Cover Story–June 2024: Terence Gower – Diplomacy, Urbanism, Uranium
Sat, Jun 1 2024
June 2024 cover story on www.lttds.org
The June 2024 monthly Cover Story “TERENCE GOWER: DIPLOMACY, URBANISM, URANIUM” is now available on our homepage: www.lttds.org (after June 2024 this story will be archived here).
“Last month, The Power Plant in Toronto opened Terence Gower’s “Embassy”, an exhibition showcasing over a decade of work exploring the diplomatic architecture of American embassy buildings in Baghdad, Havana, and Saigon, as well as an unbuilt project for Ottawa.” → Continue reading
Cover Stories are published monthly on Latitudes’ homepage featuring past, present, or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects, or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.
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Public programme of the exhibition "4.543 billion. The Matter of Matter" at the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux
Wed, Dec 6 2017 |
| First public event on 30 June to the Salle des Collections de l'Unité de Formation de Biologie, Université de Bordeaux. This and following photos: Latitudes. |
On December 14 at 2pm, the mediation department of the CAPC will lead a guided visit to Ilana Halperin’s "The Rock Cycle" (2017) intervention at the Salle des Collections de l'Unité de Formation de Biologie, Université de Bordeaux.
The event is the third visit (earlier ones took place on October 19 and November 16) programmed in the context of her participation in the exhibition ‘4.543 billion. The matter of matter’ on view at the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux. The next (and final one) will be taking place on January 4, three days before the exhibition closes on January 7, 2018.
These events are free. Booking is recommended via Léo Correa l.correa@mairie-bordeaux.fr T. (+33) 05 56 00 81 60.
Ilana Halperin’s new project for the exhibition '4.543 billion' deals with geological intimacy and vivacity, and the uncanny fact that something as apparently inert and certain as the stone walls of the CAPC building were once marine life from a tropical ocean of the Oligocene epoch, around 32 million-years-ago. This Calcaire à Astéries (asteriated limestone) characteristic of Bordeaux takes its name from the countless tiny fossil organisms of the genus asterias (a type of sea star) that can be found in the stone alongside fossil mollusks and coral.
Halperin addresses stone, not as dead matter or a mere resource, but as a story-laden substance that both surpasses and partners in humans’ view of the world. 'The Rock Cycle' incorporates the reading of a letter and the hosting of a number of the artist’s geological sculptures within the displays of the zoology collection of the University of Bordeaux. These ‘curios’ originated as fragments of sea-weathered brick from the Isle of Bute in western Scotland, as well as waterjet-cut sandstone, that the artist left for three months in Fontaines Pétrifiantes in Saint-Nectaire. For generations, the mineral-rich waters that percolate through the rock at this site in central France have been used to create sculptures using the same process by which stalactites form, only one hundred times faster. Objects become rapidly encrusted with new layers of stone.
—Latitudes
[Excerpt from the exhibition guide]
Three other events have been programmed in the context of the exhibition.
 | |
| Visit with Terence Gower (participating artist) and Prof. Bruno Cahuzac. Photo: CAPC musée/Département des publics. |
8 November 2017, 5:30–7pm
Jam Session #1—Guided tour by Terence Gower (participating artist) and Prof. Bruno Cahuzac (UFR Sciences de la Terre et de la Mer, Université de Bordeaux Montaigne).
 |
| Guests during “The Return of the Earth: Ecologising art history in the Anthropocene” event. Photo: Latitudes. |
15 November 2017, 4:30–8pm
“The Return of the Earth: Ecologising art history in the Anthropocene”—Lecture by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, a conversation between Xavier Ribas and Ângela Ferreira, debate convened by Latitudes. Free access. Simultaneous translation English-French.
 |
| During Jam Session #2 event. Photo: CAPC musée/Département des publics. |
6 December 2017, 5:30–7pm
Jam Session #2—Guided tour by Isabelle Kanor (Head association "Le Labo de Lettres” dealing with cultural issues in the Antilles and colonization), and Charlotte Bouvier and Rémi Cazamajour (Inélia, company that supplied the solar panels feeding the video installation "Ancient Lights" (2015) by Nicholas Mangan). Sign up: Stéphane Mallet, s.mallet@mairie-bordeaux.fr
 | ||||||||||||||
| Photo: Latitudes/RK. |
The exhibition ‘4.543 billion’ is the contribution of the CAPC musée to the cultural season Paysages Bordeaux 2017. Between September 11–October 6, 2017, and within the exhibition framework, Latitudes led the month-long residency programme ‘Geologic Time’ at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Alberta, Canada.
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RELATED CONTENT:
- “4.543 billion. The Matter of Matter” exhibition
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- Photo gallery of the exhibition
- CAPC website (French, English, Spanish) http://www.capc-bordeaux.fr/programme/4543-milliards
- Cover Story—December 2017: "Tabet's Tapline trajectory" 4 December 2017
- Alfred Roll's 1878 "The Old Quarryman" exchanged with Alfred Smith's "The Grave Docks" (1884) in the exhibition "4.543 billion" at the CAPC musée 3 November 2017
- Cover Story—November 2017: "Mining negative monuments: Ângela Ferreira, Stone Free, and The Return of the Earth" 1 November 2017
- 15 November 2017, 4:30–8pm: 'The Return of the Earth. Ecologising art history in the Anthropocene' study day at the CAPC musée, Bordeaux 24 October 201
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- SAVE THE DATE: 29 June, 19h. Private view of the exhibition "4.543 billion. The matter of matter" at the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux 30 May 2017
- Cover Story – May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux 10 May 2016.
- Second research trip to Bordeaux 16 July 2016
"Modernitat Amagada" (Hidden Modernity), an exhibition at Casa Capell, Mataró (3–31 October 2013)
Fri, Nov 1 2013
Casa Capell at the Parc Central, Mataró.
'Modernitat Amagada' (3–31 October 2013), organised by ACM (Associació per a la Cultura i l’Art Contemporani de Mataró), was a short-lived group show at Casa Capell in Mataró, the wonderful former home of the Masjuan family ("former" as today there are hardly any traces of its original domestic use as it has been coverted into City Hall offices for its department of sustainability). It was built in 1959 by Jordi Capell (1925–1970), a little-known rationalist architect, mathematician and humanist.
The exhibition extended over two floors, presenting works by Alexander Apóstol, Xavier Arenós, Rafel G. Bianchi, Eva Fàbregas, Carla Filipe, Regina Giménez, Terence Gower and Jaume Roure, as well as works by its two organisers, the artists Domènec and Dani Montlleó. The works were mostly produced in 2013, and ranged from sculptural interventions (Eva
Fàbregas), responses to the home environment and its particular architecture (Rafel G. Bianchi, Regina Giménez, Jaume Roure), to contributions by artists whose artistic practice usually navigates the field of modern architecture (Terence Gower, Domènec, Xavier Arenós).
First room included works by Carla Filipe (on the table), Jaume Roure (by the chimney) and Eva Fàbregas (by the window). All works from 2013.
Carla Filipe, "Ideal City and Current Town" (2013). 10 acrylic stands with collages.
Detail of Carla Filipe's "Ideal City and Current Town" (2013).
Extending the line of her previous projects, Carla Filipe recuperated lost or forgotten memories, trying to connect unknown fragments of local history. Her modules revived the 'Moderno Escondido' (Hidden Modernity) concept which was developed by Portuguese architects in the 1950s and 60s and which resulted in a series of offices, chuches, domestic spaces and commercial spaces though now these are mostly abandoned, both physically and ideologically.
Regina Giménez, "Composició en vermell, groc, blau i blanc" (Composition in red, yellow, blue and white, 2013).
Regina Giménez thought of her painting as a wink to Capell, the house's modernist architect who was also a fervent activist for Catalan culture, dovetailing him with two referents of Modernism, the artist Piet Mondrian and the architect Mies van der Rohe. Her work suggested a possible intervention within the dinning room of Casa Capell – the incorporatation of a red carpet, white and blue cushions and a yellow wall – based on the principles of Neoplasticism, a movement which often used these primary colours in modern architecture, colours which are coincidentally also that of the Estelada, the Catalan independence flag.
Jaume Roure, "RE: Projecte Casa Capell" (2013).
Upon visiting the house and realising that little trace was visible of its original domestic use, Jaume Roure decided to recuperate the family presence by trying to locate photographs and personal memories of the original inhabitants. He couldn't find any photographs and only knew they were a couple with four children. He therefore tried to put faces to them by reconstructing a series of fictional images of what he thought they would look like, and framed them as if these memories were finally coming back to their original setting.
Eva Fàbregas, "Collapsible Sculptures" (2013).
The series "Collapsible Sculptures" reflected on the progressive 'containerisation' of our culture which since the 1950s has triggered a revolution in the production and transportation of merchandising. Our daily lives have also been highly affected by this shift: our food is able to be stored and transported and so are our domestic environments with modular, foldable, extensible or stackable items. Fàbregas sculptures (located in three spaces throughout the house), revealed the correspondences between mass-production and the aesthetics of Modernity.
Above: Jaume Roure, "RE: Projecte Casa Capell" (2013), and below on the screen the 17' video "New Utopias" (2010) by Terence Gower.
Still from "New Utopias" (2010) by Terence Gower.
(From the artist's website): "New Utopias is a lecture about pop culture utopias filmed in the style of a 1950s Walt Disney documentary. The set, costuming, lighting and camera work are based on 1950s television production standards. But where the original Disney documentaries celebrated rockets and nuclear technology, this updated version promotes aesthetic frivolity, sexual perversion and UFO abduction fantasies. Among the new utopias under analysis are an afrofuturist extraterrestrial society, a dreary French seaside town transformed into an aesthetic paradise, and a retelling of the Frankenstein myth set in a sexual utopia ruled by the uninhibited libido. This video is shown accompanied by the Mothership Blueprints."
Eva Fàbregas, "Collapsible Sculptures" (2013).
Rafel G. Bianchi, Album (2013). 6x7 slides on lightbox.
Rafel Bianchi's slides portrayed the cacti he had been documenting in his own garden in Barcelona. Upon visiting Casa Capell, he felt the need to bring some of the domesticity back to a space which was heavily restored in 2009–10 for it new adminstrative use. Cacti are a recurring motif used in the photographic documentation of architectural spaces, plants that often appear in photographs of works by the Catalan architect and city planner Josep Lluís Sert. Upon finishing a commission, Sert would arrange furniture and plants, with the aim of trying to give an appearance of domesticity and commodity as well as of Mediterraneity and modenity.
More "Collapsible Sculptures" by Eva Fàbregas downstairs by the window towering as cacti. These are reminiscent of those projected by Mexican architect Juan O’Gorman to protect Kahlo and Rivera's studio in Mexico City.
Lower gallery with works by Domènec (left) and Dani Montlleó (right).
Lower gallery with works by Dani Montlleó (left) and Alexander Apóstol (right).
Alexander Apóstol's photographic series "Le Corbusier quemado en Bogotá" (2005), documented the interior of the burnt Centro Nariño, a residencial campus of 23 buildings built in Bogotá, developed by Colombian architects following the doctrines of Le Corbusier, who earlier proposed a modern city that was finally never built. Amindst student revolts in the 60s, the buildings were set on fire, destroying most of its interiors, which are still intact amongst the ashes and electric wiring revealing some of the important traces that the Modern thinking left in Latin American cities.
Domènec, "Conversation Piece: Narkomfin" (2013). Maquette and formica chairs.
"Conversation Piece: Narkomfin" (2013) was supported on two formica chairs, typically used in 1950s and 60s homes, and a maquette of the social housing Narkomfin, a building that fascinated Le Corbusier in his 1930s trip to the Soviet Union and that later inspired his Unité Habitation in Marseille.
Maquette of Jean Prouvé's ’Maison Bulldog’ (2011) by Dani Montlleó.
This little half-bunker, half-trench-looking house of Dani Montlleó's work was also planned in 1959 (as was Can Masjuan house) for the writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline, although he died shortly after in 1961. The house was a replica of the Villa Arpel, designed by Jacques Lagrange for Jacques Tati's film "Mon Oncle" (1958).
Xavier Arenós, ’Madriguera#10. Proun. Desenterrament’ (2012). 15' with music by Rafa Ruiz.
Arenós' video, suitably projected in the lower floor storage room, recreated an excavation in which a Proun – a projection of an imaginary space, a term coined by El Lissitsky in the 1920s – is seemingly unearthed, like an anachronic residue of a remote civilisation, a transitional object. The accompanying futuristic soundtrack enhanced its science-fiction atmosphere.
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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.
Photodocumentation of Latitudes' "Incidents of Travel: México DF" a project for Casa del Lago
Thu, Nov 1 2012
As the Casa del Lago exhibition in Mexico City draws to a close (on Sunday 4th November), we would like to share photodocumentation of the "Incidents of Travel: México City" project.
Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman were invited to develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal space alongside an overview presentation of Latitudes' projects ("Proyectos 2005–2012"), the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.
Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman were invited to develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal space alongside an overview presentation of Latitudes' projects ("Proyectos 2005–2012"), the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.
Photos: Eunice Adorno & Latitudes
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.
September/October Mexico City photo report
Wed, Oct 17 2012LABOR and kurimanzutto both opened on the 20th September. LABOR's solo exhibition of Terence Gower (one of the five artists invited by Latitudes as part of the 'Incidents of Travel' project documented at Casa del Lago). His 'Ottagono' exhibition presented new and old works "that extended the artist investigation into the realm of abstract art" (quote from the press release), including the 2010 video "New Utopias", "Noguchi Galaxy" (2012), the sculpture group "Display Modern (Hepworth)" (2007) as well as paintings on photographs "Latin American Architecture" (2012), amongst others.
The Museo Experimental El Eco also had a book launch that evening, and upstairs the project "FRANCE FICTION: Vinimos a soñar" by Paris-based curator Jennifer Teets could be seen.
kurimanzutto began the 2012-13 season with Untitled 2012, (All those years at No. 17E London Terrace), a collaboration between visual artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and musician Arto Lindsay, for which the artist recreated Lindsay's New York flat and copied around 2000 CDs and books he has had in storage in New York. Lindsay played the following day at Cine Tonalá and hung out in his new plywood mexican home the following week recording music and talking with visitors. Also, in the project space, was Paloma Polo's 'Posición Aparente' (recently exhibited as part of Reina Sofia's Fisuras programme). On view until 3 November. ( gob. Rafael Rebollar 94, Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, 11850 México D.F.) http://www.kurimanzutto.com
During installation we escaped for a lunch break and a visit to the recently extended Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in the Bosque de Chapultepec. The Tamayo hosted an impressive roster of exhibitions: two group shows and three solo presentations, besides a selection of Tamayo's work: 'Primer Acto' (a group show on the idea of inauguration and the opening act), 'El mañana ya estuvo aquí' (a group show with works around the idea of retrospective visions of the future of modernity), Ryan Gander's 'Boing, boing, squirt'; Pierre Huyghe's 'El día del ojo' (a three part piece consisting of a permanent sculpture of a fish tank with blind fish and volcanic rocks; a selection of works from the Museo Tamayo y del Museo de Arte Prehispánico "Rufino Tamayo" in Oaxaca; and a publication) and the project 'Nueva Matemática' by Michael Stevenson.
Wilfredo Prieto's red carpet welcomes visitors.
SUPERFLEX's visitor counter outside the museum.
Central courtyard with Pierre Huyghe's fish tank with blind fish and volcanic rocks (background and below); a selection of works from the Museo Tamayo y del Museo de Arte Prehispánico "Rufino Tamayo" in Oaxaca.
The day after our Casa del Lago opening we visited the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) which had shows of Edgardo Aragón ("Por amor a la resistencia"), an impressive Teresa Margolles
piece, "La Promesa", following the focus of her long-term investigation
on Ciudad Juárez as a political and social context, and "Ejercicios de
Resistencia" by Nicolás Paris. Downstairs there was an archival display of Felipe Ehrenberg's collection fund.
Façade of the museum in the University (UNAM) campus.
Entrance foyer and lower level.
"Ejercicios de
Resistencia" by Nicolás Paris.
Stairs to the restaurant, auditorium and library.
Downstairs archival material of Felipe Ehrenberg's collection fund.
At MUCA-Roma we visited the group show "Colección: El crimen fundacional, crítica del museo'
curated by first graduating students in the Curatorial Programme of
UNAM's Art History degree, which included Mariana Castillo Deball's
piece '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), presented in 2007 in the Latitudes'-curated exhibition 'Extraordinary Rendition'. The piece revisits 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. 
Our final stop was Proyectos Monclova, which has relocated to a new and much larger space in Colima 55 (Col. Roma) with a solo show of architect Eduardo Terrazas (best known for his graphic design for Mexico's 1968 olympics realised in collaboration with Lance Wyman and Manuel Villazón.) Terrazas was concurrently exhibiting some works at the Casa Luis Barragán. The final gallery space was screening a fantastic slideshow with the 1968 work "Imagen México" accompanied with a soundtrack of 1969 songs. The exhibition finished on 29 September. See video of the opening here (via Vernissage TV) and a recent newspaper article.
Façade of the gallery.
Central gallery space.
Some of Terraza's works on view in the central space.
1970-1972 works on view in the back gallery space.
Showroom nearby the gallery offices.
On Saturday 29th there was a tour (Ruta de Galerias, see video by Vernissage TV) around San Miguel Chapultepec and Tacubaya art spaces (participants included: Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura, Casa Luis Barragán, Central Art Projects, Galería de Arte Mexicano, Gallé Antigüedades, Jan Mot, kurimanzutto, Labor, Estacionamientos San Miguel Chapultepec, and Fundación Alumnos47). We started the day at the Museo de Arte Moderno, with a launch of the publication "History of the World" and in conversation between L.A.-born Guadalajara-based artist Eduardo Sarabia and Patrick Charpenel, collector and director of the Colección Jumex.
The tour was followed by a quick burger lunch at Café Zena in the corner of Gob. Potasio Pérez de Tagle and Antonio de León.
...and then back to kurimanzutto, where Arto Lindsay was having a conversation with Carlos Icaza, discussing a selection of his books and CDs, talking about the changes in music technology and supports (from vinyl to CDs), mexican, brazilian and japanese musicians.
On our final evening in Mexico City we went to Sala Arte Público Siqueiros, where cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto celebrated the beginning his 45-day project "Dejándole algo a la suerte" (Leaving something to chance, until 12 November). For the duration of the exhibition Prieto occupies the upper gallery of the SAPS which has been turned into a studio from where he develops and conceptualises works to be presented on a daily basis on the lower gallery space (see here for those who have already taken place). On October 4th, the (non) opening day, the project began with 'Dos Tiempos': the encounter of a hare (named Raúl) and a terapin (Anastasia).
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.
Inauguración de 'Incidentes de viaje' & 'Proyectos 2005–2012' en La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, México DF, 27 de septiembre 19:30h
Tue, Sep 25 2012
Alongside 'Projects 2005–2012' – a visual index of the thirty projects of Latitudes realized since 2005 – Latitudes has originated 'Incidents of Travel' from its temporary office in Casa del Lago's La Sucursal. Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos, and Terence Gower have been invited to develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal, the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.
Minerva observing the murals by Marion Greenwood at the Mercado Abelardo L. Rodríguez.
View from Minerva's studio roof (Torre Latinoamericana on the horizon).
Browsing the 'Mexican Art Section' at a bookstore on Calle Donceles.
The route proposed by Minerva Cuevas focused on the concept of the public and its socio-economic associations. The tour began in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, continued to the Tepito and Lagunilla neighbourhoods, and from there visited nearby markets, public squares in the historic centre of Mexico City. It concluded with a visit to the Torre Latinoamericana, a symbol of modernity of the city in the 1950s. Throughout the course of the journey, rural elements that constitutes an integral part of the city are highlighted.
Exploring Insurgentes with Tania Pérez Córdova and photographer Eunice Adorno.
Browsing Av. Insurgentes's lottery stands, copy & pawn shops, wedding outlets, tacos stands...
View of nearly collapsing 19 floor "Canadá" building on Av. Insurgentes.
The tour proposed by Tania Pérez Córdova traced the route of a stretch of Avenida de los Insurgentes – the longest avenue of Mexico City which extends from the Mexico-Pachuca to the Mexico-Cuernavaca highways. The tour focused on certain points up and down this thoroughfare, becoming a mental journey with the daily commute of the artist as its starting point.
Av. Universidad 1601. When Miguel de la Madrid left the Mexican Presidency in 1988, this apartment block was fitted with angled concrete blinds in order to block residents' views of his garden and house across the road.
Tacos of maciza (like pulled pork) and chicharrón (fried pork rind) made by Don Tomás at El Venadito, Avenida Universidad near the corner of Miguel Angel de Quevedo.
Murals and canvases on "Freud, the revolution and its elements" by Vlady at the Biblioteca Nacional Lerdo de Tejada. The library gathers the archive of the Secretaria de Hacienda y Crédito Público. Its collection is one of the most important archives in Latin America dating from the 18th Century onwards and focusing on economics.
Diego Berruecos's tour encompassed several points in the city where he found the raw material for his ongoing investigation PRI: Genealogy of a Party. The itinerary takes in the Hemeroteca of the UNAM, where he photocopied obituaries relating to the 2007 sudden death Monica Pretelini, wife of the then governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto. From there, brunch was enjoyed at El Venadito, which, according to the artist, "serves the best carnitas tacos in the city". This is a regular spot for the artist and is next to a major building in his research, which inspired one of the most interesting branches of his artistic genealogy: the series 'Architecture of Power'. This building is located in front of the home of the recently deceased Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, 52nd president of Mexico. Finally, a visit to the Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada and the Library of Congress, and end at El Sella restaurant "which serves the best chamorro in the city".
Estación de metro La Raza - Túnel de las ciencias: a metro transfer turned into an educational experience.
Unidad
Habitacional el Rosario: a 1972 condominium with its characteristic
cube-shapped 'zotehuelas' (windowless cantilevered kitchen patios).
Torres
de Satélite - a 1958 collaboration between architect Luis Barragán and
sculptor Mathias Goeritz in Ciudad Satélite, northern part of Naucalpan,
Mexico City.
Terence Gower's
tour, 'Urban Models (Zacatenco to Tlalnepantla)' looked at universalist
urbanism models in the northern sectors of Mexico City. The tour started
at the 1963 campus of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional,
an expression of order and building technology that perhaps hadn't
quite arrived in Mexico at the time of its construction. The tour next
visited two housing complexes: Unidad Habitacional El Rosario
was from the post-war building boom that produced complexes like
Tlatelolco, employing the urbanistic principals of density and land-use
of Le Corbusier and the Athens Charter. The second, the Unidad Habitacional de San Buenaventura,
is a recent "cookie-cutter" style private development in which
identical houses are built in rows that blanket the landscape. Similar
to the Politécnico scheme, these recent developments are attempts at
imposing order on the chaos of Mexico City. Finally the tour visits
Satélite, a low-density suburban-US style development that has generated
its own unique culture. Lunch was at Solo Veracruz es Bello, and concluded with a visit to Metro La Raza.
Jerónimo Hagerman's
visit delved into some situations, phenomena or cases in which he finds
a particular, intense and emotional relationship between Mexico City,
its inhabitants, with the outdoors, the wilderness and the nonhuman
nature. The tour visited public and private spaces of different kinds,
starting with the house-studio of architect Luis Barragán, followed by a tree invaded by ivy in colonia Polanco, the Espacio Escultórico of the UNAM, and a food tour around the chinampas (artificial islands) in Xochimilco. The day ended with a drink at Bellini, the WTC revolving restaurant which offers panoramic views of the city and a night visit to the Mercado de Jamaica.
"Copa de oro" and ivy in Casa Barragán, México.
Colourful
trajineras in Xochimilco take tourists and city residents alongside the
170km canals and chinampas (artificial islands, a vestige of
Xochimilco's pre-Hispanic past).
Black lava flow, lush greenery, concrete and red crushed tezontle at the incredible Espacio Escultórico at the UNAM. A 1978-1980 collaborative work by Federico Silva, Mathias Goeritz, Helen Escobedo, Manuel Felguérez, Hersúa y Sebastián.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
'Projects 2005–2012 / Incidents of Travel', La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, Mexico D.F., México, 27 September–5 November 2012
Mon, Sep 17 2012
Casa del Lago. Photo: Fabiola Iza
| UK |
Opening: Thursday 27 September, 19.30h
Opening: Thursday 27 September, 19.30h
Latitudes has been invited to participate in La Sucursal (The Branch), one of the programme strands of Casa del Lago for which self-organised, self-funded or non-profit organisations temporarily move their offices to Casa del Lago in order to expose the cultural strategies of such forms of organisation.
Alongside 'Projects 2005–2012' – a visual index of the thirty projects realized since 2005 – Latitudes will originate 'Incidents of Travel' from its temporary office in La Sucursal. Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos, and Terence Gower will develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal, the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.
Casa del Lago. Photo: Fabiola Iza| ES |
Inauguración: Jueves, 27 de septiembre, 19.30h
Latitudes ha sido invitada a participar en La Sucursal, una de las cinco plataformas que estructuran la programación de Casa del Lago en la que iniciativas autoorganizadas o sin fines de lucro, utilizan el espacio de Casa del Lago
como una sucursal de operaciones, una suerte de oficina temporal, con
el fin de exponer sus propias estructuras de organización.
Junto a 'Proyectos 2005-2012' – un índice visual de treinta proyectos realizados desde el 2005 – Latitudes realizará el proyecto "Incidentes de viaje" desde su oficina temporal en La Sucursal. Los artistas Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos y Terence Gower, desarrollarán tours de un día de duración para Latitudes, articulando su práctica artística y la ciudad a través de rutas y puntos de interés en el área metropolitana. Documentado y cartografiado en La Sucursal, el proyecto tiene como objetivo explorar la idea de itinerario como un formato de encuentro y eludir la convencional visita de estudio a través de puntos específicos de la ciudad.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.