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


Related content:

• Archive of Cover Stories since March 2015
• Cover Story, February 2017: The Dutch Assembly, five years on 1 February 2017
• Cover Story, January 2017: How open are open calls? 4 January 2017
• Cover Story, December 2016: Ten years ago – Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook 5 December 2016
• Cover Story, November 2016: Plucking Gilda, synesthetic Toni and dazzling Víctor 2 November 2016
• Cover Story, October 2016: "A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Gallery, 13 October 2016
• Cover Story, September 2016: "El misterio de Caviria" by Antoni Hervàs 1 Septiembre 2016
• Last chance to read the August 2016 Monthly Cover Story "Fermínlandia" 31 August 2016.

Ana Jotta’s “Abans que me n’oblidi (Before I forget)”
PROJECTESD, Barcelona
September 30–November 26, 2016
 
by Mariana Cánepa Luna

"While it has been widely exhibited in her native Portugal, Ana Jotta’s work hasn’t been presented in depth to the Barcelona public since the early 1990s.(1) So this mini-survey of her production from 1980 to the present, framed as part of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend, is overdue. “Abans que me n’oblidi (Before I forget)” begins (or ends) at the intermediary patio space that one crosses before entering the main exhibition space at ProjecteSD. Part of a curved wall is covered with irregular patches of light gray and pale pink paint, as if emulating swatch tests for a redecoration. This playful gesture sets the tone for the exhibition inside, a somber and subtle palette of delicate intonations and provisional arrangements."  

Continue reading...
 
Originally published in art-agenda.com on November 8, 2016.


RELATED CONTENT:

• Writing archive on Latitudes' website;
• art-agenda review of Francesc Ruiz exhibition at garcía galería, Madrid, by Mariana Cánepa Luna, 4 March 2016;
• art-agenda review of Andrea Büttner exhibition at NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona, by Latitudes, 21 July 2014.

Last night, a fascinating conversation between Dora García and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina took place at ProjecteSD, Barcelona, coinciding with the opening of the exhibition Forever, which featured works by both artists as well as Joe Scanlan.
García led the dialogue which began around the concept of the over-excluded or the super-excluded artists in relation to Pierre Bal-Blanc's 2009 Secession exhibition and essay 'The Death of the Audience' (interview with the author here). Besides talking about this long-term interest of García around 'the marginal', the artists also discussed the role and sense of mission attributed to artists, censorship (and self-censorship), what it means to work ethically (or the ethics of work), the definition of quality and regret.

One of the highlights was this short exchange:

– Dora García: Do you identify with the idea of an artist without work?
– Isidoro Varcárcel Medina: Is that possible?
– DG: Well, there's a few examples in history...
– IVM: With or without a catalogue...?

Dora García (Valladolid, Spain, 1965) studied Fine Arts at the Universidad de Salamanca and was resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam (1989–1991). Recent projects and exhibitions include Kunsthalle Bern (2010), Index (Stockholm 2010) and Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt, 2009). She participated amongst others at the Lyon Biennial 2009, the Sydney Biennial 2008, and Skulptur Projekte Münster in 2007. Dora García will represent Spain at the upcoming Venice Biennial (2011) with her new project The Inadequate.

Isidoro Valcárcel Medina (Murcia, Spain, 1937) moved to Madrid at the age of nineteen to study Architecture and Fine Arts. From 1972 on, after taking part in the Encuentros de Pamplona on conceptual art, his work involved actions and works for public spaces. He is one of the leading Spanish Conceptualists, not only historically, but also as an artistic referent for a new generation of creators. Valcárcel Medina had a retrospective exhibition at the Tàpies Foundation in 2002, exhibitions at MACBA in 2006, and at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 2009. In 2007 he received the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas and recently (2011) he was awarded in the first edition of the Premios Arte y Mecenazgo.

ProjecteSD
Passatge Mercader 8, Baixos 1
08008 Barcelona
T | F: + 34 93 488 1360
info@projectesd.com
www.projectesd.com
Tuesday to Saturday 11–19h

This past Wednesday 17 December saw the opening of three compelling exhibitions in Barcelona. Erick Beltrán's "Calculum Series" was a precise suite of objects and texts (including Rasputin's finger nails and a bone die) which circulated around a consideration of value. The show continues at Galería Joan Prats until late January 2009. Nati Bermejo presented an exquisite set of large scale black-and-white drawings at Estrany de la Mota ("Look Left / Look Right" continues until February 12th 2009). Meanwhile at ProjecteSD, Peter Piller showed "Swiss Landscapes" – photographs gleaned from over 500,000 images taken for insurance claims purposes from the digital archives of the Swiss insurers Bâloise.

All images: Latitudes | www.lttds.org

X, Y, etc.! is an array of videos motivated by the methodological project of Charles Fort a quack to some, a visionary to others, Fort was a relentless researcher of ‘paranormal’ phenomena avant la lettre, yet he made no attempt to present a coherent theory, or to endorse what he compiled. Instead, his accounts of uncanny artifacts, unexplained disappearances, objects falling from the sky, etc., comprise a satire of acceptable theories and beliefs. X, Y, etc.! is titled after two of Fort’s early manuscripts – X and Y – which were burned by the author yet became the basis for his iconoclastic The Book of the Damned (1919).

Fort’s masterful collections of oddities can seem random and jumbled, yet they are also a carefully clustered continuum of humor, data, wonder, and ridicule. Hence in X, Y, etc.!, everything can be considered plausible – the banal with the unique, artistic with non-artistic, fact with fake, sincere with insincere, correct with incorrect, etc. In this contrary borderland of knowns and unknowns, cynicism and speculation, science and fiction, each film is anomalous and the whole is underdetermined. Art and reality are far more mysterious, complex and nuanced than we realise. “It does not matter where we begin”, Fort wrote, “whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle beginning anywhere.”


Films selected for the 2008 Video Lounge (in screening order, starting 11.30am):

* Mark Titchner, Ivy Meets Mike, 2007, Peres Projects, Berlin & Los Angeles
* Hans Op de Beeck,The Building, 2007, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Boissy-le-Châtel
* Christelle Lheureux, Non ricordo il titolo, 2008, Artericambi, Verona
* Elizabeth McAlpine,The Film Footage Missed by the Veiwer Through Blinking While Watching the Feature Film ‘Don’t Look Now’, 2003, Laura Barlett Gallery, London
* Elizabeth McAlpine, Light Reading (1500 Cinematic Explosion), 2005, Laura Barlett Gallery, London
* Michael Fliri, Early Morning With Time to Waste, 2007, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milano
* Emilie Pitoiset, Othello, 2006, Galerie Lucile Corty, Paris
* Gianni Motti, The Messenger, Raël and Brigitte Boisselier, 2003, Cosmic Galerie, Paris
* Sven Johne, Elmenhorst, 2006, Klemm’s, Berlin
* Swetlana Heger, Untitled (The Cohen Residence / Paradise Valley), 2006, Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris
* Morag Keil, Fainting for YT, 2008, Grimm Fine Art, Amsterdam
* Danai Anesiadou & Sophie Nys, X, A & M, 2008, Elisa Platteau Galerie, Brussels
* Christian Jankowski, Hollywood Schnee, 2004, Cosmic Galerie, Paris
* G.R.A.M., Zephyr, 2007-8, Christine König Galerie, Vienna
* Anja Kirschner & David Panos,Trail of the Spider, 2008, Hollybush Gardens, London

_BREAK_

* Carles Congost, La Mala Pintura, 2008, Artericambi, Verona
* Andrea Büttner, Little Works, 2007-8, Hollybush Gardens, London
* Pia Maria Martin, Go, 2008, Galerie Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart
* Jordan Wolfson, Favourite Things, 2008, T293, Naples
* Judith Hopf & Deborah Schamoni, Hospital Bone Dance, 2005, Croy Nielsen, Berlin
* Shana Moulton, Whispering Pines #4, 2007, Pianissimo, Milano
* Gianni Motti, Shock and Awe, 2003, Cosmic Galerie, Paris
* Sergio Vega, The Ants, 2006, Umberto Di Marino Arte Contemporanea, Napoli
* Julika Rudelius, Adrift, 2007, Galerie Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart
* Delphine Reist, Averse, 2007, Triple V, Dijon
* Gareth James & Cesare Pietroiusti, Untitled, 2006, Franco Soffiantino ArteContemporanea, Torino
* Haris Epaminonda,Tarahi I, 2006, Rodeo, Istanbul
* Haris Epaminonda,Tarahi III, 2006, Rodeo, Istanbul
* Aurelien Froment, Théâtre de Poche, 2007, Motive Gallery, Amsterdam
* Shimabuku, Fish & Chips, 2006, NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona

_BREAK_

* Hans Schabus, Loch, 1999-2000, Zero..., Milano
* Harry Dodge & Stanya Kahn, All Together Now, 2008, Elizabeth Dee, New York
* Donna Conlon, Low Tide, 2004, Galleria Giorgio Persano, Torino
* Donna Conlon, Summer Breeze, 2007, Galleria Giorgio Persano, Torino
* Alice Cattaneo, Untitled 1, Untitled 2, 2007, Galleria Suzy Shammah, Milano
* Patrick Tuttofuoco, La Noce d’Oro, 2005, Studio Guenzani, Milano
* Guillaume Leblon, Notes, 2007, ProjecteSD, Barcelona
* Clemens von Wedemeyer & Maya Schweizer, Rien du Tout, 2007, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris
* Alterazioni Video, Black Hole ... Our Understanding of the Universe is About to Change, 2008,V.M. 21 arte contemporanea, Roma
* Cezary Bodzianowski, Cacadu, 2006, Zero..., Milano
* Matthew Darbyshire & Sam Gunn, Le Chant du Rossignol, 2008, Herald St, London

_TOTAL SCREENING TIME_ 6 hours 20 min

The films will be shown continuously each day in a specially-constructed screening environment, and will also be available on three video-on-demand consoles.

For further information on Artissima 15 programme, dowload the newsletter 'Radio Sick 2008 #3' here


Lingotto Fiere
via Nizza 280
10126 Torino, ITALIA
T +39 011 197 441 06
F +39 011 197 461 06
info@artissima.it
www.artissima.it
 7-8-9 November 2008. Open to the public 11.00 am - 8.00 pm
 
Image credits: (TOP) Leaflets of the programme. Photo: Latitudes. BELOW: Aurélien Froment, production still of 'Théâtre de Poche', 2007 (12 min). Photo: Aurélien Mole. Courtesy: the artist and Motive Gallery, Amsterdam.

Revolver Archiv für aktuelle Kunst founder and general wise man Christoph Keller (on left in photo 2) gave a sparkling presentation yesterday at ProjecteSD about books, publishing, raising rare breeds, bespoke fruit schnapps and his new Christoph Keller Editions books with young artists published with JRP | Ringier. Inspirational stuff.

"ProjecteSD is pleased to present its second exhibition of artist's books. For this occasion two young independent editors have been invited: Christoph Keller and ROMA Publications. Working in different environments but with similar attitudes and interests, Roma and Keller have pursued outstanding careers and created for themselves a solid space in the publishing field of contemporary art.

 
Peter Piller's show Arrows at ProjecteSD, Barcelona, has been extended until 5 January. "The installation brings together 37 pictures of different formats, colour and black & white, all showing “arrows”. Arrows are symbols commonly seen on local German newspapers used by editors to underline supposedly interesting features on the image illustrating the news."

Following an excerpt on Peter Piller's work published on the Cal Cego collection web, written by Mariana Cánepa Luna from Latitudes:
"Peter Piller was born in Fritzlar, former West Germany in 1968, and currently lives between Hamburg and Leipzig, where he has been a professor at Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst since 2006. Piller began to work for the media agency Carat in 1997, and for years held the post dealing with evaluating and archiving regional newspapers and editing their advertisements. It was monotonous work, but there is no doubt that it helped him develop a keen and patient ability to appreciate details that are normally overlooked. In 1998 he defined his artistic method and began to collect, systemise and inventory images, a process that he defines as “an exercise in productive misunderstanding”. [1] " – Read more here.
[1] Artist quoted in ‘Classified Information’, Dominic Eichler. Frieze, November-December issue, 2006, p. 139
[Image: From 'Pfeile 2/Arrows 2'. Archiv Peter Piller 2000/2006. Pigment Print, 72 x 51 cm. Ed. 6. Courtesy the artists and ProjecteSD, Barcelona.]

Here's an interview with Jordan Wolfson, in which he talks about DAY, the piece Latitudes' presented as part of the exhibition 'Alrededor de todos juntos, una entre tantas' at ProjecteSD, Barcelona, 8 June–4 August 2006.