Max Andrews essay on Christopher Knowles for NoguerasBlanchard at Liste 2017
Fri, Jul 21 2017
Max Andrews of Latitudes contributed the essay "C-H-R-I-S-T-O-P-H-E-R-K-N-O-W-L-E-S. SO LISTEN UP" about the spoken-word works, "typings", poetry and paintings by Christopher Knowles. The publication was made to accompany his recent solo presentation in the stand of NoguerasBlanchard gallery at Liste art fair in Basel.
Max reviewed Knowles’ exhibition at Gavin Brown's enterprise for frieze magazine back in October 2004, and his work "Untitled (Alert Paintings)" (2004) depicting the Department of
Homeland Security’s Threat Advisory System, was the linchpin of the Latitudes-curated 2007 exhibition "Extraordinary Rendition" at NoguerasBlanchard.
The exquisite short-run publication (500 copies) was designed and printed by Barcelona-based independent publishers and Riso printers Do The Print.
All photos: Latitudes.
Christopher Knowles was born in New York City, USA, in 1959. Lives and works in New York. He has taken part in several exhibitions, among which: 'In a Word', Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, USA, curated by Anthony Elms and Hilton Als (2015); 'Secret Codes', Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2014); 'The Sundance Kid is Beautiful', The Louvre Museum, Paris, France, 2013; 'Merci Mercy', 980 Madison Avenue, New York (2013); 'Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language', MoMA, New York (2012); 'En el primer cercle', Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (2011); 'Poor. Old. Tired. Horse', Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2009); 'Visions of the Frontier', curated by Robert Wilson, Institut Valencia d’Art Modern (2009); 'Glossolalia: Languages of Drawing', Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008); 'Get Lost: Artists Map Downtown New York', New Museum Project, New York (2007); 'Learn to Read', Tate Modern, London (2007); 'Extraordinary Rendition', NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona (2007).
Knowles' is represented by NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona / Madrid; Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York / Rome; and Office Baroque in Brussels.
RELATED CONTENT:
- "Extraordinary Rendition" exhibition at NoguerasBlanchard in 2007.
- Latitudes' writing since 2005.
Archive of our first Cover Story (March): Wilfredo Prieto, ‘Grasa, jabón y plátano’ (2006)
Thu, Apr 2 2015
As recently announced in this channel, we have re-designed our website. This has meant improving a few tech and editing things and introducing new sections such"cover story": a monthly focus on an artwork, artist, book, site or trip we've experienced in our recent past, accompanied by a short text.
Our first cover story centers on Wilfredo Prieto's work "Grease, Soap, Banana" presented in 2007 in the group show "Extraordinary Rendition". Above you find the full picture, below details. Enjoy!
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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.
Report from Madrid: Apertura 2014 gallery and museums programme in tweets, 11–13 September
Mon, Sep 15 2014More photos documenting the same shows we saw or others that didn't make it to the twitter for lack of time (or network):
"Antología del desajuste adverbial" by Abigail Lazkoz at Galería Bacelos.
Ángel Vergara at Marta Cervera.
"B. Wurtz.
Works 1972 - 2014" at Maisterravalbuena.
Dora García at Juana de Aizpuru.
Browsing one of the books that hanged from Thonet bentwood rocking chairs at Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's installation "Spendide Hotel" at the Palacio de Cristal, the venue run by the MNCARS located at the Parque del Retiro.
Related posts:
Report from Glasgow: Lecture at The Common Guild and studio and gallery visits (4 December 2013)
Report from Paris: FIAC week, 21–28 October 2013 (5 November 2013)
Report from Athens: "AGORA", 4th Athens Biennale 2013 (4 November 2013)
Report from New York: Gramcsi Monument, visiting critics at ISCP, Carol Bove at The High Line and galleries route (23 September 2013)
Report from Dublin and Derry-Londonderry: research trip to Ireland, 8–14 March 2013 (16 March 2013)
Report from Urdaibai: commission series 'Sense and Sustainability', Urdaibai Arte 2012 (22 July 2012)
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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.
art-agenda review on Andrea Büttner show "Tische", at NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona
Mon, Jul 21 2014 |
| View of Andrea Büttner, “Tische,” NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona, 2014. All images courtesy of NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona. All photos by Roberto Ruiz. |
Andrea Büttner’s “Tische”
NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona
May 30–July 11, 2014
Published on art-agenda on 17 July 2014.
Pursuing a clearly spiritual approach within a Christian cultural
and ethical context, Andrea Büttner is one of the few contemporary
artists who could plausibly cite St. Francis of Assisi, the
twelfth-century Catholic friar who committed himself to a life of
poverty, as a key influence. Her work Tische [Tables] (2013),
which addresses notions of the “blessed poor” (those who disavow
material possessions as a way of being closer to God) and the prehistory
of farm-to-table dining, is a carefully constructed homily on what art
can bring to the table on poverty, without ever lapsing into austerity
chic. Büttner’s meager solo presentation at Barcelona’s
NoguerasBlanchard forms part of a year-long exhibition series entitled
“The Story Behind,” organized by in-house curator Direlia Lazo. In it,
the artist exhibits four out of the original thirteen tabletop
compositions she created for a dinner held at the Museum für Moderne
Kunst Zollamt in Frankfurt last year. At Büttner’s invitation, five
talks were given at dinner and recorded. Entitled Tischreden
[Dinner speeches] (2013), the resulting extended audio recordings of
the speeches and the ebb and flow of dinner conversation now serve as
prime stimulants for the discursive appetites of the Barcelona gallery’s
visitors.
Büttner’s four dining tables—and their blue, green, red, and yellow linens—are not simply performance relics or dining assemblages à la Hong Kong and Taipei-based artist Lee Kit or Swiss Nouveau Réalist Daniel Spoerri, but rather something between gambling baize (typically found covering poker tables) and altar cloths. These intensely precise, high-stakes surfaces allow for unusual symbolic investment. Accordingly, what at first could be mistaken for dun-colored gaming counters are actually zebra droppings and straw that were collected at the Frankfurt Zoo and cast in bronze. These metal objects (Tischschmuck [Table decorations], 2013) not only connect alchemy with fecal value—placed as they are atop a single table covered in the same colored paper that German banks use to wrap Euro coins—but they also have a perverse resemblance to earthy tubers and clusters of Paleolithic potato chips. Büttner assembles such materials in an elusive manner, giving them a just-on-the-tip-of-the-tongue quality, and she then juxtaposes the objects with images, which function like pictorial hyperlinks that are either readily apparent, or just one Google search away. These include reproductions of Realist and early modernist works, including Gustave Courbet’s The Stone Breakers (1850), Vincent van Gogh’s dismal The Potato Eaters (1885), and Ernst Barlach’s Veiled Beggar Woman (1919), as well as more recent pieces, like Sigmar Polke’s Cologne Beggars (1972), and what appears to be a photographic portrait of Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Although Büttner’s amalgamations undoubtedly have intuitive affinities with German art historian Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas (1924–29), she does not necessarily generate new theoretical principles in terms of art’s consideration of poverty. Listening to the recordings of Büttner’s dinner becomes more like consuming thoughtful fiber while ruminating on its conceptually peristaltic menu. Documenta 13’s artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev deliberately offered no new insights in her talk on the figures she identifies as Arte Povera’s “dropouts,” yet their very rejection of novel production was precisely her point. In addition, speeches by scholar of German literature Liliane Weissberg, organizer of the artist-rights group Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) Lise Soskolne, and Chicago-based artist and writer Claire Pentecost similarly focused on duty, humility, and justice. The overall effect of her guests’ fibrous discussion addresses what might be described as our symbolic health and serves as a kind of relief from the intellectual constipation that the intersection of morality and contemporary art can induce.
Büttner’s interest in poverty stems from her recently completed doctoral research on art and shame at the Royal College of Art. And she herself chooses to avoid the limelight by withdrawing as a visible protagonist from her own work. By giving the floor to her dinner guests, Büttner subtly avoids what might otherwise have come across as a kind of evangelical relational aesthetics. Over the course of their speeches, we not only learn about tzedakah (the Jewish conception of charity without pity), but also some non-profit art institutions’ shameful failure to pay honorariums to their artists. In cultural theorist Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s talk (delivered by artist Adrian Williams)—in which we encounter his term “Un-growth,” which describes a form of politics without capitalist expectations—we are familiarized with a “frugal way of being happy with the richness that we have.” We also learn in the recording about Wall Street’s orchestration of the deregulated food futures markets that emerged in the 1990s and the expropriation of subsistence farmers from their ancestral lands.
Nevertheless, given the reality of Spain’s persistent unemployment, austerity measures, and corruption scandals, many of these well-intended words begged for local specificity. Given the monastic tone of Büttner’s work, polemical Benedictine nun and Catalan social activist Teresa Forcades, for example, would have made a fascinating, if improbable, contribution to a discussion especially tailored for the issues that concern contemporary Barcelona. Much like having to imagine Pentecost’s dinner menu—which included bone marrow, beetroot, and potatoes, among other dishes—instead of actually being able to savor it ourselves, we were left hungry for a more hearty presentation of Büttner’s project in a city with a starkly different economic context from that in which her work was first conceived.
– Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna are Co-directors of the curatorial office Latitudes in Barcelona.
Büttner’s four dining tables—and their blue, green, red, and yellow linens—are not simply performance relics or dining assemblages à la Hong Kong and Taipei-based artist Lee Kit or Swiss Nouveau Réalist Daniel Spoerri, but rather something between gambling baize (typically found covering poker tables) and altar cloths. These intensely precise, high-stakes surfaces allow for unusual symbolic investment. Accordingly, what at first could be mistaken for dun-colored gaming counters are actually zebra droppings and straw that were collected at the Frankfurt Zoo and cast in bronze. These metal objects (Tischschmuck [Table decorations], 2013) not only connect alchemy with fecal value—placed as they are atop a single table covered in the same colored paper that German banks use to wrap Euro coins—but they also have a perverse resemblance to earthy tubers and clusters of Paleolithic potato chips. Büttner assembles such materials in an elusive manner, giving them a just-on-the-tip-of-the-tongue quality, and she then juxtaposes the objects with images, which function like pictorial hyperlinks that are either readily apparent, or just one Google search away. These include reproductions of Realist and early modernist works, including Gustave Courbet’s The Stone Breakers (1850), Vincent van Gogh’s dismal The Potato Eaters (1885), and Ernst Barlach’s Veiled Beggar Woman (1919), as well as more recent pieces, like Sigmar Polke’s Cologne Beggars (1972), and what appears to be a photographic portrait of Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Although Büttner’s amalgamations undoubtedly have intuitive affinities with German art historian Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas (1924–29), she does not necessarily generate new theoretical principles in terms of art’s consideration of poverty. Listening to the recordings of Büttner’s dinner becomes more like consuming thoughtful fiber while ruminating on its conceptually peristaltic menu. Documenta 13’s artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev deliberately offered no new insights in her talk on the figures she identifies as Arte Povera’s “dropouts,” yet their very rejection of novel production was precisely her point. In addition, speeches by scholar of German literature Liliane Weissberg, organizer of the artist-rights group Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) Lise Soskolne, and Chicago-based artist and writer Claire Pentecost similarly focused on duty, humility, and justice. The overall effect of her guests’ fibrous discussion addresses what might be described as our symbolic health and serves as a kind of relief from the intellectual constipation that the intersection of morality and contemporary art can induce.
Büttner’s interest in poverty stems from her recently completed doctoral research on art and shame at the Royal College of Art. And she herself chooses to avoid the limelight by withdrawing as a visible protagonist from her own work. By giving the floor to her dinner guests, Büttner subtly avoids what might otherwise have come across as a kind of evangelical relational aesthetics. Over the course of their speeches, we not only learn about tzedakah (the Jewish conception of charity without pity), but also some non-profit art institutions’ shameful failure to pay honorariums to their artists. In cultural theorist Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s talk (delivered by artist Adrian Williams)—in which we encounter his term “Un-growth,” which describes a form of politics without capitalist expectations—we are familiarized with a “frugal way of being happy with the richness that we have.” We also learn in the recording about Wall Street’s orchestration of the deregulated food futures markets that emerged in the 1990s and the expropriation of subsistence farmers from their ancestral lands.
Nevertheless, given the reality of Spain’s persistent unemployment, austerity measures, and corruption scandals, many of these well-intended words begged for local specificity. Given the monastic tone of Büttner’s work, polemical Benedictine nun and Catalan social activist Teresa Forcades, for example, would have made a fascinating, if improbable, contribution to a discussion especially tailored for the issues that concern contemporary Barcelona. Much like having to imagine Pentecost’s dinner menu—which included bone marrow, beetroot, and potatoes, among other dishes—instead of actually being able to savor it ourselves, we were left hungry for a more hearty presentation of Büttner’s project in a city with a starkly different economic context from that in which her work was first conceived.
– Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna are Co-directors of the curatorial office Latitudes in Barcelona.
 |
This is the blog of 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. |
'Case Report' by Lorenzo Sandoval winner of the first NoguerasBlanchard Curatorial Open Call 2012
Wed, Jan 18 2012
[UK]
NoguerasBlanchard is pleased to announce that the project 'Case Report' by Lorenzo Sandoval has been selected for the 2012 Curatorial Open Call.
The application deadine ended on 31 December 2011, receiving a total of 38 proposals, of which 20 were international and 18 from Spain.
The jury (composed of Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa), Jacqueline Uhlmann, Juan Canela and Direlia Lazo) were unanimous in selecting 'Case Report'. "Lorenzo Sandoval's project promises to be a generous and curious exploration of ethnography in contemporary practice as seen through the work of a carefully selected group of artists", the jury noted. "The proposal was impressive for its synthesis of a range of artistic approaches (performance, sound, sculpture, works on paper, and film) with a methodological context drawing on rational and irrational attempts to document and interpret the world."
Lorenzo Sandoval was born in Madrid in 1980, and has specialized in Audiovisual Studies in Fine Arts at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, for which he is currently writing his MA final thesis. Following his studies, Sandoval has been granted residencies in Berlin, Porto and Nairobi. At present he lives in Berlin, where he collaborates on a regular basis with LaTejedoraCCEC, BarraDiagonal and Projektraum of Altes Finanzamt. In Spain, he has developed projects for La Casa Encendida in Madrid or Can Felipa in Barcelona. http://lorenzosandoval.blogspot.com/
'Case Report' is scheduled to open in NoguerasBlanchard on May 24th, 2012.
[ES]
NoguerasBlanchard se complace en anunciar que el proyecto 'Case Report' de Lorenzo Sandoval ha sido seleccionado ganador del 2012 Curatorial Open Call.
Se recibieron 38 propuestas de las cuales 20 fueron de origen internacional y 18 del territorio español.
El jurado (formado por Latitudes -Max Andrews y Mariana Cánepa-, Jacqueline Uhlmann, Juan Canela y Direlia Lazo) fué unánime en su elección de 'Case Report'. "El proyecto de Lorenzo Sandoval promete ser una exploración generosa de la etnografía en la práctica artística contemporánea a través de una cuidada selección de artistas" ha escrito el jurado. "La propuesta nos impresionó por su síntesis de una amplia gama de disciplinas artísticas (performance, sonido, escultura, obra sobre papel y película) proponiendo un contexto metodológico que parte de intentos racionales e irracionales de documentar e interpretar el mundo".
Lorenzo Sandoval nació en Madrid en 1980, y se ha especializado en estudios Audiovisuales en Bellas Artes en la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, donde se encuentra finalizando su tesina de Máster. Después de sus estudios, Sandoval ha recibido becas de residencia en Berlín, Oporto y Nairobi. Hoy en día vive en Berlín, donde colabora habitualmente con LaTejedoraCCEC, BarraDiagonal y Projektraum of Altes Finanzamt. En España ha desarrollado proyectos para La Casa Encendida en Madrid, y Can Felipa en Barcelona. http://lorenzosandoval.blogspot.com/
Está previsto que 'Case Report' se inaugure el 24 de mayo de 2012.
NoguerasBlanchard
c/ Xuclà 7
08001 Barcelona · Spain
www.noguerasblanchard.com
c/ Xuclà 7
08001 Barcelona · Spain
www.noguerasblanchard.com
Newsletter #39 – December / diciembre 2011
Fri, Dec 2 2011
FORTHCOMING...
'The Dutch Assembly / Asamblea de los Países Bajos', ARCOmadrid, 15–19 February 2012, Madrid (+ info...)
Follow us on Twitter: #NLAssembly
ALSO THIS MONTH...
Three juries: for the 2012 Open Call at the Sala d'Art Jove; the GAC Awards given by the Catalan Gallery Association (Award ceremony: 31 January 2012 at MACBA); and the Curatorial Open Call 2012, which invites individuals or collectives to submit a proposal for curating an exhibition between June and July of 2012 at NoguerasBlanchard.
UNTIL 15 JANUARY 2012...
'Amikejo: Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch', fourth and final exhibition of the cycle 'Amikejo' at the Laboratorio 987, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, 24 September 2011–15 January 2012.
Follow us on Twitter: #amikejo
RECENT BLOG POSTS...
'The Dutch Assembly / Asamblea de los Países Bajos', ARCOmadrid, 15–19 February 2012, Madrid (+ info...)
Follow us on Twitter: #NLAssembly
ALSO THIS MONTH...
Three juries: for the 2012 Open Call at the Sala d'Art Jove; the GAC Awards given by the Catalan Gallery Association (Award ceremony: 31 January 2012 at MACBA); and the Curatorial Open Call 2012, which invites individuals or collectives to submit a proposal for curating an exhibition between June and July of 2012 at NoguerasBlanchard.
UNTIL 15 JANUARY 2012...
'Amikejo: Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch', fourth and final exhibition of the cycle 'Amikejo' at the Laboratorio 987, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, 24 September 2011–15 January 2012.
Follow us on Twitter: #amikejo
RECENT BLOG POSTS...
'Nice to Meet You – Erick Beltrán. Some Fundamental Postulates' by Max Andrews on Mousse Magazine #31 (30 November 2011); MACBA y Fundación Han Nefkens anuncian premio de arte contemporáneo (28 November 2011); Latitudes invited to curate the presentation of Dutch institutions in ARCOmadrid 2012 (17 November 2011); Erick
Beltrán and Jorge Satorre's 'Modelling Standard' evolving project and
forthcoming interview with the artists for 'Atlántica' magazine (15 November 2011); NoguerasBlanchard announces "Curatorial Open Call 2012" – deadline 31 December 2011 (7 November 2011)...
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For more info go to:
http://issuu.com/latitudes/docs NoguerasBlanchard announces "Curatorial Open Call 2012" – deadline 31 December 2011
Mon, Nov 7 2011 |
| View of the gallery space. Courtesy NoguerasBlanchard. |
NoguerasBlanchard is pleased to announce a Curatorial Open Call 2012, which invites individuals or collectives to submit a proposal for curating an exhibition at NoguerasBlanchard in Barcelona. The successful proposal will take place between June and July of 2012.
For four years now NoguerasBlanchard’s exhibition program has included in the month of June an exhibition proposal by a guest curator. In order to continue this line, to expand artistic horizons and provide a platform for curatorial practice and the making of group exhibitions, we launch our Curatorial Open Call 2012.
The selected curator/s will receive a maximum of €4.000 in concept of honorarium and exhibition production budget. NoguerasBlanchard will provide administrative and production support, design and mailing of the press release/invitation card and an opening reception. The curator/curatorial collective must be in Barcelona for the setting up and the opening evening.
Application criteria
The proposal should:
- Be thought taking in consideration NoguerasBlanchard exhibition space (see floorplan below)
- Have an international interest
- Show financial feasibility
We encourage proposals to challenge curatorial and gallery practices.
Application procedures
The decision will be made public on NoguerasBlanchard website and by mail, before February 1st, 2012
The jury will consist of 4 curators/curatorial group that have previously carried out group shows in the gallery:
Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna), independent curatorial practice. Extraordinary Rendition, exhibited in 2007;
Jacqueline Uhlmann, independent curator. Shining by Absence, exhibited in 2009;
Juan Canela, independent curator. Ref 08001, exhibited in 2010;
Direlia Lazo, independent curator. Somewhere Else, exhibited in 2011.
The submission should include:
- A short biography or curriculum vitae (1 page), and contact address of the curator/s.
- An exhibition/project outline explaining the purpose and concept (600 words maximum)
- Initial list of artists and a succinct description of their practice and recent exhibitions (100 words maximum)
- Images of the works to be included with suitable captions.
- Detailed production budget that must include:
- Proposed curatorial fee / expenses derived from curators attendance to requested events
- Return transports and insurance
- Eventual production of new works
- Eventual architectural adaptation of gallery space (see map below)
Please submit your applications exclusively in English, in a pdf file up to 3MB, to: info@noguerasblanchard.com
Please write ‘NoguerasBlanchard Curatorial Open Call’ in the subject line. You will receive an email confirming the reception of your proposal. For more information please contact Zaida Trallero at zaida@noguerasblanchard.com
Information about NoguerasBlanchard
NoguerasBlanchard opened in June 2004 and is located next to Las Ramblas in the historic, multi-ethnic, Raval neighbourhood, in Barcelona. In this context we are strongly committed to developing an exhibition programme with emerging international artists whose work shows strong conceptual concerns and participates in the dialogue between art and broader currents in contemporary society.
The gallery's main goal is to engage in a long-term commitment with the careers of its artists and to be highly involved in the production of works. We are assisting with proposals, raising funds to produce films, biennial projects or catalogues while working in close alliance with international galleries and institutions, generating from co-productions to traveling exhibitions.
NoguerasBlanchard's participation in international fairs is essential for the promotion of our artists world-wide, while enabling us locally to maintain a lively and stimulating environment for art production and exchange.
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| Map of NoguerasBlanchard |
c/ Xuclà 7
08001 Barcelona · Spain
www.noguerasblanchard.com
Articulo sobre 'Rendición Extraordinaria' en ABCD por Arnau Puig
Sat, Apr 21 2007
SAVE THE DATE: Latitudes-curated 'Extraordinary Rendition' opens 22 March, NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona
Thu, Mar 1 2007
above: Wilfredo Prieto, Grease, Soap and Banana, 2006Private collection, Brussels; Courtesy NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona
'Extraordinary Rendition'
22 March – 19 May 2007
NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona
Artists: Mariana Castillo Deball (MX/DE), Gardar Eide Einarsson (NO/US), Rainer Ganahl (AT/US), Carsten Höller (BE/SE), Christopher Knowles (US), Josephine Meckseper (DE/US), Roman Ondák (SK/DE), Wilfredo Prieto (CU) and Natascha Sadr Haghighian (DE)
Curated by Latitudes
Extraordinary Rendition brings together the work of nine international artists in response to notions of risk, frictionlessness and the abstraction of potentialities. It includes work in video, sculpture, audio, painting and drawing.
Following a pre-modern discourse of danger, the emergence of risk – alongside the invention of insurance – proposed a world governed by immaterial markets that were no longer regulated by order, but by fundamental uncertainty, threat and insecurity. For its contextual backdrop, the exhibition attempts to think of the present as a cultural mythology through manifestations and elaborations of this principle. One could cite the orchestration of illusory energy and finance markets, the manipulation of governance and property, or the clandestine rendition of terror suspects. (Correspondingly, the Enron scandal, corruption uncovered by operation Malaya in Marbella, or CIA stop-offs in Palma de Mallorca, for example.) Furthermore, there are the unpredictable mega-weather events or reckless insurgencies that are also symptomatic of an ever more stochastic and violent reality which similarly escapes an ordinary logic of probabilities or worth. Social sensitivity to issues of security are rapidly changing our society. Alongside this global picture, our everyday lives – especially with respect to children – are increasingly subject to a suffocating psychology of risk aversion.
Attempts to render risk – notoriously, the US Department of Homeland Security's colour-coded threat advisory system – are necessarily unspecific and speculative to an extraordinary degree. In an attempt to explore this territory, the exhibition conceives of a platform that is both purely fictional and yet perfectly real, that is completely banal while exceptional, and is potentially valuable yet utterly worthless. Extraordinary Rendition explores multivalent artistic modes – from the journalistic to the comical, the literal to the allusive – within a set-up (the commercial art trade) that is, after all, itself a paradigmatic immaterial/dematerialised market.
For more information, please contact:
Rebeca Blanchard, rebeca@noguerasblanchard.com
T +34 93 342 57 21
F +34 93 342 57 22
Ester Partegàs at NoguerasBlanchard
Sat, Jan 13 2007