dOCUMENTA (13) continues in Kassel until 16 September 2012. Over the years we've had the pleasure to work with many of the featured artists in various ways, from commissions to symposia, to interviews. Here's a partial view of dOCUMENTA (13) through the projects of Latitudes.

Amy Balkin's work in the Friedericianum documents her attempt to have the world's atmosphere added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Latitudes presented an earlier iteration of this work, Public Smog (2004-ongoing), in Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin in 2008. She also contributed to Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook with her This is the Public Domain Project (2003–ongoing).

Amy Balkin's 'The is the Public Domain', in Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook. Photo: Robert Justamante. Courtesy: Latitudes.

Both Greenwashing and Land, Art also included the work of Maria Thereza Alves (whose work about Lake Chalco in Mexico City is included in the Ottoneum), the latter with the text 'No Brazil Without Us' by Alves, together with another dOCUMENTA (13) artist, Jimmie Durham. Latitudes also presented Alves' work 'The Sun' (2006, 5'03") in the 2008 film programme ‘A Stake in the Mud, A Hole in the Reel. Land Art's Expanded Field 1968–2008', which began at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City and toured to eight more venues between April and October 2008. The film features the story of Viganella in the Italian Alps, a small village surrounded by a steep valley that does not allow any direct sunlight during the winter months. Viganella's 200 inhabitants decided to place a large computer-operated mirror at a strategic angle on the south-facing slope on the mountainside in order to reflect the sun on the village’s main piazza.

Mariana Castillo Deball – as uqbar, with Irene Kopelman – was one of the four exhibitions in Latitudes' 2009 series Amikejo at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), León, Spain: "a psychedelic chiral ecosystem, featuring hanging papier-mâché epiphyte sculptures and ... fables among non-humans and drawings of hybrid creatures”. Castillo Deball was also part of our film programme What are we going to do after we’ve done what we’re going to do next?, for The Uncertainty Principle, at MACBA, Barcelona in June 2009, a project which functioned as a 'trailer' for Sequelism Part 3: Possible, Probable, or Preferable Futures, the exhibition we curated with Nav Haq at Arnolfini, Bristol, 18 July–20 September 2009. Both the latter projects featured Castillo Deball's Nowhere was Tomorrow (2007) her film which weaves the stories of a defunct accelerating ageing machine, a sprawling fig tree and the remains of a Roman bath in Serbia. 

Mariana Castillo Deball, 'It rises or falls depending on whether you're coming or going. If you are leaving, it's uphill; but as you arrive it's downhill', 2006. 'Extraordinary Rendition', NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona, 22 March – 19 May 2007. Photo: Robert Justamante. Courtesy: Latitudes.

Extraordinary Rendition, which took place at NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona, 22 March–19 May 2007, included Castillo Deball's installation It rises or falls... (2006) in which she revisited a popular legend around the looting and transportation of the colossal stone statue of Tláloc to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City in a series of lithographs. These were presented in parallel with a selection of audio interviews with antique dealers in Amsterdam and Barcelona, who discussed their profession's role in the creation of value, and the uncertainties of the market. Roman Ondák, whose work appears in the Neue Galerie at dOCUMENTA (13) was also part of Extraordinary Rendition with the work Untitled (Traffic), 2001, as was Natascha Sadr Haghighian (whose work in Kassel can be found on a slope of the Karlsaue park), here with the short video Embargo Embargo (2003) and the sound installation Elsewhere 3 (2005/7).

Mario Garcia Torres's film Abandoned and Forgotten Land Works That Are Not Necessarily Meant To Be Seen As Art (2004) was – alongside Francis Alÿs – a part of the Latitudes' film programme A Stake in the Mud, A Hole in the Reel. Land Art's Expanded Field 1968–2008, which premiered at the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico, in April 2008, before a seven-venue tour in Europe. Judith Hopf & Deborah Schamoni's Hospital Bone Dance (2005) was part of X, Y, etc.! a video programme made for Artissima 15 in 2008 which was motivated by the methodological project of Charles Fort, while an article about Emily Jacir by Greg Barton featured in The Last Newspaper (The Last Express).

Renata Lucas's work at dOCUMENTA (13) imagines a fictional monument underneath Kassel. She was one of the four artist tutors who led a week-long workshop during Campus, the unaccredited art school directed by Latitudes for the Espai Cultural Caja Madrid Barcelona in summer 2011.

'Emergencies and Risk' seminar at the Sharjah Biennial 8 symposium. Michael Rakowitz with Susi Platt (Architecture for Humanity's leading post-Tsunami reconstruction designer, Sri Lanka) and Mehdi Sabet (Associate Professor, Architecture & Interior Design, School of Architecture and Design, AUS). Photo: Latitudes.

Michael Rakowitz led a seminar on 'Emergencies and Risk' as part of the three-day symposium Latitudes organized for the 8th Sharjah Biennial, the United Arab Emirates in April 2007. An interview with Rakowitz by MoMA Ps1 curator Peter Eleey – entitled 'We Sell Iraqi Dates' – featured in UOVO/14 Ecology, Luxury & Degradation, which Latitudes guest edited in summer 2007. (UOVO/14 also includes an article by dOCUMENTA (13) Core Agent Chus Martínez on Arturas Raila).

Lawrence Weiner's work for dOCUMENTA (13) is inscribed on the glass wall in the Rotunda of the Fridericianum "brain". In 2008, Latitudes presented a new project with Weiner in Barcelona's Fundació Suñol entitled THE CREST OF A WAVE. On 9 September 2012, 7pm, Latitudes will be reading Weiner's "008: Lawrence Weiner: IF IN FACT THERE IS A CONTEXT" as part of dOCUMENTA (13) "Readers’ Circle: 100 Notes–100 Thoughts".

Gustav Metzger's RAF/ Reduce Art Flights project was implemented and presented as part of Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin in 2008, and later included in the 2009 exhibition 'Gustav Metzger, Decades 1959–2009' at the Serpentine Gallery in London. Serpentine Gallery curator Sophie O'Brien wrote this feature on Metzger for Latitudes' project The Last Newspaper (The Last Monitor). 

During The Dutch Assembly at ARCOmadrid 2012, Kunstverein Amsterdam's 'KV Auction' event was hosted by Gabriel Lester, whose Music for Department Stores (2012) can be found (or rather listened to) in Kassel's Kaufhaus. Lester has a further work in the vast Karlsaue Park – Transition 2012 (2012) – which also hosts the work of Maria Loboda. Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes & des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, at Meessen De Clercq, Brussels, Belgium, 25 February–16 April 2011 included Loboda as one of its five artists. She presented two works which incorporated printed fabric patterns inspired by the designs of Sonia Delaunay, Lotte Frömmel-Fochler and Mitzi Friedmann-Otten. Furthermore, The Dutch Assembly at ARCOmadrid 2012 also featured Rabih Mroué as the guest of BAK, Utrecht.

Tue Greenfort, Untitled, installation of 3 transparent-sided Eurobins outside the exit ramp of Frieze Art Fair, Regents Park, London, October 2008. Photo: Latitudes

Also in the Karlsaue Park is The Worldly House, a multispecies archive project put together by Tue Greenfort. Latitudes collaborated with Greenfort on several occasions, notably for a public-realm commission in London in conjunction with the Royal Society of Arts, and through contributions to the magazine UOVO/14, the exhibition Greenwashing, and the publication Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook. The latter two projects also included works by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. (And in addition, dOCUMENTA (13) artists Francis Alÿs, Brian Jungen and Natascha Sadr Haghighian also featured in Land, Art.)

Haris Epaminonda and Daniel Gustav Cramer's work at dOCUMENTA (13) take over two floors and the attic of an office building behind the Hauptbahnhof. 'The Garden of Forking Paths', which Latitudes presented at Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, 28 May–31 July 2009, featured the duo's The Infinite Library (2007–ongoing), a seemingly arbitrary archive of spliced publications. Elsewhere in the Hauptbahnhof 'constellation' Lara Favaretto's Momentary Monument IV (2012) comprised a dramatic mass of scrap metal. Mariana Cánepa Luna's interview with Favaretto was published in UOVO 16, January 2008 (pdf here). Haegue Yang was the subject of an interview by Doryun Chong in UOVO/14, Ecology, Luxury & Degradation.

Haegue Yang on the cover of 'The Last Star-Ledger' as part of 'The Last Newspaper', New Museum, New York, 2010. Photo: Latitudes

Yang was also our cover star for The Last Newspaper's The Last Star-Ledger, as well as presenting a major installation as part of Sequelism Part 3: Possible, Probable, or Preferable Futures, Arnolfini, Bristol. (You can download a pdf of Max Andrews's 2009 essay for 'Towards Haegue Yang’s Blind Rooms', published in Haegue Yang. Symmetric Inequality / Desigualdad Simétrica, Sala Rekalde, in English or Español. Sticking with writings, you can check out Andrews's essay on Dora García for Frieze here).



Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri – as eXplo – spoke at the symposium Latitudes put together for 'Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change', Sharjah Biennial 8, United Arab Emirates, in April 2007. Last but not least, Ines Schaber's work at dOCUMENTA (13) explores the history of the former monastery, workhouse, and correctional facility at Breitenau. For The Last Newspaper's The Last Gazette, Schaber presented Picture Mining, her research into Lewis Hine in the context of the Corbis archive, housed in a former mine in Pennsylvania.

Read our report dOCUMENTA (13), with photos and critics' comments. Full photo tour here.

–

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (unless credited otherwise in the caption)


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The works are produced for and presented in different locations around the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve (in the Basque Country), including urban, industrial and natural spaces.

Below images of the works as we visited them, starting with Gunilla Klingberg's "A Sign in Space" at Playa de Laga, Ibarrangelua, a tide-depending 'drawing' performance that takes place on the beach on the following days: 19, 20, 30, 31st of July; 1, 2, 14, 15, 16, 30 and 31st of August and 14, 15th of September.

 
Haegue Yang, "Tectonic Texture", Cantera de Andrabide, Gautegiz-Arteaga.

 Following an excerpt from the text "Stack of evidence: Haegue Yang" included in the publication "Sentido y Sostenibilidad – Reading" written by Max Andrews' of Latitudes (you can download the full text from Latitudes' writing archive).

"Yang’s project, for Urdaibai – entitled 'Tectonic Texture' – has its beginnings and the bulk of its physical and metaphorical investment in what is perhaps the most traditional of raw materials for artistic decoration and representation: stone. In particular she became interested in the characteristic stones of the Urdaibai region – including grey limestone and Rojo Ereño, which has been quarried in the region since at least Roman times. The latter, also known as Rojo Bilbao, is technically a recrystallised limestone which is a deep meaty red colour with whorls of grey and white which are the fossilised remains of rudists, bivalves which were the major reef builders of the tropical seas of the Cretaceous. Yang proposed a stack in which 80 cm square slabs of Rojo Ereño are alternated with slabs of grey limestone. Additionally, a mason from Urdaibai was commissioned to carve the top surface – a square sandstone plate, also from the region – with a combination of his own raised geometric designs and a series of engraved handprints like impressions left in wet concrete. The five handprints are intended to encourage people to touch the form and initiate a direct contact with the materiality of the stone. 'Tectonic Texture' is installed one of the few Ereño marble quarries in the region which has not been completely abandoned and is surrounded by the stagger-cut cliff faces where millennia of excavations have cut down below the forested surface. The sculptural material of which it is comprised originated from the same quarry. The depth of the quarry witnesses the vast displacement of rock that has taken place, and the steady transposition of a section of landscape which itself originated as ocean life approximately 100 million years ago into symbolic and cultural forms – buildings facades, altars and monuments distributed throughout the Basque country and beyond.

Yang’s work is a kind of non-sculpture – perhaps closer to a memorial or a secular shrine – which connects to a highly-specific local labour tradition, through the apparent paradox of a representation of stone that is itself stone. Its form might also suggest that it is a kind of column or pedestal for an invisible form on top of it – an expectant platform articulated through the reorganisation of the excess symbolic value found in the anthropogenic landscape where it stands. The location of the quarry is somewhat hidden within the landscape of the Urdaibai biosphere reserve, and approaching the work in its context evokes a quasi-mystical feeling despite that fact the area bears the scars of modern industry. With 'Tectonic Texture', Yang was particularly interested in this strange collision of industrial exploitation and managed nature inherent in the site, as well as the Urdaibai region’s pride in its ecological fecundity as a new kind of resource with political dimensions."  

Oscar Tuazon, "Birds" is on the way up to San Pedro Atxarre from the district of Garteiz and Akorda, Ibarrangelua. It consists of a bench of Marquina stone with a radio system broadcasting live (Radio3) within a remote and highly environmentally-protected area.

Liam Gillick, "Faceted Revision Structure (Es una clase muy pobre de memoria que sólo funciona hacia atrás)", Fábrica de Astra, Gernika-Lumo. The remodelling project of this future production centre is still undergoing, and will be presented with a finissage at the end of the project.

Pieter Vermeersch, "Untitled" in the Polígono Industrial, Gernika-Lumo. As the artist has written, these two paitings "represent a mental landscape as a subjective mirror of my experience in this region."

Renata Lucas, "El Visitante", Calle de Santa Clara, Gernika-Lumo. The project involved the planting of a Sibipiruna (Caesalpinia Peltophoroides), a tree native from the artist's birthplace, Brazil, in close proximity to Gernika's oak tree.
 

Following an excerpt from the text included in the publication "Sentido y Sostenibilidad – Reading" written by Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes (you can download the full text from Latitudes' writing archive).

Carlos Irijalba, "High Tides", Refuge in Paresi, Busturia. Irijalba's installation in this former Republican school is an investigation of a physical terrain: the result of a geotechnical drilling that Irijalba undertook on the parking lot of the former weapon factory of Astra in Gernika. 

Maider López, "In Situ", Nine different locations around Urdaibai. Below the coordinates in front of Mundaka's Town Hall, designating where to find the yellow tiles the artist has placed which indicate daily movements, crossings, activities that happen in the area.

We are missing images (our camera collapsed! but managed to rescue a photo we took with a phone) of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's "Regar corazonadas", placed in the Centro de Biodiversidad de Euskadi-Torre Madariaga (Busturia). The piece consisted in an interactive hose located in the garden of Torre Madariaga. The hose has a sensor attached to the sprinkler which detects the pulse and makes the water flow following the heartbeat of the person handling it. The Biodiversity Center is also the info point from where to take a map and guide (includes GPS locations) to find the projects, and also screens a 'making of' video of the project.




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

Adrià Julià,Videostill, 'La Villa Basque, Vernon, California' 2005. Cortesía del artista.

Adrià Julià, Notes on the Missing Oh (2010). Installation, 9.84 ft. x 7.08 in. www.calfund.org

Poster 'Campus'.

El 29 de julio tendrá lugar un finissage en el Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, Barcelona, coincidiendo con la conclusión de la segunda fase de 'Campus' (27 junio–29 julio). La presentación recoge los proyectos e ideas desarrollados por los quince participantes durante el últimos mes.

Los artistas, seleccionados mediante convocatoria abierta, han participado en cuatro intensas semanas de trabajo dirigidas por los artistas Libia Castro y Ólafur Ólafsson (4–8 julio), Renata Lucas (11–15 julio), Peter Piller (18–22 julio) y Adrià Julià (25–29 julio) y han organizado este display final de sus proyectos, que se podrá visitar hasta el 28 agosto y que incluye trabajos e ideas colectivos e individuales, así como videos de los cuatro casos de estudio presentados en las dos conferencias del 28 y el 30 de junio sobre programas educación artística y videos documentando las cuatro semanas de trabajo durante 'Campus'.

Entre los proyectos presentados se incluyen:

Quim Packard (Reus, 1985) quien ha creado la Thompson Student Association (TSA), una asociación estudiantil de participación colectiva y abierta desde donde se han generado diferentes actividades paralelas al programa oficial de 'Campus'.

La instalación 'Ejercicio de ritmo' (2011) de Lola Lasurt (Barcelona, 1983), compuesta de una maqueta de cartón y plastilina y una película en super 8 (3'50''), explora el monumento dedicado al político y abogado Francesc Layret (1880–1920) situado en la Plaza Goya en Barcelona.

El proyecto 'Tierra Circular' (2011) de Mónica Zamudio (Bogotá, 1985) consiste en la creación de una sociedad secreta, la Societat Real Contemporànea del Sentit Profund, a partir de la cual se presentan imágenes simbólicas irreconocibles y una red relacional de significados entorno a la palabra 'seny' (cordura en Catalán).

Dada la abundancia de carteristas en Barcelona, Claudia Claremi (Madrid, 1986) ha decidido dejarse robar el bolso y poner una denuncia en la cual narra los hechos y la lista de los objetos sustraídos, dejando abierta la posibilidad de que la persona que coja o encuentre la cartera se ponga en contacto con ella o simplemente la ignore.

Finalmente, Ariadna Parreu (Reus, 1982), Jordi Ferreiro (Barcelona, 1982) y Daniel Silvo (Cádiz, 1982) presentarán su trabajo colaborativo "Poplitics" durante la inauguración, una conferencia–performance que propone la confrontación de la estética musical pop y el análisis de las letras de sus canciones con el discurso político.

El 29 julio también se presentará una publicación diseñada por FerranElotro Studio que recoge documentación de los artistas participantes así como pequeñas entrevistas con los tutores.

Programa finissage:


19.45h: Proyección film super 8 "Ejercicio de ritmo" (2011, 3'50'') de Lola Lasurt (Sala exposiciones)
20.00h: Conferencia "Poplitics" (2011, 10') Ariadna Parreu, Jordi Ferreiro y Daniel Silvo (Auditorio primer piso)
20.30h: 'Hiperconferencia' (15') performance de Jordi Ferreiro alrededor de la idea del hipervínculo en la que el espectador se ve involucrado en una ficción participativa (Auditorio, primer piso).




Espai Cultural Caja Madrid
Plaça Catalunya 9 (esquina Rambla Catalunya)
08002 Barcelona

Lun-Sáb 10–21h
Dom 10–14h

Visita del Espai Cultural Caja Madrid con los arquitectos Yoel Karaso y Cecilia Tham (Poliplicity/MOB), quienes hay diseñado las mesas de trabajo que servirán también como soporte de presentación para la fase de exposición documental (29 Julio–28 Agosto).

 

Presentación de Claudia Claremi

Presentación de Diogo Evangelista

Presentación de Jordi Ferreiro

Presentación de Alia Farid

Presentación de José Joaquin Figueroa

Presentación de Lola Lasurt

Presentación de Federico Martelli

Presentación de Momu & No Es (Lucia Moreno/Eva Noguera)

Presentación de Quim Packard

Presentación de Ariadna ParreuPresentación de Antoine Renard
Presentación de Maria SalazarPresentación de Daniel SilvoPresentación de Carlos ValverdePresentación de Mónica Zamudio


Bartomeu Marí, director del MACBA, presenta al Rijksakademie, Amsterdam.

Jennifer Teets, comisaria independiente, presenta SOMA, México DF.

Ronda de preguntas con (izq. a dcha): Bartomeu Marí, Mariana Cánepa Luna (Latitudes) y Jennifer Teets.Carles Guerra, director, La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona presenta The Mountain School of Arts, Los Angeles.

Prof. Nikolaus Hirsch, Rector de la Städelschule, Frankfurt-am-Main, presenta la Städelschule, Frankfurt-am-Main.

Estudiantes admirando las ventanas a Plaça Catalunya del Espai Cultural Caja Madrid
con la imagen gráfica de Campus realizada por Ferran ElOtro Studio (detalle abajo).

Síguenos en Twitter #campusespai

Imagen gráfica de Campus por ferranElOtro Studio.

CAMPUS
27 Junio–28 Agosto 2011
Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, Barcelona

Artistas tutores: Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Renata Lucas, Peter Piller y Adrià Julià.

Artistas participantes: Claudia Claremi (Madrid–Madrid), Diogo Evangelista (Lisboa–Lisboa), Alia Farid (Kuwait–Barcelona), Jordi Ferreiro (Barcelona–Barcelona), José Joaquin Figueroa (Caracas–Nueva York), Lola Lasurt (Barcelona–Barcelona), Federico Martelli (Santiago de Chile–Londres), Momu & No Es (Lucia Moreno/Eva Noguera, Basilea/Barcelona–Madrid), Quim Packard (Reus–Barcelona), Ariadna Parreu (Reus–Barcelona), Antoine Renard (Paris–Berlin), Maria Salazar (Logroño–Bilbao), Daniel Silvo (Cádiz–Madrid), Carlos Valverde (Cáceres–Barcelona) y Mónica Zamudio (Bogotá–Bogotá).

Ponentes conferencias: Bartomeu Marí, Jennifer Teets, Carles Guerra y Nikolaus Hirsch.