Mon, Jun 20 2011
Calipso, 2011. Courtesy: uqbar.
Opening: Saturday 25 June, 17h.
For Amikejo, uqbar (Irene Kopelman & Mariana Castillo Deball) will explore the idea of working together as a subject in itself. The “interchanges, mutations, transmutations, metamorphosis and contaminations that working together entails ... the hybrids we create together, not belonging to one or the other but rather creating an in between zone”, as the artists have described.
The exhibition at the Laboratorio 987 will be based on the principal of chirality or ‘handedness’. Chirality is a property of an object that is not superimposable on its mirror image. Human hands are perhaps the most recognizable example of chirality: the left hand is a non-superimposable mirror image of the right hand. Cases of chirality can be found in many different organisms in nature, such as in the twisted petals of certain orchids, shells and fish scales.
The exhibition will be composed of a spiral staircase, which will serve as a viewpoint for other artifacts and objects. Uqbar will create a psychedelic chiral ecosystem, featuring hanging papier-mâché epiphyte sculptures and enlarged stone microfossils, as well as “Banyan tree drawings, a video of a chemical reaction, fables among non-humans and drawings of hybrid creatures”.
Zeno Reminder, Cabinet Magazine Space / Performa 09, New York (2009). Courtesy the artists.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Uqbar is an occasional collaboration between artists Mariana Castillo Deball & Irene Kopelman initiated in 2005. Its practice has led to sculptural installations, seminars and publications, and frequently involves the cooperation of individuals outside the artistic field, including scientists and writers. Uqbar’s projects are often sparked by an oblique investigation into a particular repository of knowledge, and following Jorge Luis Borges (whose fictional place Uqbar lends its name to the foundation) they approach a world through an abundance of possible of meanings and possible histories. Fuga di Un Piano (2009) for Manifesta 7, Rovereto, Italy, for example, took the International Center for the study of Futurism as its point of departure, by presenting in part a future archive of some imagined sculptural creations of a speculative creative automaton.
Uqbar projects include Principle of Hope, Manifesta 7, Rovereto, Italy; Zeno Reminder, Cabinet Magazine Space / Performa 09, New York (2009); Principle of Hope, Manifesta 7, Rovereto, Italia (2008); Transacciones Filosóficas, Museo Astronómico de Córdoba, Argentina (2007); Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge, 10th International Istanbul Biennial (2007); A for Alibi, Utrecht University Museum, Utrecht & De Appel, Amsterdam (2006–8).
Forthcoming and final 'Amikejo' exhibition: Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch (24 September 2011–15 January 2012).
'Amikejo' is an exhibition cycle of four exhibitions guest curated by Latitudes, taking place in January, April, June and September 2011 at the Laboratorio 987, MUSAC.
Exhibition supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam.
PRESS
Read press release from MUSAC or download press images.
For further information please contact Izaskun Sebastián at izaskun@musac.es
MUSAC
Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24
24008 León, ES
Tue–Fri: 10–15 / 17–20h; Sat–Sun: 11–15/ 17–21h. Monday closed.
2011, Amikejo, Laboratorio 987, latitudes, Mondriaan Foundation, MUSAC, Uqbar Foundation (Mariana Castillo Deball and Irene Kopelman)
Tue, Jun 14 2011
We received the beautiful DVD/Book of 'A Road not Taken', the film by Swiss artists Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller – see trailer here – narrating the story of President Jimmy Carter's solar panels installed on the roof of the the White House in 1979. Latitudes collaborated with the duo during Portscapes, Rotterdam (2009) and most recently in February this year, curated their solo exhibition 'United Alternative Energies' in Arhus, Denmark – see images.
"This symbolic installation was taken down in 1986 during the Reagan presidency. In 1991, Unity College, an environmentally-minded centre of learning in Maine acquired the panels and later installed them on their cafeteria roof. In 'A Road not Taken', the artists travel back in time and, following the route the solar panels took, interview those involved in the decisions regarding these panels as well as those involved in the oil crisis of the time. They also look closely at the way this initial installation presaged our own era." (from the website http://www.roadnottaken.info)
The documentary just won the Golden Sun Award Best Documentary at The International Environmental Film Festival (FICMA), Barcelona. Congratulations Roman and Christina!
The DVD/Book is now available worldwide through their web and other bookstores. Some data:
UPC: 6 34479 99963 5
ISBN: 978-3-033-02868-5
Genre: Documentary
DVD Region Code: No Zone
Running Time: 66 min.
Rating: no rating
Package Type: Hardcover book in slim DVD case size (192 x 135 x 10 mm, 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.4 “), cellophane wrapped
Pages: 64
Number of discs: 1 DVD-5
Directors: Christina Hemauer | Roman Keller
Original Language: English
Closed Captioned: yes
Subtitles: German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and English
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Audio Format: Dolby stereo
Bonus: 24 min.
All photos of the pages: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
2011, Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller, DVD, Portscapes, Publication, solar energy, The Aarhus Art Building