Ignasi Aballí at ARTIUM and Latitudes' text on 2009 project in Beijing and a 2010 interview

Sun, May 20 2012

Ignasi Aballí "This is not the end". Courtesy of the artist.

On the occasion of Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958) exhibition 'This is not the end' at ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz (curated by François Piron, on view until 2 September 2011), we wanted to share two projects in which Latitudes collaborated with the Catalan artist.

Firstly, the interview “Rank & File” between the artist and Latitudes for which we discussed his ongoing List series. The text was originally published in 'The Last Star Ledger' (Issue #4 of 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue edited by Latitudes, New Museum, New York, 2010).

Read here: https://issuu.com/latitudes/docs/4_the_last_star-ledger/2

ARTIUM's 'This is not the end' includes the work "Tomar medidas" (Taking Measures, 2009), in which nine instruments are displayed measuring things we cannot see: dust particles, time, electrical fields, noise, temperature, the intensity of light, radiation, etc. The first version of "Tomar medidas" was produced for 'Nothing, or Something' (22 May–22 July 2009), an exhibition curated by Latitudes for Suitcase Art Projects, the project space of the Today Art Museum, located on three floors of the Yintai retail centre in Beijing – see images of the exhibition.

Following is the essay included in the small publication 'Nothing, or Something' produced to accompany the exhibition – see images of the publication.

Detail of the publication "Nothing, or Something" published by Today Art Museum and edited by Latitudes.

'Ignasi Aballí: Nothing, Or Something'

The morning before Ignasi Aballí’s ‘Nothing, Or Something’ opened, we couldn’t help but overhear an American businesswoman having a breakfast meeting at our hotel. “We’re working very much with intangibles”, she declared – and, we had to concur, so were we. Aballí’s works for Suitcase Art Projects address immateriality, residues and traces. He prompts us to consider things that we cannot perceive directly or are too ordinary to be properly noticed. What is perhaps philosophy’s central and most enduring question – ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ – is simultaneously approached as a precise existential experiment and as if with the shrug of a silent comedian.

Despite drawing on the formal language of modernism’s impulse towards reduction and the ‘white cube’ of the museum as much as commonplace materials and unremarkable elements of daily existence, ‘Nothing, or Something’ has nevertheless been created for a situation that is neither fully ‘art’ (though presented under the auspices of the Today Art Museum), nor ‘life’, nor public space – but for a shopping centre. Walter Benjamin’s vast The Arcades Project (1927–1940) located the bustling arcades of nineteenth-century Paris – early versions of the contemporary mall – as heralding a decisive shift to the speed and commodification of things which signalled the emergence of the modern age. Following Benjamin’s concerns, Aballí’s project is preoccupied by the parameters of display while being experienced through a collision and confusion with its surroundings. The windows in which it takes place are located throughout three floors of the Beijing Yintai Centre, a recently opened retail destination hosting high-end fashion, jewellery and watch manufacturers in the heart of Beijing's Central Business District, in one of the tallest buildings in the city. In the context of an excess of brand visibility, signage and luxury product presentation strategies, the eight conceptually interlinked works which comprise ‘Nothing, or Something’ seek a counterpoint and temporarily make room for a different kind of looking, a slower revelation and, to borrow from Marcel Duchamp – to whom we will return – a ‘delay in glass’. The constraints and techniques of making something visible, and the very expectation of having something to see, become the projects’ points of articulation.

Please excuse our appearance, for example, wryly offers the visitor an explanation for the apparent lack of anything in the display case beyond the out-of-place presence of pages from the Spanish newspaper El País (which has often been used by Aballí as the basis for his art) which are laid on the floor as if anticipating some messy activity. Summoning an in-between temporality of perpetual waiting, the vinyl text on the window requests pardon for an apparent hiatus in the rhythm of seasonal trends. Aballí’s work from 2005 entitled Próxima aparición / Próximamente / Coming Soon – a one-hour film showing the text of its title – similarly places the audience in an irrational situation of viewing where the main event is declaredly taking place at another time. Coming Soon is also the title of the vacated shop scenario of ‘Nothing, Or Something’. Only traces are left on the premises. An inventory of products on sale is detailed in half-removed words on the glass. Torn posters hang from the side walls; dirty marks have been left by shelves at the back; the dusty outline of objects in a forgotten display case. Each is a reminder of what purports to have been a unit dedicated to photographic equipment. The awkwardly appended ‘coming soon’ vinyl text on the window creates some confusion, however, as to what has left and what has yet to appear. Dust has regularly featured as a material in Aballí’s work, bringing to mind not only Dust Breeding (1920) – Man Ray’s celebrated photograph of Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23) partially covered in a thick dusty layer – but less specifically a concern with entropy and the threshold of perception, where something is only readily perceivable through gradual accumulation or through its removal. Dust is “a very complex material ... a terminal, annoying, residual material that we don’t want” as the artist has described – particularly when it comes to photography.^¹ As he addressed in his recent exhibition ‘Without activity’, so many of the gestures and routines of (especially pre-digital) photography are concerned with cleaning, brushing and wiping away.^² The depositing of dust also becomes an analogue for the exposure of light on photographic paper and in essence the inevitable passage of time.

Dust is, unsurprisingly, present in the atmosphere of Beijing. In the work Beijing Air, Aballí takes the small volume of the city’s air present in a window display as the subject of what seems to be an encyclopedic annotated diagram cataloguing its actual and speculative, or feared, components. Text fixed to the glass and indicating lines describe the common gases present in air as well as a host of industrial pollutants, various airborne viruses and environmental particulate matter such as pollen. Many artists have commemorated the notion of blankness or explored the radically empty and each different reasons – the void can represent the wiping away of content and yet the preparation for something new. Aballí echoes this legacy – alongside Duchamp once more, whose Paris Air (1919) consists of a small vial of air from the French capital – yet his pseudo-scientific indications that nothingness is in fact not so easily achievable, at least for an earth-bound artist, brings humorous bathos to one of the central myths of the avant-garde.

Taking measures similarly adopts the language of objective inquiry with an absurd twist. Eight identical plinths occupy a vitrine and present scientific instruments which detect and measure invisible forces for the duration of the project – a stopwatch counts time, a digital barometer records the atmosphere pressure, a compass shows the magnetic orientation, a thermometer-hydrometer measures temperature and humidity, while a lux meter detects light. A sound meter measures in decibels alongside an instrument for sensing radiation. It is no surprise that an anemometer reveals that it is not windy in the vitrine. Contrary to immediate, decorative, or pictorial appeals to vision, Aballí proposes an ongoing sensitization to perceptions that escape direct representation. Yet evidently, we are still looking at something, and instead, our aesthetic attention is displaced onto the design and the presentational mode of these instruments.

The vitrine opposite this, Scenic Viewpoints, presents the visitor with an arrangement of what appears to be blank white sheets of paper taped to the inside of the glass. As with several other works in this shopping centre context, it could well seem like an unfortunate-looking temporary situation. Something is changed, remedied, covered over and hopefully overlooked: nothing to see here! Yet the attentive are rewarded with an altogether different vision – looking through the gaps in the white ‘tiles’ through to the reflection in the mirrored back surface of the narrow space, one can piece together an exuberant compilation of sights. Each sheet is an enlarged colour postcard depicting views, events and landmarks from the artist’s home of Barcelona, a city whose popularity as a tourist destination lies in no small part to its presentation as a readily consumable and legible visual ‘brand’. Blankly monochromatic on the outside, Scenic Viewpoints refuses such a generalised overview. Its ecstatic orchestration of wide vistas and saturated spectacles is only visible to a peeping, prying viewer who then can only see a small part at one time while linking “the abundance of images around us with the scarcity of meaning we can attach to them”, as Bartomeu Marí has described of another of Aballí’s works Revelations (2005).^³

The vitrines titled Illuminating and White Cube are sited facing each other. Illuminating consists only of the application of light. Very bright light. The installation of professional film lights which shine out from the vitrine creates a level of luminescence that is evidently excessive. With a seeming lack of anything in particular to illuminate, one is reflected in the mirrored vitrine in the looped process of beholding oneself beholding the work. A counterpoint to the tastefully spotlighted products in the neighbouring shops, the wastefully ‘incorrect’ situation highlights a stark condition of energetic consumption while literally highlighting its context. White Cube provides the backdrop to this intense reflexivity. It cancels the transparency of its vitrine through the application of whitewash on the glass, a technique commonly adopted by empty premises after going out of business. (Not coincidentally, some of the pages of the newspapers of Please excuse our appearance carry stories related to the recession, which are illustrated by closed-up shops.) As with Aballí’s Big Mistake (1998-2005) and other works using Tipp-Ex correction fluid (used to cover errors on writing or typing paper), the artist creates a quotidian monochrome, through a melancholic painting-like blanking-out activity that nevertheless is never properly a painting. If White Cube refers to a spectre of painting, Vitrines for a Vitrine seems to orientate around some missing sculpture or precious object. Yet as if the artist has been perpetually unconvinced by the plausibility of displaying something, nothing is on show – rather it is the condition of display which is demonstrated in a mise en abyme, itself within the regime of visibility of the shopping centre. Three clear acrylic display cases like those used in museums or in chic stores occupy the glass vitrine. Each contains one small photograph of different empty vitrines which the artist has encountered in various cities.

‘Nothing, or Something’ undoubtedly triggers perplexing situations for the shopping public and the workers of the centre who were more-or-less familiar with the art project’s presence or witnesses to its installation. For many, the works may well go completely unnoticed. Are we seeing what we are supposed to be seeing? Where is the work? When is the work? Yet it is not the intention of Aballí’s project to be disingenuous or confrontational. On the contrary, it operates through orchestrating and modifying simple possibilities for observation, deduction and reflection. Something or nothing is happening, is not happening, is not happening anymore, or is yet to happen. Enhanced by memory and hindsight the project allows a disarmingly humble visual retirement – the kind of complexity that emerges through ceasing or waiting. How and why are things added and subtracted from the world, or from sight? What is worth looking at, having or keeping, and what is to be doubted or erased? What does it mean to be more aware of the things we cannot see? Perhaps we are all working with intangibles?

© Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna)

1 Ignasi Aballí, 0-24 h., Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005, p.25

2 Sem Actividade / Without Activity, Museu de Portimão, 2008

3 Ignasi Aballí, 0-24 h., Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005, p.11

Essay commissioned and published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Nothing, or Something' at the Suitcase Art Projects, Beijing, China, 22 May–22 July 2009.

–

This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Twitter.

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise)

2009, ARTIUM, Beijing, curated by Latitudes, Essay, Ignasi Aballí, interview, SUITCASE Art Projects, Taking Measures, The Last Newspaper

RECUERDA: Presentación de la publicación 'Amikejo': Martes 22 Mayo, 20h en Múltiplos (c/ Lleó 6, 08001 Barcelona)

Thu, May 17 2012

NOTA DE PRENSA

Presentación de la publicación 'Amikejo' editada por Mousse Publishing en colaboración con MUSAC.

Martes 22 Mayo, 20h
Múltiplos (c/ Lleó 6, 08001 Barcelona)

Presentación a cargo de Fermín Jiménez Landa (artista) y Latitudes (editores y comisarios del ciclo expositivo 'Amikejo').

La publicación concluye el ciclo de exposiciones 'Amikejo', que a lo largo del 2011 ha incluído muestras de Pennacchio Argentato; Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum; Uqbar (Irene Kopelman & Mariana Castillo Deball y Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch en el Laboratorio 987, el espacio proyectual del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC). (+ info...)

El volumen incluye textos sobre cada proyecto escritos por los comisarios del ciclo, así como reimpresiones de Giorgio Agamben ("Notas sobre el gesto", 1996) y Georges Perec (extractos de "Especies de espacios y gestos Otras Piezas", 1974 ), vistas de las exposiciones y biografías de los artistas participantes.

Además cuenta con una serie de ensayos de académicos y científicos especialmente escritos para la ocasión:

Peter Osborne (Profesor de Filosofía moderna y director del Centro de investigación de filosofía europea moderna de la Kingston University London) con el texto ‘Fragmentos del futuro': Notas sobre el espacio proyecto" que se centra en peculiar idea de la 'sala de proyectos', espacio que se caracteriza por ser total en su idoneidad para un determinado tipo de temporalización: la temporalización del proyecto. ¿Cuál es su distintiva espacialización?, Y ¿cómo le afecta la codificación específicamente artística de un proyecto?.

Ryszard Zelichowski (Profesor y Director de Investigaciones Científicas en el Instituto de Estudios Políticos de la Academia Polaca de Ciencias) contribuye con el texto "Neutral Moresnet y Amikejo - Los niños olvidados del Congreso de Viena" ofrece una visión general de cómo Moresnet Neutral (el estado rebautizado como 'Amikejo' en 1908) llegó a existir.

Theo Beckers (Ex-profesor de Estudios de Ocio de la Universidad de Tilburg y en la actualidad miembro del cuerpo docente del Centro de Sostenibilidad de Tilburg y profesor visitante de la Academia china de ciencias)** escribe el texto "El tiempo libre. Auge y caída de un proyecto social", en el que rastrea la relación de la sociedad occidental con el trabajo y el tiempo, desde Séneca el Joven, a través del auge de las fábricas y de los 'Principios de Administración Científica' (1911) de Frederick Winslow Taylor, hasta la actual confusión hoy en día entre trabajo y ocio.

Menno Schilthuizen (Científico de investigación en NCB Naturalis, Cátedra para la biodiversidad de los insectos en la Universidad de Groningen y Profesor asociado en la Universidad de Leiden) escribe "Sobre las imágenes especulares en la naturaleza: cómo formas idénticas pueden ser totalmente distintas", principio que se refleja en la exposición del dúo Uqbar entorno a la quiralidad: en animales y plantas asimétricas, a veces ambas formas especulares existen lado a lado, pero a veces sólo existe una de ellas y el otro es "prohibido".

Título: Amikejo
Edita: Latitudes
Publica y distribuye: Mousse Publishing en colaboración con MUSAC
Fecha publicación: Abril 2012
Formato: 22.5x15.5cm, 216 págs, tapa dura
Idioma: inglés/español
Distribuye: Mousse Publishing
ISBN: 9788896501832
Precio: 26 Euros
Compra online

La publicación estará disponible durante la presentación.

Múltiplos es una librería y distribuidora independiente de Barcelona especializada en libros de artistas.

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.

Amikejo, Barcelona, Fermin Jiménez Landa and Lee Welch, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, Mousse Publishing, MUSAC, Múltiplos, Pennacchio Argentato, Uqbar (Mariana Castillo Deball and Irene Kopelman)

SAVE THE DATE: Presentation of the publication 'Amikejo' with artist Fermín Jiménez Landa. Tuesday 22 May, 20h at Múltiplos, Barcelona

Tue, May 8 2012

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org

Latitudes will present the publication together with 'Amikejo' artist Fermín Jiménez Landa, who will discuss the project presented together with Lee Welch for the final exhibition of the cycle. Jiménez Landa will discuss one of the works, 'Himno Nacional' (2011), in which a marching band was commissioned to compose and play a new national anthem. Composed in the most archaic tradition, markedly romantic, military and patriotic, the anthem enacted a parodic attempt to reach a futile objective: the conquering of a small island in the Aegean Sea through invasion-by-sound.

The publication accompanies the cycle of four exhibitions by Pennacchio Argentato (29 January–3 April 2011); Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum (9 April–12 June 2011); Uqbar (Irene Kopelman & Mariana Castillo Deball) (25 June–11 September 2011); Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch (24 September 2011–15 January 2012) that took place at the Laboratorio 987, the project space of MUSAC, León, thoughout 2011. (+ info...)

Editor: Latitudes

Publisher & Distribution: Mousse Publishing

Format: 22.5 x 15.5cm, 216 pp, hardcover

Texts: Giorgio Agamben, Theo Beckers, Latitudes, Peter Osborne, Georges Pérec, Menno Schilthuizen, Ryszard Zelichowski

Language: English and Spanish

ISBN: 9788896501832
Price: 26 Euro

The publication will be available for purchase during the presentation.
Múltiplos is an independent bookshop that specialises in artists publications.

More images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lttds/sets/72157629632650932/

Amikejo, Barcelona, Book Launch, Fermín Jiménez Landa, Laboratorio 987, Mousse Publishing, MUSAC, Múltiplos

Pennacchio Argentato's show "Conversion" at Wilkinson Gallery, London

Mon, May 7 2012

Below images of "Conversion" the recently opened solo show of Amikejo artists Pennacchio Argentato. The exhibition is on view in the Upper Gallery of Wilkinson gallery in London until 17 June 2012.

General view of the exhibition.

'Set in the Same Universe', 2012. Acrylic resin, print transfer (200 × 95 × 45 cm)

'West End', 2012. Aluminium, cord (Dimensions variable)

(Wall) 'Shield#0 – #00001', 2012. Acrylic resin, iron, print transfer, bike hooks (130 × 92 × 40 cm), (Right, free standing) 'Set in the Same Universe', 2012. Acrylic resin, print transfer (200 × 95 × 45 cm)

'FAQ', 2012. Plexiglas, digital projection (35×70 cm). All images: Courtesy the artists and Wilkinson Gallery, London

(Excerpts from the gallery press release):

"Conversion" presents sculptures as free standing agents, hanging off the wall and suspended from the ceiling. As if overcome by a crisis of aesthetic register, a stylistic battle takes place between the artworks’ broad formal references, ranging from minimalist tendencies and optical illusion, to gothic font text paired with “new age” video.

Cast in acrylic resin from the front glass of a car, the artists characterize the four shield-like sculptures Shield#0- #00001 as troops deployed in a row, prepared for battle. According to the artists’ selfdevised system, all matter, including the artists’ themselves, are convertible entities; this conversion is likewise reflected in our daily lives, whether it be in terms of converting file formats or currency.

FAQ operates as a sculpture illuminated by a video projection of mathematical fractals abstracted into an array of shifting lights, colors and forms. Acting as a visual anchor, it only but alludes to the presence of answers, instead manifesting as a form of light amusement or distraction. In formal contrast, sculptures such as Long Bones, placed at the entrance to the gallery, as well as West End, a ladder sculpture suspended from the ceiling, adopt a more tectonic composition.

The incandescent photographic flames that optically engulf the freestanding sculpture, Set in the same universe function as the fuel that formally unites the subsequent artworks in the exhibition. Taken from a larger image of civil riots found in recent news, the sculpture acts as a centripetal force within the exhibition by introducing an element of reality into the fictional discourse and diversit of styles that are otherwise present in the gallery.

Wilkinson

50-58 Vyner Street

London E2 9DQ

info@wilkinsongallery.com

Wednesday to Saturday: 11–18h
Sunday: 12–18h

Amikejo, Laboratorio 987, London, MUSAC, Pennacchio Argentato, Wilkinson

FAQ: Where can I find the publications edited by Latitudes?

Sun, Apr 22 2012

We often receive enquiries from folks interested in purchasing our publications. As editors (or contributors) we only hold a few copies, which over the years have been mostly entirely gifted to colleagues and donated to expand institutional archives.

MACBA’s Centre d'Estudis i Documentació (MACBA Study Centre) and The Banff Centre Library (Banff, Canada) hold reference copies of all of our publications – including the 2006 publication 'Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook' (out of print); exhibition catalogues such as Amikejo (2011), 'Greenwashing. Environment: perils, promises and perplexities' (2008) and The Last Newspaper (2010), the monograph 'Lara Almarcegui, Projects 1995–2010’ (2010) publications accompanying projects such as Ignasi Aballí's Nothing or Something (2009), Simon Fujiwara's Museum of Incest (2009), Mataró Chauffeur Service (2010), Campus (2011) or Portscapes' (2010) limited edition which includes Jan Dibbets' DVD with his commissioned film '6 hours tide object with correction of perspective' (1969–2009); exhibition booklets of the exhibition 'Exposition International...' at Meessen de Clercq in Brussels, and that dedicated to Lawrence Weiner 2008 exhibition at Fundació Suñol.

MACBA's library also holds two further references: a recording of the conversation we organised as part of our #OpenCurating research with Dia Art Foundation Curator, Yasmil Raymond in 2013, later published as the #7 in the download-free edition; and Charley Independents, the issue that appeared coinciding with our participation in the second iteration of the festival 'No Soul for Sale' launched at TATE Modern in 2010.

Below is a list of all our publications and links to the distributors from where you can purchase them:

'Amikejo' (Mousse Publishing, 2012)

Available via Mousse Publishing (Milan) and Motto (Berlin)

+ info on the exhibition series.

'Lara Almarcegui, Projects 1995–2010' (Archive Books, 2011/12)

Available via Archive Books (Berlin)

+ photos

+ info on the publication

Roman Keller & Christina Hemauer, 'United Alternative Energies: Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller' (The Århus Art Building, 2011)

Available at the The Århus Art Building, Århus (Denmark)

+ photos

+ info on the exhibition

Martí Anson and Latitudes,'Mataró Chauffeur Service' (Save As...Publications, 2011)

Available via La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid)
+ photos

+ info on the project

'The Last Newspaper' (Latitudes & The New Museum, 2010)

Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid). Special edition (in the box) available via the New Museum store (New York)

+ photos
+ info on the exhibition

'Portscapes' (SKOR / The Port of Rotterdam, 2009)

Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid)

+ photos

+ info on the commissioning series

Simon Fujiwara, 'The Museum of Incest' (Archive Books, 2009)

Available via Archive Books (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid)

+ photos
+ info on the exhibition

'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities' (The Bookmakers Ed. / Archive Books, 2008)

Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin)

+ photos
+ info on the exhibition

Three of our earlier publications are out of print:

'Land, Art. A Cultural Ecology Handbook' (Arts Council England & Royal Society of Arts, 2006)
Out of print. Available for consultation at MACBA's library.
+ photos

+ info on the publication

UOVO #14 (The Bookmakers Ed., 2007)

Out of print. Available for consultation at MACBA's library.
+ photos

+ info on the publication

Ignasi Aballí, 'Nothing, or Something' (Today Art Museum, 2009)

+ photos

+ info on the exhibition

–

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.

Amikejo, Archive Books, Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller, Greenwashing, Ignasi Aballí, Lara Almarcegui, Mataró Chauffeur Service, Mousse Publishing, Portscapes, Save As..., Simon Fujiwara, The Last Newspaper

Casa Bloc (1932-39) arquitectura racionalista de la II República en el Barri de Sant Andreu, Barcelona

Sun, Apr 15 2012

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.

Fotografías: Latitudes | www.lttds.org

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

Arquitectura, Barcelona, Disseny Hub Barcelona, racionalismo, tour

When did we start being 'Contemporary'? Peter Osborne's MACBA lecture

Fri, Apr 13 2012

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.

1976, 1979, 2012, Amikejo, contemporary, MACBA, modern, Peter Osborne, post-modern, Tino Sehgal

Mousse Publishing and MUSAC release the publication 'Amikejo' edited by Latitudes

Tue, Apr 10 2012

Publication in front of MUSAC's façade, León. Photo: Carlos Ordás.

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:

Peter Osborne (Professor of Modern European Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University London) text "‘Fragments of the future’: Notes on project space" centres on the idea of ‘project space’ as 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?;

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)

'Amikejo' publication, beginning to end. Photos: Mousse Publishing

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

2012, Amikejo, Fermin Jiménez Landa and Lee Welch, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, Laboratorio 987, Mousse Publishing, MUSAC, Pennacchio Argentato, Uqbar (Mariana Castillo Deball and Irene Kopelman)

(Part 3) Latitudes interviewed for "Radio For Example, part 2: R22-Dubai", a project by the Curatorial Delegation for Art Dubai 2012 and The Pavilion Downtown Dubai

Fri, Apr 6 2012

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

Appartment 22, Chantal Crousel, Dubai, interview, Juan A. Gaitán, radio, The Pavilion Downtown

Publication "Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement" (Alauda Publications, 2012) includes essay by Max Andrews

Wed, Mar 28 2012

Cover of the publication. All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org

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.

2012, Alauda Publications, Cyprien Gaillard, Jorge Satorre, Land Art, Lara Almarcegui, Max Andrews, Robert Smithson, SKOR, The Netherlands

LONGITUDES

Editor: Latitudes

Publisher & Distribution: Mousse Publishing

Format: 22.5 x 15.5cm, 216 pp, hardcover

Texts: Giorgio Agamben, Theo Beckers, Latitudes, Peter Osborne, Georges Pérec, Menno Schilthuizen, Ryszard Zelichowski

Language: English and Spanish