Vista de uno de los bloques Casa Bloc en el Passeig Torras i Bages del barrio de Sant Andreu.

Construida entre 1932 y 1939 por los arquitectos Josep Lluís Sert, Josep Torres Clavé y Joan Baptista Subirana (integrantes del GATPAC, el Grupo de Arquitectos y Técnicos Catalanes para el Progreso de la Arquitectura Contemporánea), el grupo de viviendas obreras Casa Bloc es un ejemplo de la arquitectura racionalista catalana en el Districte de Sant Andreu, al este de Barcelona.

Jardines interiores de Casa Bloc

Construída durante la II República (1931-39) y promovida por el Comisariado de la Casa Obrera, organismo de la Generalitat de Catalunya, las más de 200 viviendas funcionales fueron planificadas para obreros de fábricas circundantes, aunque éstos nunca llegaron a mudarse pues en 1936 empezó la Guerra Civil y las viviendas aún no estaban acabadas. En su lugar, fueron ocupadas por familias de militares, y en 1948 se añadió un bloque más en uno de los patios (el Bloque fantasma), rompiendo completamente con el diseño original del edificio en forma de 'S' invertida, que aprovechaba la luz y la ventilación natural en todas las partes de la vivienda, evitando utilizar patios de luces como ocurre en las viviendas del Eixample barcelonés, por ejemplo. En este nuevo bloque vivieron militares, viudas de militares, y más adelante policías nacionales e incluso se construyeron dos caballerizas.

 Jardines del GATPAC. En este terreno se construyó el Bloque Fantasma.

Desde finales de Marzo 2012, el Disseny Hub de Barcelona gestiona visitas a Casa Bloc (€3 Euros, hay que reservar plaza aquí. El tour dura 20 min. dentro de una de las viviendas y unos 40 min. afuera). La vivienda que se visita es la número 11, y está en el primer piso del bloque 2. Cuenta con una cocina, un lavabo, un lavadero con ducha (estos últimos con la tradicional volta catalana), el salón comedor, la terraza y dos dormitorios en la planta superior (otras viviendas llegan a tener 4) repartidos en 60m2. El bloque tiene ascensores y pasillos internos desde donde los inquilinos cuelgan la ropa o decoran sus entradas con plantas.

La guía muestra una imagen del Plan Macià de 1934 que pretendía construir un laberinto de viviendas que seguían el patron de Casa Bloc y que unirían el Eixample (izquierda) con la zona industrial al este de Barcelona.

 Imagen de la planta de Casa Bloc en forma de 'S' que permitía que las viviendas tubiesen luz y ventilación natural y jardines a ambos lados.

Imagen de la Casa Bloc en los años 40. En el centro de la imagen se ve la construcción añadida del llamado Bloque Fantasma en pleno Jardín GATPAC, que finalmente se demole en el 2008.

El piso-museo ha sido reformado para mostrar su aspecto original: se ha recuperado el suelo original que estaba debajo del parquet que colocaron los inquilinos anteriores, se ha remodelado la escalera metálica que tenía azulejos en los escalones y recuperado la barandilla original (el pasamanos estaba recubierto con madera), pintado paredes de colores neutros eliminando el papel anterior, etc. y se han recuperado elementos originales como la cocina, el plato de ducha, los interruptores eléctricos o las manillas de las puertas.

 Reforma de la fachada y ventanales. A la derecha el diseño original con la barandilla naranja y las persianas enrollables y a la izquierda la reforma actual.

 Señalética a la entrada del piso-museo.

 Pasillo interno en el primer piso.

 Visitantes entran al piso-museo en el primer piso. Las ventanas a ambos lados de la puerta de entrada dan luz natural a la cocina (izquierda) y al lavadero (derecha).

Comedor con mesa Breuer y sillas Thonet.

 Balcón con el cerramiento original que se abría completamente hacia la terraza.

Comedor visto desde la escalera.

 Habitación en el piso superior.

El mobiliario que se muestra en este es de los años 30 (mesa de Breuer, sillas plegables de Thonet, camas alemanas con cabeceras metálicas...), recuperando el estilo original del mobiliario de la época publicado en la revista A.C. Documentos de Actividad Contemporánea (dirigida por Clavé y Sert, dos de los arquitectos de Casa Bloc). No obstante esta introducción de racionalismo centro-europeo en el mobiliario, los arquitectos quisieron incorporar el estilo mediterráneo en la arquitectura: las ventanas/puertas que separaban el comedor de la terraza originalmente se abrían y plegaban por completo hacia el exterior ampliando de manera fluída el salón-comedor hacia el Passeig Torras i Bages, y aprovechando su orientación al este que permitía obtener mayor luz durante todo el día (tres persianas enrollables regulan la entrada directa del sol y preservan la intimidad). Cuando se proyectó el bloque habían unos terrenos con huertos justo enfrente así como una masía que fue comprada por el Ajuntament en 1930 convirtiéndola en la escuela Ignasi Iglesias y, según el testimonio de un ex-inquilino de Casa Bloc durante la visita, había una fábrica de piratécnia y explosivos más allá de los huertos, hacia el Rec Comtal.

En 1992 conjunto arquitectónico fue declarado Bien de Interés Cultural y en 1997 empezaron las obras de remodelación que se extendieron hasta el 2008, cuando finalmente se derribó el Bloque Fantasma. La actual remodelación ha obviado por completo mantener el diseño original de las terrazas y todos los pisos se han cerrado con grandes ventanales de aluminio y persianas marrones. No obstante se siguen manteniendo los espacios verdes en ambos patios. Tal y como se planificó, todos los pisos son de alquiler y algunos de sus inquilinos son familias que ocuparon el Bloque Fantasma y han sido realojadas aquí y otros son viviendas sociales.

Más info aquí y reciente foto-reportaje "La Casa Bloc, un museo del racionalismo catalán", en el suplemento El Viajero de 'El País', 22 Marzo 2012.

 Casa Bloc desde la calle de l'Almirall Pròixida.

Vista de la zona desde c/ del Palomar. Al fondo a derecha se ve la cúpula de la Parroquia de Sant Andreu de Palomar.

Peter Osborne lecture at MACBA, 12 April 2012. Photo: Latitudes

Yesterday at MACBA, Peter Osborne made a sparkling analysis of the emergence of 'contemporary' as a fully critical art term. Starting from the "decisive and devastating" hinge of Tino Sehgal's 2005 "This is So Contemporary", Osborne, the Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University London, asked what it implies to be making a claim to being 'contemporary' beyond being "the up-to-date", the "new".

Tracing a genealogy of 'contemporary' from its first emergence in post-war Britain, with the founding of the Institute of Contemporary Art in London in 1946 ("to be contemporary in 1946 was very avant-garde!") through The Boston Museum of Modern Art changing its name to become the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1948, he charted how it disengaged from the 'modern', yet was then eclipsed by the 'postmodern' as the term of choice for the condition of the new in the 1980s. 'Contemporary', he argued, found its feet as a term of "disjunctive temporality" which also provided space for the 'repressed' modernities of the "event-concept transmedia tradition" (Fluxus, Dada, etc.). Whereas the questions asked of the Modern work of art is "What does this negate?", one asks of the Contemporary work "When did the present of this work begin?".

"The present began in 1989, because previously the present began in 1945", concluded Osborne (dismissing Giorgio Agamben's 'What is the Contemporary?' as "weak" along the way), noting that publishers Phaidon would not allow any pre-1945 works by Duchamp to be illustrated in his "Conceptual Art" as the series was about contemporary art.

Yet, surely different geo-political contexts propose different contemporaneities? Osborne talked about a philosophical and cultural debate in Japan asking 'has the post-war ended yet?' Similarly from a Spanish perspective, we might ask ourselves when did our present begin? After Franco's death in 1975? In 1979?

Latitudes promotional tie-in: With similar philosophical and art-historical aplomb Osborne presents his thoughts on the ubiquity of the term 'project' in contemporary art in his essay for the Latitudes-edited Amikejo, accompanying the exhibition series at MUSAC's, Laboratorio 987."The idea of ‘project space’ is a peculiar one insofar as it characterizes a type of space wholly by its appropriateness for a particular kind of temporalization: the temporalization of the project. What is the distinctive spatialization corresponding to this? And how is it affected by the specifically artistic coding of a project? This essay will reflect upon these questions from the standpoint of both their philosophical structure and the historical development of project space as a type of art space."
   
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.

The publication concludes the 2011 exhibition cycle 'Amikejo' curated by Latitudes, which included exhibitions by Pennacchio Argentato; Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum; Uqbar (Irene Kopelman & Mariana Castillo Deball and Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch at the Laboratorio 987, the project space of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC).

Inside the publication: section dedicated to Pennacchio Argentato.

As advanced in previous posts, the publication includes essays by:  

Ryszard Żelichowski (Professor and Director for Scientific Research at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences) text "Neutral Moresnet and Amikejo – The Forgotten Children of the Congress of Vienna" offers an overview of how Neutral Moresnet (the state 'renamed' Amikejo in 1908) came into existence; 

Pages with Ryszard Zelichowski's essay on the history of Neutral Moresnet/Amikejo.

Theo Beckers (Former Professor of Leisure Studies at Tilburg University and currently faculty member of the Tilburg Sustainability Center and Visiting Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) text "Free time. The rise and fall of a social project" traces western society’s relation to work and time, from Seneca the Younger, through the rise of the factory and Frederick Winslow Taylor's 'The Principles of Scientific Management' (1911), to today's blurring of labour and leisure; 

Pages with Theo Beckers' essay.

Menno Schilthuizen (Research scientist at NCB Naturalis, an endowed chair for Insect Biodiversity at the University of Groningen and an Associate Professor at Leiden University) contributed a text "On Mirror Images in Nature: How Identical Forms Can Be Completely Different" reflects on Uqbar's exhibition centered on chirality: on how in asymmetric animals and plants, sometimes both mirror-image forms exist side by side, but sometimes only one exists, the other being "forbidden"; 
 

Pages dedicated to Uqbar and to Prof. Dr. Menno Schilthuizen's essay.

as well as texts on each project by exhibition curators Latitudes, reprints by Giorgio Agamben ('Notes on Gesture', 1996) and Georges Perec (excerpts from "Species of Spaces and Other Pieces Gesture", 1974), installation views and biographies of the participating artists.

Pages with Georges Perec's reprint.

Pages with installation views of Pennacchio Argentato's exhibition.

Pages with spanish translations.

More info on the exhibition series, and photos of the shows by Pennacchio Argentato, Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, Uqbar (Irene Kopelman & Mariana Castillo Deball) and Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch (see performance)


Title: Amikejo

Edited by: Latitudes

Publisher & Distributor: Mousse Publishing

Format: 22.5x15.5cm, 216 pp., hardcover

Language: English and Spanish

Publication date: April 2012 

ISBN: 9788896501832

Price: 26 Euros

Car where the interviews led by the Curatorial Delegation took place.

 

Latitudes was interviewed for Radio For Example by curator and writer Juan A. Gaitán, member of the Curatorial Delegation together with Rabat’s L’Appartement 22 founder Abdellah Karroum, organisers of "Radio For Example, part 2: R22-Dubai" one of the projects of this year's Art Dubai (see more on the fair in this previous post). Radio For Example consists on a temporary nomadic recording studio in a car that will be circulating throughout Dubai, taking people between different art spaces, public transportation stations and homes, while conducting a series of dialogues and interviews with artists, curators and practitioners aimed at exploring the ways in which individuals engage with notions of the collective and operate within institutional frameworks.

 Juan A. Gaitán holding the mic and conducting the interview.

Privileging the active role of the listener in the construction of knowledge, Radio 22 documents a series of discussions carried out in different places (Morocco, Medellín and now in Dubai) through live engagement with these specific social, geographic and political environments.

The interview-on-wheels took place on March 21, between Art Dubai and The Pavilion Downtown, where Gaitán also curated the yearly 40-metre banner commission by Lebanese–Egyptian artist Lara Baladi.

 

  Banner commission at The Pavilion Downtown Dubai by artist Lara Baladi.

 

 Juan A. Gaitán and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes arrive at the final destination: The Pavilion Downtown, in the background Burj Khalifa, (so far) the tallest building in the world.  

 Curatorial Delegation tote bag.

The Pavilion Downtown, a non-profit contemporary art space in downtown Dubai, also hosted the exhibition 'Living with video' curated by Paris-based gallerist Chantal Crousel, which featured 15 video works of artists Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Melik Ohanian, Hassan Khan, Fikret Atay, Wang Bing, Gabriel Orozco, Mona Hatoum, Anri Sala, Wolfgang Tillmans, all represented by the French gallery.

 

 Terrace of The Pavilion Downtown

 

Open cafeteria/restaurant and library space

  Library space. On the shelf a TV screens Gabriel Orozco's animation "Samurai Tree Animation" (2007)

Wi-fi lovers in the library

Open lounge/cafeteria

 Chantal Crousel gives an introduction to the 'Living with video' show (17 March – 30 June 2012)

Cinema space screening  the 16/9 Wang Bing's film "Man with no name", 2009.

 Gallery 2 with works by Fikret Atay, Anri Sala, Melik Ohanian and a plasma screen with a looped selection of the films.

 

Radio For Example, part 2: R22-Dubai

A project by the Curatorial Delegatation (Juan A. Gaitán & Abdellah Karroum)

Streamed on Radio Apartement 22 and presented at Art Dubai and The Pavilion Downtown.

–

The Pavilion Downtown Dubai

Emaar Boulevard, Downtown Dubai

Dubai, United Arab Emirates
art@pavilion.ae 

T (+971) 4447 7025

Opening: Everyday, 10am–12am

pavilion.ae

We just received a copy of the wonderful and long-awaited publication "Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement" (Alauda Publications, 2012) for which Max Andrews of Latitudes contributes the essay "A Dark Spot of Exasperation: From Smithson to the Spime" (an essay which was the basis of his recent lecture at the Royal College of Art in London).

Pages 44-45, with the section "Art, Research, Ecology".

Robert Smithson's seminal Land Art work Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (Emmen, The Netherlands, 1971) is treated as a case study that opens up to a number of topics, still relevant in contemporary art: 'Models of Spectatorship', 'Art, Research, Ecology', 'Documentation', 'Museum, Media, Society' and 'The Cinematic'." 

 Above: pages with Max Andrews' essay "A Dark Spot of Exasperation: From Smithson to the Spime".

Max Andrews' essay "A Dark Spot of Exasperation: From Smithson to the Spime". 

In his text, Andrews stresses that Smithson's innovations in terms of post-studio practice are not about "the question where, or what is the work of art?", but about investigating the structure of the multiple elements which constitute the form of an art project and its place in the world. According to Andrews, the essential feature of Smithson's kinship to post-studio practice is not so much his institutional critique, but a move away from the museum and the curator as existing power structures to a "curatorial function which incorporates a social ecology: a new meaning- and value-generating system in and around art." In his essay, Andrews traces the points of congruence between Smithson and the practices of contemporary artists like Lara Almarcegui, Jorge Satorre and Cyprien Gaillard.

 Documentation pages, clippings from 1987.

  Pages 150-151, Section "A Living Archive – Film"

 Page 194-195, Section "A Living Archive"

 Pages 208-209, Section "A Living Archive"

The 240-page monograph publication will be launched on 30 March 2012 in The Hague during the symposia Rethinking Robert Smithson organised by the publishers in cooperation with Leiden University Institute for Cultural Disciplines.

Initiator and publisher: Alauda Publications
Edited by: Ingrid Commandeur and Trudy van Riemsdijk-Zandee
Authors: Max Andrews, Eric C.H. de Bruyn, Stefan Heidenreich, Sven Lütticken, Anja Novak, Vivian van Saaze
Design: Esther Krop
ISBN: 9789081531481

Price: 39,95 Euro
Available in bookshops or order online: alaudapublications.nl

Related links: 

• September 2011 blog post on The Land Art Contemporary programme in Denthe, The Netherlands.

 View of the Madinat Jumeirah hotel resort where Art Dubai took place.

Opening of Art Dubai. Busy hall of the Madinat Jumeirah hotel.

 Corridors of Art Dubai. Right: Lombard Freid Projects, New York.

 Corridor of Art Dubai. Left: Green Cardamom Gallery showing Ayaz Jokhio, Nazgol Ansarinia and Anwar Jalal Shemza.

Entourage of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, crown prince of Dubai leaves the fair.

 Low point: large paintings of horses’ heads presented on easels adorned the entrance to the fair.

Cartier lounge. Two models pose wearing jewels of the luxury firm.

On stage (left to right) Douglas Coupland, Shumon Basar and Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Full house with the keynote by Douglas Coupland.

 Shumon Basar (left) photographing the audience and tweeting #GAF2012; Hans Ulrich Obrist (right).

 Global Art Forum 6, 22 March: Conversation between Georgina Adam, Art Market Editor at The Art Newspaper and Art Marker correspondent at The Financial Times, and geo-strategist/author Parag Khanna - discussed how information shapes value in the financial marketplace and the differences between the art and the financial market.

Journalist and Bidoun's editor Negar Azimi asking "What is to be done by artists in the face of turbulent historical times when it's the media, arguably, that posseses today's power to shape our imaginations and idealogies the most".

Jack Persekian (left) and Michael Rakowitz (right) discuss their collaboration for 'The Breakup", a multi-part event at the Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem.

The Abraaj Art Capital Prize exhibition at Art Dubai, with works by Taysir Batniji, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (who had a solo show at The Third Line), Wael Shawky, Risham Syed, and Raed Yassin. Curated by Nat Muller.

Elsewhere in Dubai, The Third Line gallery presented the exhibition "Lebanese Rocket Society: Part III, IV, V" by 2012 Abraaj Capital Art Prize winners, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.

The Pavilion Downtown Dubai hosted the show "Living with Video" curated by Paris-based galleriest Chantal Crousel and a banner commission by Lara Baladi curated by Juan A. Gaitán. More on the exhibitions at The Pavilion Downtown on our following post.

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi, is the third largest mosque in the world fits over 7,000 worshippers...

...and features the world’s largest hand-knotted carpet hand-crafted by 1,200 artisans in Iran, 7 gold-coloured chandeliers from Germany made of thousands of Swarovski crystals from Austria and glasswork from Italy...

...1,000 columns in its outer areas cladded with more than 20,000 marble panels inlaid with semi-precious stones, including lapis lazuli, red agate, amethyst, abalone shell and mother of pearl... phew!...

More images on Art Dubai and Abu Dhabi in this link.

Sign marking directions to the March Meeting venues.

Latitudes participated in the March Meeting (17–19 March 2012), a three-day symposium organised by the Sharjah Art Foundation which featured presentations by around 80 artists, art professionals and institutions working on the production and presentation of art. The programme of this fifth edition focused on Working With Artists and Audiences on Commissions and Residencies and comprised a series of lectures, debates and breakout sessions that took place in Dar Al Nadwa and other locations around Sharjah's Heritage Area.

More images of the fifth March Meeting and other related events on our Flickr.

 Arrival day – Tour to the Barjeel Art Foundation (collection of Sultan Bin Sooud Al-Qassemi) and the Maraya Art Centre, Al Qasba.

The opening of the exhibition "Ziad Antar: Portrait of a Territory" by Lebanese artist Ziad Antar, Collections Building, Heritage Area, Sharjah. Curated by Christine Macel, Chief Curator, Musée National D’Art Moderne Centre Pompidou Paris.

 

 Day 1 – Registration desk at Dar Al Nadwa in Sharjah's Calligraphy Square, the venue where most of the talks took place.

As announced in a previous post, Latitudes presented on the first day two case studies of commissions and residencies as participants in the panel "Minding the Gap: the Critical Role of Smaller Organisations" alongside Hu Fang (Vitamin Creative Space, China), Daniella Rose King (MASS Alexandria, Egypt) and moderated by Samar Martha (ArtSchool Palestine, Palestine). 

 Panel "Minding the Gap: the Critical Role of Smaller Organisations". Photo: Alfredo Rubio/Sharjah Art Foundation 

Latitudes during their presentation. Photo: Alfredo Rubio/Sharjah Art Foundation.

Firstly, Latitudes introduced the commission in the context of 'Portscapes' that was developed from its invitation to the Rotterdam-based artist and editorial duo Fucking Good Art (FGA) to live and work for a month in Rotterdam's Maasvlakte, and secondly, presented a commission addressed to Latitudes in the context of 'The Last Newspaper' in which we worked in the New Museum galleries for 3 months editing a weekly newspaper which became an incremental catalogue based on the micro-community of the exhibition.

 Lunch breaks took place at the beautiful Bait Al Naboodah, a two-storey house from 1845.

Plaque marking the entrance to the Bait Obaid Bin Eissa Al Naboodah house.

 Guests were treated to wonderful Emirati food.

At the end of the first day, the film "1395 Days without Red" by Anri Sala was premiered at Sharjah's Institute of Theatrical Arts. Šejla Kameric's film was screened on the 18 March at the courtyard of Bait Al Shamsi, Arts Area, Sharjah. Commissioned by UK's Artangel.

 Second day – Panellists getting ready for the discussion on "The Importance of Site". With Yusaku Imamura (Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan), Adam Sutherland (Grizedale Arts, UK), Khalil Abdulwahid (Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, UAE), Lu Jie (Long March Space, China) and moderated by Anne Barlow (Art in General, USA).

Day 2 – Panel "Artist as nomad" with Basma Alsharif, Ziad Antar, Šejla Kamerić, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen and moderated by Sama Alshaibi (University of Arizona, USA).

Day 3 – Panel "The Biennial as Commissioning Agent" with Paul Domela (Liverpool Biennial, UK), Yuko Hasegawa (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan & curator of the forthcoming Sharjah Biennial 2013), Abdellah Karroum (independent art researcher, publisher and curator, Morocco), Riyas Komu (Kochi Biennale Foundation, India) and moderated by Marieke van Hal (Biennial Foundation, Greece).

Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, President of the Sharjah Art Foundation, giving her closing remarks of the March Meeting 2012.

 Day 3 – Final drinks and snacks at Bait Al Naboodah before Tarek Atoui's performance at the Calligraphy Square. During the drinks, Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi announced the recipients of the 2012 Production Grants worth a total of 200,000 U$: Sean Gullette, Mario Rizzi and Lindsay Seers. The grants were judged by PS1 curator Peter Eleey, artist Isak Berbic, and Sharjah Art Foundation President Hoor Al Qasimi. More here.

Impressive setting for Tarek Atoui's performance "Revisiting Tarab" at the Calligraphy Square. Photo: Sharjah Art Foundation.

Tarek Atoui's (Lebanon 1980, lives in Paris) 5.5-hour-long incredible performance "Revisiting Tarab" involved the participation of 17 musicians and sound artists. Atoui writes: 

"Tarab" is used in Arab culture to describe the emotional effect of music, and refers to the older repertoire rooted in the pre-World War I musical practice of Egypt and the East Mediterranean Arab world. In the occasion of Performa 2011, Atoui invited musicians and sound artists to travel to Beirut to explore the world's most extensive collection of Classical Arab music owned by Lebanese collector Kamal Kassar, which comprises over 5,000 old 78rpm shellac discs and tapes dating from 1903 to 1950s. Participants selected excerpts from the collection and independently composed their own interpretations of both the content and its possibilities in relation to the history of "Tarab". 

(...) The structure and orchestration of the "Re-visiting Tarab" performance is inspired by the rules of the traditional wasla –literally meaning a connection or chaining together. In Egyptian music and Near East is a suite of several vocal and instrumental pieces composed and improvised anchored to the same maqam or harmonic mode– that compiles and shifts between musical forms such as the dulab – a short melodic and rhythmic introduction – the taqsim – an instrumental solo improvisation– and the muwashah – a song based on an Arab-Andalusian or Oriental poem. The performance was produced by Sharjah Art Foundation with the support of AMAR Foundation. More info: http://www.visitingtarab.com

On the last day a group of guests and journalists were taken 110km from Sharjah city to Kalba, the third most important city in the Emirate, on its east coast, whose road extends up to the border with Oman. Here the Sharjah Art Foundation is currently readapting a 200m2 concrete building by the creek to become the Kalba Art Centre, planned to open in a years time. (Ziad Antar’s ongoing exhibition "Portrait of a Territory" at Sharjah's Collection Building, includes photo documentation of this coastline taken between 2004 and 2011.)

 Judith Greer, Associate Director of International Programmes at the Sharjah Art Foundation,

holds a map of the area where Kalba's future art centre will be while Hisham Al Madhloum, director of the Sharjah Directorate of Art, points out the location and particularities of Kalba and its surroundings.

Bus nearby Kalba's creek, a mangrove swamp.

The future site of the Kalba Art Centre occupies a total area of 13,000 m2 and in the 1970s was originally intended to be used as a fish fertiliser factory but is now intermittently used as an ice factory and a boat repair shop. The former factory will have a space for exhibitions, a cafeteria, spaces for workshops and host artist residencies, and will be managed and programmed by the Sharjah Art Foundation.

  

 Façade of the future Kalba Art Centre. This triple height pitched space overlooks the protected mangroves and heritage area across the creek.

 Interior space of the future Kalba Art Centre.

Back in Sharjah, we did a final tour to see the show "What should I do to live in your life?" at Bait Al Serkal, opposite the Sharjah Art Museum, which presented film works by Lee Kit, Minouk Lim, João Vasco Paiva, Part-time Suite and Yuk King Tan.

Entrance to Bait Al Serkal exhibition space.

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except where noted otherwise in the photo caption)


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

Poster announcement at the Royal College of Art galleries.

On Tuesday 13 March (2pm, Lecture Theatre 1), Max Andrews of Latitudes will give the lecture "From Spiral to Spime: Robert Smithson, the ecological and the curatorial" as part of the "Art and Globalisation" lecture series programmed by MA Curating Contemporary Art by Jean Fisher and Michaela Crimmin.

Starting out from Robert Smithson's Broken Circle / Spiral Hill (1971), this lecture looks at projects by Lara Almarcegui, Jorge Satorre and Cyprien Gaillard to speculate on the 'when' and the 'shape' of art after Smithson in relation to synchronic concepts of post-environmental ecological thinking, and the flux between work and curatorial context. Based on an essay in the forthcoming publication 'Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement' (Alauda Publications, 2012).

Tuesday 13 March 2012, 2pm

Lecture Theatre 1

Royal College of Art

Kensington Gore 

London SW7 2EU, UK


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.

March Meeting, a three-day symposium featuring presentations by artists, art professionals and institutions on the production and dissemination of art. March Meeting 2012: Working With Artists and Audiences on Commissions and Residencies will take place March 17–19, in Sharjah's scenic Heritage Area.

Latitudes will present two case studies of commissions and residencies. Firstly, a Latitudes commission in the context of 'Portscapes' that was developed from their invitation to the Rotterdam-based artist and editorial duo Fucking Good Art (FGA). Based from a shipping container the extremity of Rotterdam port for a month, FGA initiated a temporary web radio and research station. And secondly, a commission addressed to Latitudes in the context of 'The Last Newspaper' in which the curatorial duo worked in the New Museum galleries for 3 months editing a weekly newspaper which became an incremental catalogue based on the micro-community of the exhibition. Both residencies explored editorial and curatorial approaches as well as formats of publishing or broadcasting and highlight how small organisation can operate flexibly and critically within a larger structure – whether a huge industrial infrastructure project or a museum exhibition.

Speakers of the three-day symposium include: Abed Al Ju'beh, Director, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre (KSCC) (Palestine); H.E. Abdul Rahman Al Owais, UAE Minister of Culture; Noura Al-Sayeh, Architect & Curator (Bahrain); Palmina D'Ascoli, Manager of Department of Residencies, Institut Français (France); Shezad Dawood, Artist; Peter Eleey, Curator, MoMA/PS1 (USA); Amal Khalaf, Edgware Road Project: Assistant Curator of Serpentine Gallery (UK); Yuko Hasegawa, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT) (Japan); Louise Hui-Juan Hsu, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (Taiwan); Danda J, Director, Kuona Trust Centre for Visual Arts (Kenya); Lu Jie, Founder & Director, Long March Space (China); Eungie Joo, Curator, New Museum (USA); Riyas Komu, Director of Programmes, Kochi-Muziris Biennale (India); James Lingwood, Co-Director, Artangel (UK); Salwa Mikdadi, Head of Arts & Cultural Program, Emirates Foundation (UAE); Ayeh Naraghi, Cultural Programmes Specialist, UNESCO Doha Office (Qatar); Susan Pfeffer, Curator, KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin); Andrea Rose, Head of Visual Arts, British Council (UK); Beatrix Ruf, Director/Curator, Kunsthalle Zürich (Switzerland); Anri Sala, Artist; Ramin Salsali, Founder, Salsali Private Museum (UAE).

The March Meeting and related events are free and open to the public. Registration is recommended at marchmeeting@sharjahart.org Read more here. 

March Meetings 2012
Dar Al Nadwa, Heritage Area
Sharjah
United Arab Emirates

(ES) Bea Espejo, "ARCO 2012, cifras y letras", El Cultural online, 23 November 2011

(UK) "Talks, panels, discussions, presentations and analysis on art and collecting", e-flux, 11 January 2012

(UK) The Netherlands is the guest country at ARCOmadrid 2012, art-agenda.com, 13 February 2012

(ES) "ARCO 2012: Entrevista a Latitudes, comisarios de "The Dutch Assembly", Blog www.camilayelarte.blogspot.com, 15 Febrero 2012

(ES/UK) Álvaro Calleja, 'Un puente entre dos naciones/A bridge between two nations', ABCDArco, 16 Febrero 2012, p.7

(ES) Roland Groenenboom, "Holanda, reinventarse para sobrevivir", El Cultural, 17 Febrero 2012

(ES/UK) 'Kunstbeeld interviews Latitudes', special ARCOmadrid 2012 issue y en español aquí

(UK) Jolien Verlaek, "State of the arts: Spain - the Netherlands. Interview Mariana Cánepa Luna", Metropolis M, 18 February 2012

(ES) Entrevista con Mariana Cánepa, www.masdearte.com, 18 Febrero 2012

Videos ('The Dutch Assembly' related events/participants):

(ES) Entrevista a Lara Almarcegui, www.hoyesarte.tv, 15 Febrero 2012

(ES) Entrevista a Mariana Cánepa, www.hoyesarte.tv, 15 Febrero 2012

(ES) Entrevista a Adrià Julià, www.hoyesarte.tv, 18 Febrero 2012

'Care', performance by Rory Pilgrim at 'The Dutch Assembly' at ARCOmadrid, Metropolis M

+ info: 
The Dutch Assembly and programme details here.