LONGITUDES

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

30% off Latitudes' tote bag limited editions

Fri, Dec 2 2016

In Spring 2015 Latitudes launched a limited edition of tote bags to mark its 10th anniversary. These four specially commissioned silkscreened tote bags feature designs by four artists with whom Latitudes has collaborated over the past decade: Lawrence Weiner (New York, 1942), Haegue Yang (Seoul, 1971), Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958) and Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, 1975).

We are now offering a 30% discount, a special sale price of 35 Euros per tote (+shipping) valid throughout December 2016 (usually €50 + shipping).

Edition: 35 + 5 A.P. (Haegue Yang's tote is ed. 20 + 10 AP)
Measurements: 38 high × 40 width × 14 base (in cm)
Fabric: 475 gsm natural chlorine-free cotton canvas
Strap: Adjustable Capacity: 15 litres
Weight: 420 gr aprox.

Each bag is made from natural durable cotton canvas with a reinforced base. They feature a press-stud closure, an internal pocket with a zip (never loose your keys again!), an adjustable shoulder strap, as well as smaller handles for carrying like a briefcase.

Each bag have been hand silkscreened in Print Workers, Barcelona; this is an artisanal process and each printing results in slight variations.

Place your order(s) from our website. Here some nice pics of our happy customers with their totes:

Related content:

Latitudes' 4th anniversary (April 2009)
Newsletter #22 – April 2010
It's our 10th anniversary! (22 May 2015)
Latitudes' Limited Edition Totes

#Latitudes10Years, 10th anniversary, 2015, 2016, haegue yang, Ignasi Aballí, Lawrence Weiner, Mariana Castillo Deball, Tote Bags

Latitudes' limited edition tote bags presented in the Asia Art Archive's exhibition "A short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)"

Mon, Aug 24 2015

We are delighted that from August 24 (and until October 24), Latitudes' limited edition tote bags by Lawrence Weiner, Haegue Yang, Ignasi Aballí and Mariana Castillo Deball, will be presented in Hong Kong as part of Asia Art Archive (AAA)'s exhibition 15th anniversary programme "15 Invitations | a short history of the art book bag".

Organised by AAA Public Programmes Curator Ingrid Chu, the show explores the international phenomenon of the 'art book bag' in "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)". The exhibition features 'the things that go in them'—art publications, magazines, and related ephemera—alongside a vast array of these popular totes in the AAA Library. Chu has invited artists, curators, art book fair organisers, and print and online publishers to provide insight into the changing modes of knowledge production and circulation, and their influence on the recent art of Asia through Field Notes.

Latitudes' totes are presented under 'Sites for Art', the first of five categories that structure the show – others being 'Carriers of Knowledge', 'Markers of Access', 'Badges of Dissent', 'Goods of Desire'). Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Each Latitudes' tote is accompanied by a publication that relates to each artist: Lawrence Weiner will contain the leaflet of his 2008 exhibition at Fundació Suñol, Haegue Yang will include the publication which features an essay by Max Andrews' of Latitudes; Ignasi Aballí's tote will include his 2009 publication 'Nothing, Or Something' inside and Mariana Castillo Deball will have 'Amikejo', the exhibition catalogue of the 2011 cycle one of which presented works by Castillo Deball and Irene Kopelman.

Installation view of a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them) exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Zine for "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)" exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Installation view of 'Carriers of Knowledge' section in "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)" exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Installation view of 'Badges of Dissent' section in "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)" exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Installation view of 'Goods of Desire' section in "a short history of the art book bag (and the things that go in them)" exhibition at Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 24 August–24 October 2015. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.

Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2015, Amikejo, Asia Art Archive, Exhibition, Fundació Suñol, haegue yang, Hong Kong, Ignasi Aballí, Lawrence Weiner, Mariana Castillo Deball, publications, Tote Bags

Archive Cover Story (June): Ignasi Aballí sees nothing and something

Wed, Jul 1 2015

June 2015 Cover Story dedicated to Barcelona-based artist Ignasi Aballí, creator of one of Latitudes' commemorative tote bags.

#Latitudes10Years, 2015, Beijing, cover story, Ignasi Aballí, SUITCASE Art Projects, Tote Bags

Limited Edition Tote Bags Commemorating Latitudes' 10th Anniversary

Mon, May 25 2015

As announced on an earlier post, this Spring we celebrate our 10th Anniversary!

Many of you know of our love for tote bags – as we made it clear on one of our 2013 Venice biennale posts! Well, this time we have produced our very own totes: we are delighted to mark the special occasion by presenting limited editions of four specially commissioned silkscreened tote bags featuring designs by four artists with whom Latitudes has collaborated over the past decade: Lawrence Weiner (New York, 1942), Haegue Yang (Seoul, 1971), Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958) and Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, 1975).

With the summer art calendar in mind, the bags are made from natural durable cotton canvas with a reinforced base. They feature a press-stud closure, an internal pocket with a zip (never loose your biennale pass again!), an adjustable shoulder strap, as well as smaller handles for carrying like a briefcase. Versatility from vaporetto to vernissage!

Each bag have been hand silkscreened in Print Workers, Barcelona; this is an artisanal process and each printing results in slight variations.

Place your order(s) from our website.

Launch Price: 45 Euros + delivery. After 1 June 2015: 50 Euros + delivery.
Edition: 35 + 5 A.P. (Haegue Yang's tote is ed. 20 + 10 AP)
Measurements: 38 high × 40 width × 14 base (in cm)
Fabric: 475 gsm natural chlorine-free cotton canvas
Strap: Adjustable
Capacity: 15 litres
Weight: 420 gr aprox.

Related content:

Latitudes' 4th anniversary (April 2009)
Newsletter #22 – April 2010
It's our 10th anniversary! (22 May 2015)
Latitudes' Limited Edition Totes

–
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption).
Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

10th anniversary, 2015, haegue yang, Ignasi Aballí, latitudes, Lawrence Weiner, Mariana Castillo Deball, Mariana Cánepa Luna, Max Andrews, Tote Bags

Latitudes hosts the MA Curating Contemporary Art students of the Royal College of Art in Barcelona

Tue, Oct 7 2014

Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption).

This morning we had an informal discussion with second-year students of the Royal College of Art's MA Curating Contemporary Art programme to present and reflect on our collaborations with three Barcelona-based artists – Martí Anson, Ignasi Aballí and Francesc Ruiz. It was an opportune moment to reconsider the old chestnut of "the artist-curator relationship" and the important role of artist advocacy and friendship in curatorial work.

Our first case study was with Martí Anson and was in the context of our participation in the 2010 iteration of 'No Soul for Sale – A Festival of Independents' at Tate Modern, coinciding with Tate's 10th anniversary. In our presentation we discussed how Martí's project "Mataró Chauffeur Service" began by the simple need for us to get to London and present our projects in the festival context, how we worked together with Martí in thinking which was the best format for the project to develop considering all the budget would have to be raised and that the invitation was limited to offering 25m2 at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall.

A year later, we invited Martí to present Joaquimandson, a project centred on researching and recuperating the fabrication of 1960s low-budget furniture designs his father produced for friends, family and clients in Mataró. A selection of the furniture was exhibited at Meessen de Clercq, Brussels, alongside works by Sarah Ortmeyer, Kasper Akhoj, Maria Loboda and Charlotte Moth

In the summer of 2009, Carol Yinghua Lu invited us to curate a new commission by Ignasi Aballí at the SUITCASE Art Project, the then project space of the Today Art Museum in Beijing. The resulting interventions in the eight display cases of the Yintai Centre, focused on absence, nothingness and invisibility, recurring concerns in Aballí's practice. A year after, we interviewed Ignasi for 'The Last Star-Ledger', the yellow issue of 'The Last Newspaper' publication we edited in the context of the New Museum show in 2010. The interview 'Rank and File' focused on his series of newspaper-cut outs from El País newspaper that he has been doing since 1997.

After a short presentation on the context of the 2009 exhibition "Sequelism part 3: Possible, Probable or Preferable Futures" at Arnolfini in Bristol, and Francesc Ruiz's stair-barrier commission, Ruiz discussed his Yayoi, Sukia and "The Green Detour" commission for Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo, and of course Francesc's weekly cartoons for the ten 'The Last Newspaper'. Here an interview with Francesc published in the third issue, 'The Last Register" and a profile of his work included in frieze magazine.

Thank you Galeria Estrany · de la Mota for the temporary gallery take over!

Related content:

Ignasi Aballí's exhibition catalogue 'Nothing, or Something' available now, 26 October 2009
flickr gallery with installation shots of "Sequelism Part 3..."
Publication release: 'Mataró Chauffeur Service', a project by Martí Anson & Latitudes for 'No Soul for Sale', Tate Modern, London, May 2010, 11 March 2011
Ignasi Aballí at ARTIUM and Latitudes' archive (Beijing & New York),20 May 2012

–

This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

2014, Curatorial Practice, Francesc Ruiz, Frieze, Ignasi Aballí, JOAQUIMANDSON, Martí Anson, No Soul for Sale, Royal College of Art, The Last Newspaper

Ignasi Aballí at ARTIUM and Latitudes' text on 2009 project in Beijing and a 2010 interview

Sun, May 20 2012

Ignasi Aballí "This is not the end". Courtesy of the artist.

On the occasion of Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958) exhibition 'This is not the end' at ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz (curated by François Piron, on view until 2 September 2011), we wanted to share two projects in which Latitudes collaborated with the Catalan artist.

Firstly, the interview “Rank & File” between the artist and Latitudes for which we discussed his ongoing List series. The text was originally published in 'The Last Star Ledger' (Issue #4 of 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue edited by Latitudes, New Museum, New York, 2010).

Read here: https://issuu.com/latitudes/docs/4_the_last_star-ledger/2

ARTIUM's 'This is not the end' includes the work "Tomar medidas" (Taking Measures, 2009), in which nine instruments are displayed measuring things we cannot see: dust particles, time, electrical fields, noise, temperature, the intensity of light, radiation, etc. The first version of "Tomar medidas" was produced for 'Nothing, or Something' (22 May–22 July 2009), an exhibition curated by Latitudes for Suitcase Art Projects, the project space of the Today Art Museum, located on three floors of the Yintai retail centre in Beijing – see images of the exhibition.

Following is the essay included in the small publication 'Nothing, or Something' produced to accompany the exhibition – see images of the publication.

Detail of the publication "Nothing, or Something" published by Today Art Museum and edited by Latitudes.

'Ignasi Aballí: Nothing, Or Something'

The morning before Ignasi Aballí’s ‘Nothing, Or Something’ opened, we couldn’t help but overhear an American businesswoman having a breakfast meeting at our hotel. “We’re working very much with intangibles”, she declared – and, we had to concur, so were we. Aballí’s works for Suitcase Art Projects address immateriality, residues and traces. He prompts us to consider things that we cannot perceive directly or are too ordinary to be properly noticed. What is perhaps philosophy’s central and most enduring question – ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ – is simultaneously approached as a precise existential experiment and as if with the shrug of a silent comedian.

Despite drawing on the formal language of modernism’s impulse towards reduction and the ‘white cube’ of the museum as much as commonplace materials and unremarkable elements of daily existence, ‘Nothing, or Something’ has nevertheless been created for a situation that is neither fully ‘art’ (though presented under the auspices of the Today Art Museum), nor ‘life’, nor public space – but for a shopping centre. Walter Benjamin’s vast The Arcades Project (1927–1940) located the bustling arcades of nineteenth-century Paris – early versions of the contemporary mall – as heralding a decisive shift to the speed and commodification of things which signalled the emergence of the modern age. Following Benjamin’s concerns, Aballí’s project is preoccupied by the parameters of display while being experienced through a collision and confusion with its surroundings. The windows in which it takes place are located throughout three floors of the Beijing Yintai Centre, a recently opened retail destination hosting high-end fashion, jewellery and watch manufacturers in the heart of Beijing's Central Business District, in one of the tallest buildings in the city. In the context of an excess of brand visibility, signage and luxury product presentation strategies, the eight conceptually interlinked works which comprise ‘Nothing, or Something’ seek a counterpoint and temporarily make room for a different kind of looking, a slower revelation and, to borrow from Marcel Duchamp – to whom we will return – a ‘delay in glass’. The constraints and techniques of making something visible, and the very expectation of having something to see, become the projects’ points of articulation.

Please excuse our appearance, for example, wryly offers the visitor an explanation for the apparent lack of anything in the display case beyond the out-of-place presence of pages from the Spanish newspaper El País (which has often been used by Aballí as the basis for his art) which are laid on the floor as if anticipating some messy activity. Summoning an in-between temporality of perpetual waiting, the vinyl text on the window requests pardon for an apparent hiatus in the rhythm of seasonal trends. Aballí’s work from 2005 entitled Próxima aparición / Próximamente / Coming Soon – a one-hour film showing the text of its title – similarly places the audience in an irrational situation of viewing where the main event is declaredly taking place at another time. Coming Soon is also the title of the vacated shop scenario of ‘Nothing, Or Something’. Only traces are left on the premises. An inventory of products on sale is detailed in half-removed words on the glass. Torn posters hang from the side walls; dirty marks have been left by shelves at the back; the dusty outline of objects in a forgotten display case. Each is a reminder of what purports to have been a unit dedicated to photographic equipment. The awkwardly appended ‘coming soon’ vinyl text on the window creates some confusion, however, as to what has left and what has yet to appear. Dust has regularly featured as a material in Aballí’s work, bringing to mind not only Dust Breeding (1920) – Man Ray’s celebrated photograph of Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23) partially covered in a thick dusty layer – but less specifically a concern with entropy and the threshold of perception, where something is only readily perceivable through gradual accumulation or through its removal. Dust is “a very complex material ... a terminal, annoying, residual material that we don’t want” as the artist has described – particularly when it comes to photography.^¹ As he addressed in his recent exhibition ‘Without activity’, so many of the gestures and routines of (especially pre-digital) photography are concerned with cleaning, brushing and wiping away.^² The depositing of dust also becomes an analogue for the exposure of light on photographic paper and in essence the inevitable passage of time.

Dust is, unsurprisingly, present in the atmosphere of Beijing. In the work Beijing Air, Aballí takes the small volume of the city’s air present in a window display as the subject of what seems to be an encyclopedic annotated diagram cataloguing its actual and speculative, or feared, components. Text fixed to the glass and indicating lines describe the common gases present in air as well as a host of industrial pollutants, various airborne viruses and environmental particulate matter such as pollen. Many artists have commemorated the notion of blankness or explored the radically empty and each different reasons – the void can represent the wiping away of content and yet the preparation for something new. Aballí echoes this legacy – alongside Duchamp once more, whose Paris Air (1919) consists of a small vial of air from the French capital – yet his pseudo-scientific indications that nothingness is in fact not so easily achievable, at least for an earth-bound artist, brings humorous bathos to one of the central myths of the avant-garde.

Taking measures similarly adopts the language of objective inquiry with an absurd twist. Eight identical plinths occupy a vitrine and present scientific instruments which detect and measure invisible forces for the duration of the project – a stopwatch counts time, a digital barometer records the atmosphere pressure, a compass shows the magnetic orientation, a thermometer-hydrometer measures temperature and humidity, while a lux meter detects light. A sound meter measures in decibels alongside an instrument for sensing radiation. It is no surprise that an anemometer reveals that it is not windy in the vitrine. Contrary to immediate, decorative, or pictorial appeals to vision, Aballí proposes an ongoing sensitization to perceptions that escape direct representation. Yet evidently, we are still looking at something, and instead, our aesthetic attention is displaced onto the design and the presentational mode of these instruments.

The vitrine opposite this, Scenic Viewpoints, presents the visitor with an arrangement of what appears to be blank white sheets of paper taped to the inside of the glass. As with several other works in this shopping centre context, it could well seem like an unfortunate-looking temporary situation. Something is changed, remedied, covered over and hopefully overlooked: nothing to see here! Yet the attentive are rewarded with an altogether different vision – looking through the gaps in the white ‘tiles’ through to the reflection in the mirrored back surface of the narrow space, one can piece together an exuberant compilation of sights. Each sheet is an enlarged colour postcard depicting views, events and landmarks from the artist’s home of Barcelona, a city whose popularity as a tourist destination lies in no small part to its presentation as a readily consumable and legible visual ‘brand’. Blankly monochromatic on the outside, Scenic Viewpoints refuses such a generalised overview. Its ecstatic orchestration of wide vistas and saturated spectacles is only visible to a peeping, prying viewer who then can only see a small part at one time while linking “the abundance of images around us with the scarcity of meaning we can attach to them”, as Bartomeu Marí has described of another of Aballí’s works Revelations (2005).^³

The vitrines titled Illuminating and White Cube are sited facing each other. Illuminating consists only of the application of light. Very bright light. The installation of professional film lights which shine out from the vitrine creates a level of luminescence that is evidently excessive. With a seeming lack of anything in particular to illuminate, one is reflected in the mirrored vitrine in the looped process of beholding oneself beholding the work. A counterpoint to the tastefully spotlighted products in the neighbouring shops, the wastefully ‘incorrect’ situation highlights a stark condition of energetic consumption while literally highlighting its context. White Cube provides the backdrop to this intense reflexivity. It cancels the transparency of its vitrine through the application of whitewash on the glass, a technique commonly adopted by empty premises after going out of business. (Not coincidentally, some of the pages of the newspapers of Please excuse our appearance carry stories related to the recession, which are illustrated by closed-up shops.) As with Aballí’s Big Mistake (1998-2005) and other works using Tipp-Ex correction fluid (used to cover errors on writing or typing paper), the artist creates a quotidian monochrome, through a melancholic painting-like blanking-out activity that nevertheless is never properly a painting. If White Cube refers to a spectre of painting, Vitrines for a Vitrine seems to orientate around some missing sculpture or precious object. Yet as if the artist has been perpetually unconvinced by the plausibility of displaying something, nothing is on show – rather it is the condition of display which is demonstrated in a mise en abyme, itself within the regime of visibility of the shopping centre. Three clear acrylic display cases like those used in museums or in chic stores occupy the glass vitrine. Each contains one small photograph of different empty vitrines which the artist has encountered in various cities.

‘Nothing, or Something’ undoubtedly triggers perplexing situations for the shopping public and the workers of the centre who were more-or-less familiar with the art project’s presence or witnesses to its installation. For many, the works may well go completely unnoticed. Are we seeing what we are supposed to be seeing? Where is the work? When is the work? Yet it is not the intention of Aballí’s project to be disingenuous or confrontational. On the contrary, it operates through orchestrating and modifying simple possibilities for observation, deduction and reflection. Something or nothing is happening, is not happening, is not happening anymore, or is yet to happen. Enhanced by memory and hindsight the project allows a disarmingly humble visual retirement – the kind of complexity that emerges through ceasing or waiting. How and why are things added and subtracted from the world, or from sight? What is worth looking at, having or keeping, and what is to be doubted or erased? What does it mean to be more aware of the things we cannot see? Perhaps we are all working with intangibles?

© Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna)

1 Ignasi Aballí, 0-24 h., Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005, p.25

2 Sem Actividade / Without Activity, Museu de Portimão, 2008

3 Ignasi Aballí, 0-24 h., Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005, p.11

Essay commissioned and published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Nothing, or Something' at the Suitcase Art Projects, Beijing, China, 22 May–22 July 2009.

–

This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Twitter.

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise)

2009, ARTIUM, Beijing, curated by Latitudes, Essay, Ignasi Aballí, interview, SUITCASE Art Projects, Taking Measures, The Last Newspaper

FAQ: Where can I find the publications edited by Latitudes?

Sun, Apr 22 2012

We often receive enquiries from folks interested in purchasing our publications. As editors (or contributors) we only hold a few copies, which over the years have been mostly entirely gifted to colleagues and donated to expand institutional archives.

MACBA’s Centre d'Estudis i Documentació (MACBA Study Centre) and The Banff Centre Library (Banff, Canada) hold reference copies of all of our publications – including the 2006 publication 'Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook' (out of print); exhibition catalogues such as Amikejo (2011), 'Greenwashing. Environment: perils, promises and perplexities' (2008) and The Last Newspaper (2010), the monograph 'Lara Almarcegui, Projects 1995–2010’ (2010) publications accompanying projects such as Ignasi Aballí's Nothing or Something (2009), Simon Fujiwara's Museum of Incest (2009), Mataró Chauffeur Service (2010), Campus (2011) or Portscapes' (2010) limited edition which includes Jan Dibbets' DVD with his commissioned film '6 hours tide object with correction of perspective' (1969–2009); exhibition booklets of the exhibition 'Exposition International...' at Meessen de Clercq in Brussels, and that dedicated to Lawrence Weiner 2008 exhibition at Fundació Suñol.

MACBA's library also holds two further references: a recording of the conversation we organised as part of our #OpenCurating research with Dia Art Foundation Curator, Yasmil Raymond in 2013, later published as the #7 in the download-free edition; and Charley Independents, the issue that appeared coinciding with our participation in the second iteration of the festival 'No Soul for Sale' launched at TATE Modern in 2010.

Below is a list of all our publications and links to the distributors from where you can purchase them:

'Amikejo' (Mousse Publishing, 2012)

Available via Mousse Publishing (Milan) and Motto (Berlin)

+ info on the exhibition series.

'Lara Almarcegui, Projects 1995–2010' (Archive Books, 2011/12)

Available via Archive Books (Berlin)

+ photos

+ info on the publication

Roman Keller & Christina Hemauer, 'United Alternative Energies: Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller' (The Århus Art Building, 2011)

Available at the The Århus Art Building, Århus (Denmark)

+ photos

+ info on the exhibition

Martí Anson and Latitudes,'Mataró Chauffeur Service' (Save As...Publications, 2011)

Available via La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid)
+ photos

+ info on the project

'The Last Newspaper' (Latitudes & The New Museum, 2010)

Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid). Special edition (in the box) available via the New Museum store (New York)

+ photos
+ info on the exhibition

'Portscapes' (SKOR / The Port of Rotterdam, 2009)

Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid)

+ photos

+ info on the commissioning series

Simon Fujiwara, 'The Museum of Incest' (Archive Books, 2009)

Available via Archive Books (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid)

+ photos
+ info on the exhibition

'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities' (The Bookmakers Ed. / Archive Books, 2008)

Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin)

+ photos
+ info on the exhibition

Three of our earlier publications are out of print:

'Land, Art. A Cultural Ecology Handbook' (Arts Council England & Royal Society of Arts, 2006)
Out of print. Available for consultation at MACBA's library.
+ photos

+ info on the publication

UOVO #14 (The Bookmakers Ed., 2007)

Out of print. Available for consultation at MACBA's library.
+ photos

+ info on the publication

Ignasi Aballí, 'Nothing, or Something' (Today Art Museum, 2009)

+ photos

+ info on the exhibition

–

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Amikejo, Archive Books, Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller, Greenwashing, Ignasi Aballí, Lara Almarcegui, Mataró Chauffeur Service, Mousse Publishing, Portscapes, Save As..., Simon Fujiwara, The Last Newspaper

'THE LAST STAR-LEDGER' AVAILABLE NOW! #4 issue of the 10 Latitudes-edited newspapers for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, New Museum

Wed, Oct 27 2010

'The Last Star-Leger' – Issue #4
(READ IT ON ISSUU)

Table of contents:
Picture Agent - Our singular picture agency: Haegue Yang (cover)
Media Habits: Nicoline van Harskamp
Focus: Collin Munn on 'The Last Newspaper's work 'Untitled' (2006) by Dash Snow
Feature: Latitudes on the 'The Last Newspaper's partner organisation StoryCorps & archive interview between journalist Ed Pierce and his grandson Scott Cole
Interview: 'Rank & File' Ignasi Aballí on his 'Lists' series
The Next Newspaper: Latitudes interview with Nick Mrozowski Creative Director of Portugal's newest newspaper 'i'
1989 Patricia Esquivias on…: Communism
'Dirt Sheet': Janine Armin's column
100 Years Ago...: 'The Tacoma Times' (Tacoma, Washington) 1903–1949, October 27, 1910.
Weekly cartoon strip: Francesc Ruiz
Advertising department: Ester Partegàs with Rob McKenzie

Watch this or other issues on Latitudes youtube channel.

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT!

Nick Mrozowski during his visit to 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition holding a copy of that days' New York Times. Photo: Latitudes.

THE NEXT NEWSPAPER: i

Fresh from putting together a 40-page on-site weekend newspaper for the Society of News Designers conference in Denver – Michigan native Nick Mrozowski, the Creative Director of Portugal's newest newspaper, simply called 'i', stopped by 'The Last Star-Ledger' newsroom.

The Last Star-Ledger: Tell us about the origins of i [pronounced ‘ee’] – was there a lot of research done into what people wanted from a newspaper in 2009? Was it independently started?

Nick Mrozowski: The guys who launched the paper are seasoned pros in the Portuguese market. They've been directors of other newspapers so they're well-versed in the economy and business. i was started by a public-works construction company in Portugal. They happen to have a publishing branch – they publish regional newspapers – and wanted a national newspaper. Innovation Media Consulting, started in Spain, consulted on the editorial ideas and design before it launched. Even more than their knowledge or research of the market, they tried to create a newspaper based on their instincts and ideas that was totally different from anything else. The staff we hired is very young and capable of serious journalism, but with a lot of spirit, energy, and humor. That naturally found its way into the newspaper and because of that our audience is even younger than we initially thought. The newspaper has about 55 or 60 people in the newsroom now. I'm the sole art director, though I didn't design the initial project. The graphic model was done by Javier Errea, who is the most famous Spanish newspaper designer now. He just won the Society for News Design's Lifetime Achievement Award at forty-three years old! In the last fifteen years that his studio has been going, they've probably been involved with most of the newspapers in Spain and Portugal.

Cover i, 7 October 2010

TLS-L: The design is obviously a critical part of the newspaper. To what degree did the staff have either design or press backgrounds which came together in its visual journalism?

NM: We have reporters and designers of different functions. My degree is in journalism, but I focused on design. In all the newspapers I have worked on, I've been asked as much to be an editor as a designer. Our newsroom at i is a total open-plan. We work in the same room without cubicles or dividers with zones designed for communication. In the center are the top editors and then spiralling out are the various news desks, designers, and photographers.

TLS-L: Is there a typical way an article is put together?

NM: An editor or reporter decides there is going to be a story about something. They would then come and speak to one of the designers about what they're going to have for the page. We have our own jargon for types of stories or design elements to make it faster. That's pretty standard. The thing we do that's a little bit different is how we start a page. Throughout the course of a day we change it a million times, not only because an article comes in longer or shorter, we change it because somebody has a new idea. There are five designers, one design editor, and myself for the design portion.

Cover i, 26 July 2010

TLS-L: And you have 4 sections which are not at all based on traditional newspapers...

NM: i is 25 x 35 cm (9 8/10” x 13 8/10”) x with 48, 56 or 64 pages. It starts with ‘Opinion’ on the first four pages to get you thinking. The following short section ‘Radar’ is all the news you need to know from the last 24 hours in different formats: a few briefs, a portion of quotations, a photo that tells a story by itself, an info-graphic that has no text accompanying it. The big ‘Zoom’ section is more in depth, more analytical, with longer format, bigger stories, mostly two-page spreads. At the end we have a section called ‘Mais’ (meaning 'more') which has culture, sports, and lifestyle. We don't have this feeling that we need a 'national' or 'international' section with a set number of pages or stories with a certain length, the editing is much more fluid. Although we have developed some habits over time, nothing is set in stone. It changes from one hour to the next, making it harder to work but producing a better result. For some newspapers, it’s a way forward: to be more aggressive, not just in reporting, but in the way we think about how we report.

TLS-L: You must hear people talking about the decline of the traditional newspaper all the time?

NM: I see what's happening but I don't believe it. I think there are a lot more to come. They're going to change, they have to change, but it's good change. Obviously the internet is not going anywhere. We talk about it a lot in the industry. Everybody has different points of view and every couple of months there is a prevailing strategy, idea, or criticism. News used to be a printed newspaper – it's not anymore – but a newspaper isn't necessarily an online thing. I read the online version of the New York Times all the time in Lisbon because you can't buy it (you can only get the International Herald Tribune), so I read it in the morning before I go into work, I read it during the day.

Cover i, 19 June 2010

TLS-L: Yet in a traditional newspaper you find things you wouldn't otherwise read.

NM: When I go online I read a lot of stories because there's little investment in clicking a link, if a headline caught my eye, or an illustration. Funnily enough, now that I’ve been reading the New York Times on printed format here these last days, I find it really strange to navigate as an object.

TLS-L: Can you give our news team any advice?

NM: A good newspaper should have texture and a feeling of some immediacy. Try to highlight the liveness of it. Save yourself one part each time and only do it in the last thirty minutes so you have no idea what it's going to be. Desperation is a reality of newspapers!

– Interview by Latitudes. Edited by Greg Barton.

+ images of i covers here.

Ester Partegàs, Francesc Ruiz, haegue yang, Ignasi Aballí, interview, latitudes, New Museum, Nicoline van Harskamp, Patricia Esquivias, StoryCorps, The Last Newspaper

Ignasi Aballí's exhibition catalogue 'Nothing, or Something' now available

Mon, Oct 26 2009

Publication 'Something, or Nothing' a project Ignasi Aballí for Suitcase Art Projects, Beijing, 2009

Ignasi Aballí's exhibition catalogue 'Nothing, or Something' is finally out and available via Múltiplos, Barcelona.

The catalogue follows his recent exhibition at the project space run by Beijing's Today Art Museum placed at the Yintai Center, which took place between 22 May and 22 July this year. The exhibition catalogue includes an essay by exhibition curators Latitudes as well as installation images of the project which spreads throughout eight window displays on three floors. Aballí's project responded to the retail context of the commercial centre as well as an artistic history of absence, nothingness and invisibility.

To see images of the exhibition, see here.
Description of the exhibition, read here.

'Nothing, or Something'
Softcover, 88 pages, colour
Essay by Latitudes
English/Chinese publication
Published by the Today Art Museum.

All images: Latitudes | www.lttds.org

2009, Beijing, Ignasi Aballí, project space, Publication, SUITCASE Art Projects, Today Art Museum

Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2008-9

Thu, Jul 30 2009

As the 2008–9 artistic cycle turns for many towards a holiday exodus and 'out of office' autoresponders, below is a selection of some unseen and 'behind the scenes' moments from our projects since last summer.

A big thank you to everyone involved in our 2008-9 projects y felices vacaciones!

– Latitudes

(Three images above): Mariana with Lawrence Weiner during the installation of Lawrence Weiner's exhibition 'THE CREST OF A WAVE' at the Fundació Suñol, Barcelona, in October–November 2008; during the press conference; Lawrence, Latitudes and Fundació Suñol team (Sergi Aguilar, Maga Ruiz, Xavier De Luca, Mireia Arnau and Jaume Brunet) photographed by Pierre-Jean Moulis after tossing a horseshoe upon the crest of a wave.

16–19 October 2008: presentation of the Danish artist Tue Greenfort 'transparent' bins outside Frieze Art Fair, London, commissioned by the Royal Society of Arts' 'Arts & Ecology' programme.

5–9 November 2008: Leaving the 'X, Y, etc!' Videolounge in Artissima Art Fair, Torino, Italy; admiring the phenomenal long table arrangement Artissima dinner hosted at the equally phenomenal Venaria Reale.

November 2008: fourth visit to Rotterdam – evening boat trip with some of 'Portscapes' artists, site visit to the port with the Port of Rotterdam's Sjaak Poppe (Hans Schabus and Roman Keller alongside) and discussions in Marjolijn Dijkman's studio (Roman Keller and Christina Hemauer – with Ilana Halperin on Skype)

November 2008: ‘La, la, la, la: on winning and losing’ co-curator Aimar Arriola arranging a work with artist Verónica Aguilera and (below) selecting images with Fermín Jimenez Landa and Oriol Vilanova.

8 February 2009: SKOR curator Theo Tegelaers and Jan Dibbets during the filming of Jan Dibbets' '6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective'; some of 'Portscapes' artists including Bik Van der Pol and Marjolijn Dijkman visit the beach while waiting for the tide to go up; Christiane Bosman (SKOR press coordinator) and curator Theo Tegelaers from SKOR at 'Portscapes' during Art Rotterdam opening evening.

18 February 2009: Vena (por la) talk with (the then) Walker Art Center associate curator Doryun Chong (now Associate Curator at MoMA in New York).

April 2009: The Associació d'Art Crítics de Catalunya awards Fundació Suñol for their exhibition programme (Latitudes-curated projects Lawrence Weiner's 'THE CREST OF THE WAVE' and the Land Art film programme 'A Stake in the Mud, A Hole in the Reel. Land Art's Expanded Field, 1968–2008' were part of this season).

(7 images above): First Neapolitan lunch with Simon Fujiwara and Jordi Mitjà on May 8, 2009: deep-fried maccheroni; Erick Beltrán installing during 'Provenances', Umberto di Marino, Naples; preparing Simon's 'Museum of incest'; subtitling session with Nicoletta Daldanise; delightful Sicilian cuisine at Umberto's house, documenting Erick's work during the opening night and audience during Simon's performance 'The Museum of Incest: A Guided Tour' (publication here).

(5 above): Arrival day in Beijing on May 18, 2009, with Ignasi Aballí; laying out the Barcelona posters for 'Scenic viewpoints'; (around 3.30am...) installation of 'Nothing, or Something' at Yintai Centre with Suitcase Art Projects artistic director Carol Yinghua Lu and Ignasi; checking the vinyl is straight with Ignasi ('El País' always at hand) and a quiet conversation with Carol on the escalators.

(3 Above): During the installation of 'The Garden of Forking Paths', Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, May 2009; installation instructions for Rosalind Nashashibi & Lucy Skaer's photographic pieces and post-opening beer landscape at Maisterravalbuena office, 29 May 2009.

15 June 2009: Hans Schabus, Port of Rotterdam team and curators mulling over the location options for Hans's photo shoot of his 'Portscapes' project 'Europahaven, Port of Rotterdam, 17 Juni 2009'.

24–28 June 2009 (2 above): At our temporary office during the non-profit festival 'No Soul for Sale', in New York [Note Michael Jackson's 'breaking news' on screen!].

The Bruce High Quality Foundation in full (we are indebted to them for their fantastic 1983 Burger King set up)

(3 above) Installing Graham Gussin work during 'Sequelism Part 3. Possible, Probable or Preferable futures' in Arnolfini, Bristol (July 2009); hanging around with participating artists Francesc Ruiz and Haegue Yang as well as Nav Haq (Arnolfini curator) before dinner; and knitting lessons from Haegue at Arnolfini's bar.

[All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org]

Fundació Suñol, hans schabus, Ignasi Aballí, Jan Dibbets, Lawrence Weiner, Maisterravalbuena, out of office, Portscapes, Sequelism, Simon Fujiwara, SKOR, Tue Greenfort, Umberto di Marino, X initiative

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