Press. The book is part of the namesake art and ecology research programme curated by Lemos at TBA21–Academy “exploring social and environmental justice through the lens of community-oriented practice, presenting a case for the role of artistic research and public programs in revealing our interbeing and shaping new convergences between interdisciplinary and interfaith studies.”
10 April 2024: Max was commissioned to contribute a text for Secundino Hernández’s catalogue published by This Side Up as part of accompanying his solo exhibition “Problematic Corners”, at Victoria Miro Gallery opening today in London, and on view until 18 May 2024. The gallery is also an Active Member of the Gallery Climate Coalition.
Titled “The Problematic Corners in Question? Or, Fleeing Forward?”, the essay ends “Let’s end with a question? Would it be problematic to conclude that each series of paintings is a way of going beyond your duty as an artist? In other words, are you not keenly aware of wanting to do more than is strictly necessary when something else would still be acceptable? Precisely not cutting corners, then? A method of fuga hacia adelante, fleeing forward? Painting in other words?”
Secundino Hernández's work “Myrtle Beach” (2024), acrylic, vinylic emulsion and dye-transfer print on canvas, 370 x 278cm) in his studio in Madrid.
10 April 2024: Launch of the report “Radiography of the Profession of Art Criticism and Curating” at the Fundació Miró. The study analyses the professional, economic and social conditions under which Catalunya-based Art Critics and Curators work, and was promoted by the National Council for Culture and Arts (CONCA). The study was supported by an independent expert committee formed by representatives of several organisations and profiles such as ACCA (the Catalan Art Criticism Association, amongst them Mariana of Latitudes who joined as a member last year), the Platform of Catalan Artists (PAAC), and the Association of Cultural Management Professionals of Catalunya (APGCC).
The report can be downloaded here (pdf, 71 pages, in Catalan), and the recording of the event here (in Catalan).
25–27 April 2024: Trip to Bilbao to visit Jorge Satorre's studio and to continue preparations for his solo exhibition at Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), scheduled for February 2025. We had the chance to see exhibitions by Armando Andrade Tudela at CarrerasMugica, June Crespo and Giovanni Anselmo at the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao, as well as the wonderful rooms of the Museo de Bellas Artes filled with Sergio Prego’s pneumatic sculptures. From there we take an hour-long bus to attend the double opening of Ibon Aranberri and Patricia Dauder at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del País Vasco-Artium Museoa in Vitoria-Gasteiz. Max will review Aranberri’s “Entresaka” for frieze magazine.
Read the review here.
(Above and below) Sergio Prego at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao.
(Above and below) June Crespo’s solo exhibition “Vascular”, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao.
(Above) Armando Andrade Tudela at galería CarrerasMugica, Bilbao.
(Above and below) View of Ibon Aranberri’s Entresaka, ARTIUM Museoa, Vitoria.
(Above and below) View of Patricia Dauder “Unform”, ARTIUM Museoa, Vitoria.
A much-needed Spritz and cicchetti after long art days.
6 May 2024: Mariana concludes her involvement as a member of the 2024 Acquisition Committee of the Col·lecció Nacional d'Art Contemporani of the Government of Catalunya. This year’s acquisition fund rose to €850,000 (from €599.399,51 in 2023). Once the Committee selects the artworks, they undergo review by a qualification board. From there, they proceed through legal departments for draft contracting, finance, and shipping for their final journey to museums around the region. This process spans the entire year.
A press conference in early 2025 will announce the 2024 acquisitions—including works of contemporary art, photography, cultural artefacts, comics and illustration, postwar art, and the second avant-garde—publicly. Behind this forthcoming announcement are long days reviewing the 434 applications received, followed by 8 online sessions lasting 3 to 4 hours each debating proposals alongside the members of this year’s Committee.
30 May 2024: Private screening of the documentary “Artefacto 71 –¿Qué hace un artista?” (What does an artist do?), directed by Argentinian-born, Mataró-based artist Carlos Essmann. The film synopsis states “One thing is clear: the contemporary artist can dispense with his or her manual skills and give as much or more importance to intellectual work than to the artistic object. So what does an artist do? Artefacto 71 attempts to answer this question by reviewing the activity of a working-class artist like the Catalan Martí Anson, establishing a dialogue between artist and filmmaker as equals.”
The film includes footage of “Mataró Chauffeur Service” (2010), a project Latitudes with the artist in the context of their participation in the “NO SOUL FOR SALE–A festival of independents” organised in the context of Tate Modern’s 10th-anniversary. In response to the need to travel to London, Martí Anson set up the Mataró Chauffeur Service company in honour of his hometown and drove the curators from Barcelona to London and back. Designing the livery of the single-vehicle fleet, his uniform, and the journey to Tate Modern and back (including the ferry journey from Santander to Portsmouth) all formed a part of the project. The car formed the basis of Latitudes’ temporary office encampment in Tate's Turbine Hall and was parked up for the weekend alongside a picnic scenario of camping chairs, a folding table, and a parasol as well as a slideshow of images of the journey. The car interior became a comfortable space to watch films and “making of” videos produced as part of ‘Portscapes’, the Latitudes-curated commissions series produced for the Port of Rotterdam in the context of Maasvlakte 2: a five-year construction of 2,000 hectares of new land in the North Sea, which extended by 20% the largest seaport and industrial area in Europe.
“Artefacto 71 –¿Qué hace un artista?” was selected to participate in the Official Competition Documentary Section at the 27th Malaga Festival, where it had its world premiere, and won the Biznaga de Plata Ex aequo for Best Director.
Watch a trailer of the doc here.
The artist and the curators on their way to Tate Modern, May 2010.
The car was parked on the bridge of Tate Modern in May 2010. Below is a screening of the commissioned films and making of videos produced for “Portscapes” (2009-10).
(Above and two below) Views of Turbine Hall. Photos: Tom Medwell/NSFS.
3 June 2024: Max Andrews’ first contribution to Artforum magazine is out. It reviews “Refugia”, the first solo exhibition of Rosa Tharrats at Bombon Projects in Barcelona, which opened on March 20.
Read the review here.
View of Rosa Tharrats exhibition “Refugia” at Bombon Projects.
June 2024: 20 years of Max contributing to frieze magazine! Max’s first review featured an exhibition of Danish artist Jesper Just at Midway Contemporary, written while he was living in Minneapolis as a Curatorial Intern at the Walker Art Center.
@andrewbirk
27 June 2024: Premiere of “Pass Me, For I Am Strange”, a short film by Askeaton Contemporary Arts’ long-term collaborator Michael Holly, presented during ACA’s yearly festival “Welcome to the Neighbourhood” curated by Michele Horrigan – in which we participated back in 2018.
The film “engages with myths and histories associated with the Franciscan Friary, one of the most extensive sites of its kind in Ireland. Holly’s film listens closely to points of view from characters embedded in the very stonework of the friary, including Fitzgerald, one of its reputed founders; Don Martínez de Mendoza, a repentant Catalonian nobleman who took shelter there, and a now faceless stone carving of Saint Francis. Considering the interpretation of Askeaton’s medieval heritage as an experiment in time and space, “Pass Me, For I Am Strange” is developed collaboratively through research, dialogue and contributions by and with fellow artists Niamh Moriarty, Ruth Clinton, Carl Doran, Eulàlia Rovira and historian Anthony Sheehy, in association with “The Pilgrim”, a residency programme developed between Askeaton Contemporary Arts and Latitudes, Barcelona.” (Text from Askeaton's website)
Listen to Carl Doran’s audio narration of “The Pilgrim” from an article published in Askeaton-Balysteen Community News, Summer 1984.
Watch the short film here.
Reading the pilgrim inscription while shooting the film.
2 July 2024: We received a copy of the latest book by our former RCA tutor, Dr Claire Bishop, titled “Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today” (Verso Books, 2024). It includes a photograph we took in 2010 of Wolfgang Tillmans’ work “Truth Study Center” (2005–) 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. 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.
More on this here.
Looking forward
In the Autumn of 2023, Lisa LeFeuvre, Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, invited Latitudes to contribute to the foundation's Scholarly Text Program, writing on one artwork by Nancy Holt and/or Robert Smithson. The works written about range from landmark earthworks and texts to lesser-known drawings, moving image works, and rarely-seen two-dimensional works. Max decided to write on Robert Smithson’s text “Aerial Art” (Studio International, February—April 1969), and Mariana on Nancy Holt's “Ventilation Systems” (1985–1992). The essays will be published on the Foundation's website in October and November 2024 and include images, a short bibliography, endnotes pointing to the author’s references and an ISBN.
And some further announcements in the autumn!
RELATED CONTENT:
- Latitudes’ writing – reviews, profiles, interviews, essays, features, and opinions.
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2022–23 season, 25 July 2023
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2021–22 season, 1 August 2022
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2020–21 season, 2 August 2021
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2019–20 season, 3 August 2020
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2018–19 season, 1 August 2019
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2017–18 season, 2 August 2018
- Latitudes "out of office" 2016–17 season, 1 August 2017
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2015–16 season, 1 August 2016
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2014–15 season, 7 August 2015
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2013–14 season, 31 July 2014
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2012–13 season, 31 July 2013
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2011–12 season, 31 July 2012
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2010–11 season, 1 August 2011
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2009–10 season, 30 July 2010
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2008–9 season, 30 July 2009
Text on Crystal Bennes in the “Betwixt 2024” published by the Freelands Foundation
Mon, Feb 19 2024
(Above and below) Betwixt 2024 publication. Photos by Andy Stagg, Courtesy of the Freelands Foundation.
In February 2023, Latitudes was commissioned to write a text on the artistic practice of Crystal Bennes for “Betwixt 2024”, a publication produced by the Freelands Foundation as part of their Freelands Artist Programme initiative supporting emerging artists across the UK since 2018.
The book has now launched, coinciding with the opening of an exhibition across four sites in central and north London between 17–23 February 2024, in which Bennes participates alongside 19 other artists based in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Sheffield.
For the occasion, Bennes presents “When Computers Were Women” (2021), a project on the connections between the histories of computational and weaving technology, that stemmed from a residency at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) in 2018 when she was struck by the formal similarities of the computer programming punchcards she saw in a cabinet and an older form of data-processing technology: the punch cards used to control the rods and hooks that raise the warp threads of looms fitted with Jacquard devices.The artists featured in the “Betwixt 2024” publication are Adebola Oyekanmi, Adele Vye, Alaya Ang, Beau W. Beakhouse, Christopher Steenson, Crystal Bennes, Dorothy Hunter, Gail Howard, Jacqueline Holt, Kedisha Coakley, Kirsty Russell, Maria de Lima, Phoebe Davies, Rian Treanor, Sadia Pineda Hameed, Susan Hughes, Tara McGinn, Theresa Bruno, Thulani Rachia, Tyler Mellins and Zara Mader.
Writers in the publication are Alice Bucknell, Beth Hughes, Candice Jacobs, Cindy Sissokho, Colette Griffin, Ingrid Lyons, Jamie Sutcliffe, Jenny Richards, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Lara Eggleton, Lucy A. Sames, Maria Howard, Mariana Cánepa Luna, Mark Peter Wright, Max Andrews, Precious Adesina, Rosalie Doubal, Sunshine Wong, Susannah Dickey, Theo Reeves-Evison and Zakiya McKenzie.
Published in 2024, 370 pages. Designed by Kristin Metho.
Available for £15 (plus shipping) here.
(Above and below) Crystal Bennes, “When Computers Were Women” (2021). Courtesy of the artist.
A month later, on March 16, 2024, Bennes will present her new project “O (Copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)” (2023) at Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh, culminating her two-year residency there and at the Edinburgh College of Art on the Freelands Artist Programme. Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and performance, her project addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton.
Latitudes’ text will also be available on the Talbot Rice Gallery website and in the gallery booklets for £2 at the venue.
Crystal Bennes, Fragment from “O (Copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)”, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
A Classicist with a PhD from King’s College London, Dr Crystal Bennes previously worked in the U.S. Senate, and as an architecture and design journalist before retraining as an artist. She studied for an MFA at Aalto University, Helsinki, and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and obtained a practice-based PhD at Northumbria University, Newcastle.
Her practice is grounded in long-term projects that foreground archival research, durational fieldwork, and material experimentation. Recent bodies of work include an ongoing photographic exploration of an artificial island in Sweden created entirely out of radioactive waste from industrially-produced synthetic fertiliser and the experimental recreation of a nineteenth-century hay meadow based on a myth of unintentional plant migration from Italy to Denmark.
Recent exhibitions include Platform: Early Career Artist Award, Edinburgh Art Festival (2023); Flora Italica, Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen (2023); Mauvaise Herbes, Centre Photographique d’Ile-de-France; No Island is an Island, Landskrona Foto International Festival; and Hermes and the Veil, Gallery North, Newcastle (all 2021).
Klara and the Bomb (2022) her first photobook—charting connecting threads between the U.S.’s nuclear weapons research, women programmers, the invention of modern computers, and nuclear colonialism—was published by The Eriskay Connection in 2022, and it was shortlisted for the Photo Text Book Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2023.
Between 2022 and 2024 she was a resident at Talbot Rice Gallery as part of a Freelands Foundation Artists programme. Together with Tom Jeffreys, she is the editor of The Peninent Review.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Latitudes’ writing since 2005.
- Text on Lara Almarcegui’s Graves (2021) in “Sketches of Transition. An Atlas on Growth and Decay” edited by Michele Bazzoli, 27 Oct 2023
- Text on Crystal Bennes for the Freelands Foundation Artists programme, 31 May 2023
- Latitudes’ essay “Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro” [Soil for Future Art Histories] in TBA21’s catalogue “Futuros Abundantes”, 22 Jan 2023
- Max Andrews reviews Bruno Zhu’s exhibition “I am not afraid”, Cordova, Barcelona, 30 Mar 2022
- Nueva publicación: “Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ulls” (MACBA, 2022), 2 Mar 2022
- New publication: “Things Things Say” now available, 28 Feb 2022
2023 in 11 cover stories
Fri, Dec 29 2023Since Spring 2015 we have been publishing a monthly cover story on our homepage (www.lttds.org) featuring past, present, or forthcoming projects, as well as sharing our research, travel, or texts, featuring artworks, exhibitions, films, or objects related to our curatorial practice. Below are those published throughout 2023 (#90 to #100), which you can read again in this archive. See you in 2024!
Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ “Gerundi Circular”.
Cover Story, February 2023: Soil for Future Art Histories.
Cover Story, March 2023: Art, Climate and New Coalitions.
Cover Story, April 2023: Jerónimo Hagerman (1967–2023).
Cover Story, May 2023: Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty in Barcelona
Cover Story, June 2023: Crystal Bennes futures
Cover Story, July–August 2023: Honeymoon in Valencia.
Cover Story – September 2023: The Pilgrim in Ireland.
Cover Story – October 2023: A tree felled, a tree cut in 7
Cover Story – November 2023: ”Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara” by Daniel Steegmann Mangrané
And to close the year, Cover Story #100 – December 2023: Ibon Aranberri, Partial View
→ RELATED CONTENT:
- 2022 in 11 monthly Cover Stories, 27 Dec 2022
- 2021 in 11 monthly Cover Stories, 31 Dec 2021
- 2020 in 11 monthly Cover Stories, 28 Dec 2020
- 2019 in 10 monthly Cover Stories, 23 Dec 2019
Latitudes’ "out of office" 2022–23 season
Tue, Jul 25 2023
Sunset on our way to Mallorca aboard the Cecilia Payne ferry, 6 June 2023.
With the summer in full flow, and thoughts turning to holidays, we once more share a series of behind-the-scenes moments and encounters: trips, dinners, kind messages, postal surprises, follow-ups of artists we have worked with, and serendipitous situations that have happened in the background of our more visible curatorial practice seen on our website or in the Longitudes section. Plus some further notes and inspiration beyond our Instagrams – here and here.
Happy summer, apply and reapply sun protection!
September 2022: Between September and November, we mentored Matheus Calderón, winner of the first [ON RESIDENCE] residency, an online curatorial mentorship programme awarded to young Peruvian curators organised by TROPICAL PAPERS, and supported by Artus.
As one of the mentors, we embarked on six bi-monthly conversations focusing on what values are at stake today in our profession. Through sincere dialogue, we discussed the multiple realities of being an independent curator both in Lima and Barcelona, and we accompanied Matheus in shaping his approach to his forthcoming group exhibition project “El rodeo (el velo, la mancha o la grieta)” [working title]. Our conversations progressively became a space to share, pause and reflect during a time of ongoing political and societal tension in Lima in autumn 2022.
Introductory Zoom with Tropical Papers, Latitudes and Matheus on 31 August 2022.
13 September 2022: Received a copy of Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven’s catalogue “By The Sea. Land Art, Performance and Minimal Art” including photos Latitudes provided of Jan Dibbets’s “6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective” (2009).
19 September 2022: Final episode of “Incidents (of Travel)” with Jorge Satorre. By complete chance, this episode takes place on September 19, 2022, exactly ten years later to the day of the first tour commissioned for the first phase of Incidents (of Travel), a day Latitudes spent with Minerva Cuevas around Mexico City’s city centre on the 27th anniversary of the deadly 1985 earthquake.
Visiting the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco with Minerva Cuevas, the first of five “Incidents of Travel” itineraries around Mexico City, 19 September 2012. Photo: Eunice Adorno.
Episode #20 culminates Latitudes’ collaboration with KADIST, producers of 20 fantastic episodes published online between 2016 and 2022 as part of their programme of online projects.
The dispatch went live on October 26, 2022. Read here.
27 September 2022: Published “‘Minor’ Ornithologies. Laia Estruch”, a podcast hosted by Latitudes’ curator, writer (and lifelong birder) Max Andrews for TBA21 on st_age. Accompanying Laia Estruch’s performance project “Ocells Perduts V67” (2022) for TBA21 on st_age, the podcast takes flight into the realm of birds, looking at politics and practices that disrupt dominant historical narratives, and exceed scientific and cultural boundaries. It features Alex Holt, a spokesperson for Bird Names for Birds, a movement to decolonise bird names, and zoömusicologist Dr Hollis Taylor, who specialises in birdsong. Through their perspectives, we glimpse new and speculative kinds of human–bird narratives – “minor” ornithologies.
→ Listen here (34' 03'')
→ Transcript here
(📷 ↑↓) PUBLICS Youth with Irina Mutt during their workshop in Lammassaari, 3 August 2022. Photos: Micol Curatolo.
18 October 2022: Organised a casual networking dinner to mingle with local art professionals with a group visiting from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland. Organised by the Mondriaan Fund, the Orientation Trip 2022 took them this time to Portugal and Spain.
 |
| Foto: Haco de Ridder. |
21 October 2022: Post looking back at the first anniversary of MACBA exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, highlighting works by Antoni Hervàs, El Palomar, Claudia Pagès and Rosa Tharrats, four artists that participated in Panorama and whose shows in Frankfurt, Donostia and Marseille present work produced or derived from their MACBA presentation.
Installation view of “Akaal / Selene \ Uluru” (2021) in Bombon Projects’ stand in Art-O-Rama, Marseille, August 2022. Photos: © Aurélien Meimaris.
Antoni Hervàs, “Under the firelight, the ash shines like glitter”, 2021-2022, installation view Frankfurter Kunstverein 2022, Photo: Norbert Miguletz, ©Frankfurter Kunstverein, Courtesy: the artist.
El Palomar, Schreber is a Woman, 2020, installation view Frankfurter Kunstverein 2022, Photo: Norbert Miguletz, ©Frankfurter Kunstverein, Courtesy: the artists.
Still from the video interview with Claudia Pagès about her video work “Gerundi Circular” (2021) (in Spanish with Basque subtitles).
26 October 2022: New and concluding dispatch of Incidents (of Travel) led by Jorge Satorre in Barcelona, narrated by Latitudes, creators and editors of the project since 2012. This is the 20th episode published by Kadist as part of their online programme since 2016 and also marks the 10th anniversary of the project.
Below are some photos that, for one reason or another, didn't make it to the final selection of 31 images.
Small bus del barri [neighbourhood bus] route # 111 around Vallvidrera.
Analysing footprints.
(Above and below) From the Curator’s Commentary: “(...) We’re here to see what is, after the Collserola Stone, the only other known megalith in Barcelona: the Pedralbes Menhir. The builders of the monastery in the fourteenth century respected the powers of this standing stone to such a degree that they not only preserved it but constructed a gateway in the perimeter wall around it. The bulk of the stone lurks below the paved surface like a lithic iceberg, its obstinate presence in a doorway from the middle ages a kind of rude protuberance of prehistory and geologic time into a continuous present.”
Jorge admires the Egyptian-inspired pantheon of the cotton industrialists Batlló family.
28 October 2022: A surprise message from Tara McDowell sharing that after 2 years, Nino Kvrivishvili and her were finally able to meet in person in Tbilisi, Georgia! Together they followed their itinerary around the city’s former silk industry commissioned for the Incidents (of Travel) series (episode 12). Due to the pandemic, Tara’s plans to travel from Melbourne to Tbilisi had to be cancelled, so Nino “in an act of radical Georgian hospitality” – as Tara wrote in her curator’s commentary – shared her itinerary with Tara via a WhatsApp call.
In a wonderful turn of events, during their IRL meeting, Nino opened a small pop-up exhibition at Aleksandre Utmazyan's textile shop, one of the locations that appeared on Nino’s itinerary, an event that counted with the surprise visit of Georgian President, Salomé Zurabishvili.
Tara McDowell and Nino Kvrivishvili. Photo courtesy of these and three below by Tara McDowell.
View of Nino Kvrivishvili’s pop-up exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17, Tbilisi.
Curator Data Chigholashvili in Nino Kvrivishvili’s exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17 in Tbilisi.
Opening of Nino Kvrivishvili’s exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17 in Tbilisi. Left to right: Nino Kvrivishvili (artist), Salome Zourabichvili (President of Georgia), Aleksandre Utmazyan (the shop owner) and Data Chigholashvili (curator).
Nino and Data participated in Haus der Kulturen Welt’s programme “They Are There, Sometimes” where Nino presented her Incidents itinerary around Tbilisi (video from min 36:09).
18 November 2022: Claudia Pagès is awarded Radio Nacional de España’s Premio El Ojo Crítico de Artes Visuales 2022 for “her ability to turn words and language into an artistic tool in every possible form, a vehicle for a political message that is not afraid of confrontation and places the individual and collective body at the centre of her creative practice”.
As highlighted in this post, in 2021 Claudia presented her video installation “Gerundi Circular” at the Latitudes-curated exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” commissioned for MACBA’s exhibition and produced with the support of ELAMOR.
Those in the curatorial business will understand that besides enjoying the art side, our analytical eyes are peeled, taking mental and photographic notes on how things are practically put together. This goes from looking at how temporary walls are built, how AV equipment is hidden, types of vitrines, how clear signage is, and of course often taking in some curious exhibition labels and poorly displayed art. Here are some random photos that only make sense for research or reference purposes. Going very meta now, behind the behind-the-scenes...
28 November 2022: First online introduction of “The Pilgrim” team, a project Latitudes curates in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary Art in Co. Limerick, southwest Ireland, and involving Barcelona-based artist Eulàlia Rovira, and Sligo-and-Leitrim-based Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty. To be continued...
29 November 2022: DART Festival awardees announced: Premio Laie DART 2022 a la Mejor Dirección (Laie DART 2022 Award to the Best Direction): “J’ai retrouvé Christian B.” (France, 2020) directed by Alain Fleischer. The documentary is an intimate portrait tracing the relationship between two contemporary creators, the artist Christian Boltanski and the filmmaker Alain Fleischer, who shared a friendship that lasted half a century.
Premio Laie DART 2022 de la Crítica (Laie DART 2022 Critics Award): “The Melt Goes On Forever: The Art and Times of David Hammons” (EEUU, 2021). Directed by cultural journalist Judd Tully and filmmaker Harold Crooks, the documentary focuses on the elusive figure of African-American artist David Hammons, whose artistic practice spans six decades and foregrounds social criticism in the United States.
Screening at Cinemes Girona. Courtesy: DART Festival.
17 January 2023: Second Zoom of members affiliated with Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) based in Spain. In the following weeks, we organised a gathering during ARCOMadrid to explain GCC’s objectives to potential new members and meet with GCC’s volunteer groups in Berlin and Italy to hear their experiences of building a team.
1 February 2023: Newsletter out announcing our next research and residency project “The Pilgrim” in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary Art in Co. Limerick, Ireland, and involving the artists Eulàlia Rovira, Ruth Clinton, and Niamh Moriarty.
→ More details here.
Left to right: Eulàlia Rovira (photo: Aníbal Parada), Ruth Clinton (photo: Colm Keating) and Niamh Moriarty (photo: Cian Flynn).
22–24 February 2023: During ARCOmadrid we are jurors, alongside Markus Reymann (co-director TBA21), and Marta Cardoso, of the first Six Senses Sustainable Art Award given to an artist whose work honours an awareness around sustainability and environmental urgencies. We studied and discussed the work of more than 40 artists whose work is presented at the art fair and unanimously decided to award Zé Carlos Garcia (1973, Aracajú, BR) for his presentation at the stand of Buenos Aires’s gallery PASTO.
The jury stated: “We were intrigued to discover the practice of Zé Carlos García and to learn how his enchanting carved and turned wooden sculptures are embedded in such an inventive and resourceful approach to art, environmental responsibility, decolonial practice, and land restoration. The wood he uses comes from a small tract of a forest he oversees in Brazil where non-native trees such as pines and eucalyptus were once planted by Swiss settler colonists to give the landscape a more European feel. Over the centuries these thirsty species have had a detrimental effect on the indigenous ecosystem and Zé has been removing the invasive species over the last decade, repurposing the resultant wood as a resource for his art practice, while bringing back native trees to the Mata Atlántica.”
Zé Carlos Garcia holding the sign announcing his award (above) and the award (below). Photos ARCOmadrid 2023.
The catalogue “Futuros Abundantes / Abundant Futures”, accompanying the homonymous exhibition in Córdoba, was also launched during ARCOmadrid. The 336-page book includes Latitudes’ newly commissioned essay “Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro” [Soil for Future Art Histories] – read an abstract here (in Spanish).
(Above and below) Launch of Futuros Abundantes in ArtsLibris during ARCOmadrid 2023. Photos: IFEMA / ARCOmadrid.
“Futuros abundantes / Abundant Futures” catalogue, copublished by TBA21 and Turner, 2023. Photos: Enrico Fiorese.
After a few work sessions over Zoom, we attended the first IRL Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) gathering on February 22nd. This inaugurates the soft launch of the new formation of GCC Spain, a new national working group aligned with GCC’s core environmental targets and commitments.
GCC is an international membership non-for-profit organisation with over 800 members from 40 countries, providing environmental sustainability guidelines for the art sector, whose primary targets are to facilitate a reduction of the visual art sector’s greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 50% by 2030 (in line with the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming to below 1.5°C) and promote zero-waste practices. More info.
GCC Spain is a newly formed semi-autonomous volunteer team (joining working groups in Berlin, Italy, Los Angeles, London, and Taiwan) that works to develop a dedicated platform of environmental resources for Spanish-based art organisations and professionals.
Informative gathering about GCC Spain at ARCOmadrid on @galleryclimatecoalition. Photo: Max Andrews.
March 2023: As part of Latitudes’ ongoing environmental commitment, and as new members of the Gallery Climate Coalition, we publish the first edition of our Environmental Responsibility Statement on our website (extended version here) and submit individual calculations of our Carbon Footprint from 2019 (our baseline from which reductions will be made) and 2022 to the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC). Below is a simple graphic showing the comparison of the two years. Latitudes’ carbon emissions were 17.4tCo2e in 2019 and 3.8tCo2e in 2022.
Our 2023 Strategic Climate Fund is €190. This is calculated by multiplying our 2022 carbon footprint (3.8tCo2e emissions) by €50 per tonne. We set these funds aside to spend on low-carbon purchasing options that would otherwise be unaffordable.
beginning of May 2023: Checking out the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona (aka Casa de l'Ardiaca), the Cathedral and its cloister, MACBA, and more with “The Pilgrim” guest resident artists Niamh Moriarty and Ruth Clinton. Aptly, as their work has often been related to the Transatlantic relations between Ireland and the United States, their stay coincides with a visit of the Obamas (and Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks) to Barcelona to catch the beginning of Bruce Springsteen's tour.
Throughout the Spring, Latitudes researched documentation in the city archives with the hopes of finding evidence of Askeaton's Pilgrim, browsing certificates of docking in the Port of Barcelona, licences of the board of health, details of boat captain promotion, health patents, and plague-free certificates. With little to no factual data on Askeaton’s Pilgrim – besides his name (Don Martínez de Mendoza), his date of death (Askeaton, 1784), that he was a Barcelona merchant from the mid-18th Century who had a flagship called Isabella, and a daughter called Beatrice (¿Beatriz / Beatriu?) – we weren't able to find further evidence of his existence.
Giving Ruth and Niamh a “phantom tour” of the Panorama exhibition a year and a half after its closing. Here Eulàlia explains her work “La perla”.
6 May 2023: After a few initial days in Barcelona, “The Pilgrim” guest resident artists Niamh Moriarty and Ruth Clinton present their work around relics, rubbings, and translation, alongside “The Pilgrim” co-curators Askeaton Contemporary Arts (ACA) (Michele Horrigan and Sean Lynch) at Eulàlia Rovira’s studio. What began as a vermut+talk event extended into pizzas for lunch, afternoon beers, and rolled into dinner.
→ Social Networks archived here.
10 May 2023: Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes qualified to be in the first cohort of Active Members of the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC). To achieve this status we demonstrated that we have implemented environmental sustainability best practices in line with GCC’s guidelines.
→ More info.
→ Environmental Policy Statement here.
16–18 May 2023: Work trip to València to visit Antoni Miralda’s exhibition “Miralda. Honeymoon: Unclassified” at Bombas Gens, curated by its artistic director Sandra Guimarães. The show centres on his “Honeymoon Project” (1986-1992), a series of intercontinental ceremonial actions around the romance and subsequent marriage between two historical monuments: that of Christopher Columbus, in the port of Barcelona, and the Statue of Liberty, in New York Bay. Max of Latitudes will review it for frieze’s October issue (online in June).
(Above) The “Zapato Góndola” (1990–2023) was exhibited in Bombas Gens’ patio. It has been remade in fibreglass in València, taking advantage of its fallas craft expertise. The heel now is removable becoming a gondola, and it's lighter than the original one made of wood.
The exhibition mostly comprised of letters and ephemera gathered throughout the 40 years of the making of the project, from its presentation in the 1990 Spanish Pavilion to the many drafted letters, invitations, posters and drawings of potential ideas for floats, parades and even a prenup.
early June 2023: Submitted a profile text on America-born Scotland-based artist, researcher, writer, and educator Crystal Bennes’ new project to be exhibited at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, in February 2024. The text will be included in the forthcoming publication “Betwixt 2024”, the next iteration of publications of the Freelands Artist Programme. Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and performance, Bennes’ new project addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton.
Design study for a Jacquard weaving titled “pecunia non olete” (2023) featured on Latitudes’ homepage as the June 2023 cover story. Courtesy Crystal Bennes.
6–8 June 2023: Trip to Mallorca as guests of Art Palma Contemporani’s event Art Summer Palma. Honouring our environmental commitment, we travelled to the island and back by ferry as foot passengers. As the ferry dropped us in Alcúdia, we visited the nearby Pollença (galería Maior, Coster Art i Natura), and then took the bus to the Palma, paying a visit to Es Baluard before joining the official programme visiting the galleries Pep Llabrés, Xavier Fiol, Kewenig, M77, Aba Art Lab, Fran Reus, Baró, Pelaires, PGallery, L21 Home and L21 by foot.
(Above and three below) Views of Pollença from Coster Art in Natura, the artist-led initiative by pollensí Amador Magraner (third photo down) that began in 2022.
Works by Susana Solano and Eva Lootz (above and below).
Ludovica Carbotta ceramic oven in progress.
Amador showing us one of his sculptures “Germinacions” which began in the 1990s.
View of the collection reading curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio at Es Baluard.
Wonderful Maria Lai 1981 action “Legare Collegare” registered in video and photography on view at Es Baluard, Palma, and some more works in the M77 gallery, a new space in Palma of the Milan-based gallery.
Solo exhibition by Adrià Maryordomo (portrayed) at Galeria Fran Reus, Palma.
12 June 2023: The National Council for Culture and Arts (CONCA) plenary agreed to carry out a survey of Catalunya-based Art Critics and Curators, a tool to analyse the state of our profession from the economic, cultural, professional, and social points of view. An expert committee formed by representatives of ACCA, the Catalan Art Critics Association (amongst them Mariana of Latitudes, who recently became an ACCA member), the Platform of Catalan Artists (PAAC), and the Association of Cultural Management Professionals of Catalunya (APGCC) gathered at Palau Moja to share their feedback to create the most comprehensive possible survey, the results of which are aimed to be completed at the end of 2023.
Photo: Miquel-Àngel Codes Luna / ACCA.
19 June 2023: Zoom launch of GCC Spain, the Spanish chapter of the Gallery Climate Coalition. The event was an opportunity to introduce the London-based founders to Spanish professionals and explain the current and future challenges the Spanish volunteer team is taking on.
→ Watch the video here (40 min.)
→ Read the press release (in Spanish)
27 June 2023: Attending Joan Morey’s performance “POSTMORTEM. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu” (2006–2007) at Fundació Palau as part of the Poesia + festival. Performed by Sònia López, the piece was the first of a cycle of performances presented as part of Morey’s solo show curated by Latitudes at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona in 2018.
A better photo of the 2018 performance below.
Joan Morey, “POSTMORTEM. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu” (2006-2007). Performance reenactment as part of the exhibition “COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine”, Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona - Fabra i Coats (2018). Photo: Noemi Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.
28 June 2023: Visit TERSA, the publicly-owned company that manages Barcelona's Metropolitan Area waste management, transforming residues into energy by incineration (this waste-to-energy plant generated 142.013 MWh of electricity in 2022). We go around the Integrated Waste Management Plant (PIVR) at Sant Adrià del Besòs, which includes the Waste-to-Energy Plant and the Mechanical-Biological Treatment Plant, managed by Ecoparc del Mediterrani. This location processes what citizens throw into the grey containers – the remaining waste that cannot be reused or recycled (not paper, glass, plastic, or organic matter), whose process generates twice what's needed to supply the electricity grid of the city. The visit was organised as part of the public programme of the exhibition “Ciutat de sorra” [City of sand] by David Bestué at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani.
29 June 2023: Max Andrews’ review of Antoni Miralda’s exhibition at Bombas Gens (València) is published online on frieze.com (on print in the October 2023 issue).
“A giant high-heeled shoe with Venetian gondola trimmings stands in the courtyard of Bombas Gens Centre d’Art like a monument to fairy-tale slippers. Yet, this is a true-to-size stiletto, made to fit a 93-metre-tall debutante who stands in New York’s harbour: the Statue of Liberty. Created in 1990 by Antoni Miralda as a wedding gift for Liberty’s proposed symbolic marriage to another monument of similar vintage, the Columbus Monument in Barcelona, the original shoe was taken down the Grand Canal before forming the centrepiece of the artist’s Spanish Pavilion at that year’s Venice Biennale. This replica, fabricated by a Valencian fallero craftsman, is destined for the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid.”
→ Continue reading here.
July 2023: Further schedule and reading prep for our end-of-August research trip to Dublin, Sligo, Askeaton, and Limerick, the second part of The Pilgrim residency exchange.
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- Latitudes’ writing – exhibition reviews, artist profiles, interviews, catalogue essays, features, and opinions.
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2021–22 season, 1 August 2022
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2020–21 season, 2 August 2021
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2019–20 season, 3 August 2020
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2018–19 season, 1 August 2019
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Cover Story, June 2023: Crystal Bennes futures
Thu, Jun 1 2023
Crystal Bennes’ working designs for the giant tapestry pecunia non olet. June 2023 cover story on www.lttds.org
The June 2023 monthly Cover Story “Crystal Bennes futures” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org
“Earlier this year, Latitudes was commissioned to write a text on the work of the America-born Scotland-based artist, researcher, writer and educator Crystal Bennes for the latest edition of the Freelands Artist Programme. ”
→ Continue reading (after June 2023 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 projects and activities.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
- Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
- Cover Story, May 2023: Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty in Barcelona, 1 May 2023
- Cover Story, April 2023: Jerónimo Hagerman (1967–2023), 1 Apr 2023
- Cover Story, March 2023: Art, Climate and New Coalitions, 1 March 2023
- Cover Story, February 2023: Soil for Future Art Histories, 2 Feb 2023
- Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ ‘Gerundi Circular’, 2 Jan 2023
- Cover Story, December 2022: “The Melt Goes On Forever. David Hammons and DART Festival, 1 December 2022
- Cover Story, November 2022: Jorge Satorre’s Barcelona, 1 Nov 2022
- Cover Story, October 2022: Stray Ornithologies—Laia Estruch, 3 Oct 2022
- Cover Story, September 2021: Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre, 31 August 2021
- Cover Story, July–August 2022: Incidents (of Travel) from Seoul, 1 July 2022
- Cover Story, June 2022: Cyber-Eco-Feminist Incidents in Attica, 1 June 2022
Profile on Crystal Bennes for the Freelands Foundation Artists programme
Wed, May 31 2023
Detail of Crystal Bennes’ Jacquard piece in progress, 2023. Produced in the context of the Freelands Artist Programme. Courtesy of the artist.
In February 2023, Latitudes was commissioned to write a text on the artistic practice of Crystal Bennes. “Betwixt 2024”, the next iteration of publications of the Freelands Artist Programme, will be out in February 2024, coinciding with an exhibition of Bennes’ work alongside 19 other artists based in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Sheffield.
Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and performance, Bennes’ new project will be exhibited at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, in March 2024. It addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton.
The Freelands Artist Programme supports and grows regional arts ecosystems by fostering long-term relationships and collaborations between emerging artists and arts organisations around the UK. Between 2022–24, Freelands is working with four organisations – g39 in Cardiff, PS2 in Belfast, Site Gallery in Sheffield, and Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh. Over the two years, each of these venues is supporting a cohort of five artists to take part each year – each artist participating in the programme receives an annual grant of £5k, as well as the opportunity to take part in talks, workshops and other programmed events and a budget for travel, additionally, some organisations offer studio space and/or exhibitions.
(Above and below) Stills from Crystal Bennes’ film that will accompany her forthcoming work produced in the context of the Freelands Artist Programme (2023). Courtesy of the artist.
Dr Crystal Bennes is an American artist, researcher, writer, and educator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her practice is grounded in long-term projects that foreground archival research, durational fieldwork, and material experimentation. Recent bodies of work include an ongoing photographic exploration of an artificial island in Sweden created entirely out of radioactive waste from industrially-produced synthetic fertiliser and the experimental recreation of a nineteenth-century hay meadow based on a myth of unintentional plant migration from Italy to Denmark.
Klara and the Bomb, her first photobook—charting connecting threads between the U.S.’s nuclear weapons research, women programmers, the invention of modern computers, and nuclear colonialism—was published by The Eriskay Connection in 2022. She recently completed an AHRC-funded practice-based PhD in fine art at Northumbria University researching the histories and uses of gendered representations of nature in the sciences and exploring feminist critiques of physics. Between 2022 and 2024 she is a resident at Talbot Rice Gallery as part of a Freelands Foundation Artists programme. Together with Tom Jeffreys, she edits The Peninent Review.
Detail of Crystal Bennes’ Jacquard piece in progress, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Freelands Foundation is a London-based non-profit organisation set up in 2015 by Elisabeth Murdoch, supporting UK-based artistic practice through residencies, workshops, screenings, and resources for teachers and educators; an annual Freelands Award to an organisation championing mid-career women artists.
Title: “Betwixt 2024”
Publisher: Freelands Foundation
Release date: February 2024
Writers: include Precious Adesina, Alice Bucknell, Susannah Dickey, Rosalie Doubal, Lara Eggleton, Colette Griffin, Maria Howard, Beth Hughes, Latitudes, Ingrid Lyons, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Zakiya McKenzie, Theo Reeves-Evison, Jenny Richards, Lucy A. Sames, Cindy Sissokho, Jamie Sutcliffe, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Sunshine Wong, and Mark Peter Wright.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Latitudes’ writing since 2005.
- Latitudes’ essay “Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro” [Soil for Future Art Histories] in TBA21’s catalogue “Futuros Abundantes”, 22 Jan 2023
- Nueva publicación: “Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ulls” (MACBA, 2022), 2 Mar 2022
- New publication: “Things Things Say” now available, 28 Feb 2022
- Mariana Cánepa Luna’s Amsterdam Roundup for art-agenda, 17 December 2019
- Max Andrews’ Valencia Feature in frieze magazine, November-December 2019, 2 November 2019
- Max Andrews’ text for Rasmus Nilausen's solo exhibition ‘Bluetooth’ at Copenhagen's Overgaden, 16 September 2019
- “Thinking like a drainage basin” essay in the catalogue of the exhibition “Lara Almarcegui. Béton”, 8 April 2019