Report from Urdaibai: commission series 'Sense and Sustainability', Urdaibai Arte 2012
Sun, Jul 22 2012
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
The commission series "Sense and Sustainability", curated by Alberto Sánchez Balmisa within the framework of
Urdaibai Arte 2012, and organized by the Fundación 2012 Fundazioa, was launched on 19 July (info here – in Spanish) and will remain open to the public until 23 September. It comprises ten installations developed by artists: Lara Almarcegui (Zaragoza, Spain, 1972), Liam Gillick (Aylesbury, UK, 1964), Carlos Irijalba (Pamplona, 1979), Gunilla Klingberg (Stockholm, Sweden, 1966), Maider López (Donostia, Spain, 1975), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (México DF, México, 1967), Renata Lucas (Ribeirão Preto, Brasil, 1971), Oscar Tuazon (Tacoma, USA, 1975), Pieter Vermeersch (Kortrijk, Belgium, 1973) and Haegue Yang (Seoul, South Korea, 1971).
Launch of the project in the Playa de Laga. Left to right: Gunilla Klingberg, Haegue Yang, Maider Lopez, Alberto Sánchez Balmisa, Blanca Urgell (Consejera de Cultura), Renata Lucas, Carlos Irijalba and Lara Almarcegui.
The works are produced for and presented in different locations around the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve (in the Basque Country), including urban, industrial and natural spaces.
Below images of the works as we visited them, starting with Gunilla Klingberg's "A Sign in Space" at Playa de Laga, Ibarrangelua, a tide-depending 'drawing' performance that takes place on the beach on the following days: 19, 20, 30, 31st of July; 1, 2, 14, 15, 16, 30 and 31st of August and 14, 15th of September.
Gunilla Klingberg's "A Sign in Space" at Playa de Laga, Ibarrangelua.
Haegue Yang, "Tectonic Texture", Cantera de Andrabide, Gautegiz-Arteaga.
Following an excerpt from the text "Stack of evidence: Haegue Yang" included in the publication "Sentido y Sostenibilidad – Reading" written by Max Andrews' of Latitudes (you can download the full text from Latitudes' writing archive).
"Yang’s project, for Urdaibai – entitled 'Tectonic Texture' – has its beginnings and the bulk of its physical and metaphorical investment in what is perhaps the most traditional of raw materials for artistic decoration and representation: stone. In particular she became interested in the characteristic stones of the Urdaibai region – including grey limestone and Rojo Ereño, which has been quarried in the region since at least Roman times. The latter, also known as Rojo Bilbao, is technically a recrystallised limestone which is a deep meaty red colour with whorls of grey and white which are the fossilised remains of rudists, bivalves which were the major reef builders of the tropical seas of the Cretaceous. Yang proposed a stack in which 80 cm square slabs of Rojo Ereño are alternated with slabs of grey limestone. Additionally, a mason from Urdaibai was commissioned to carve the top surface – a square sandstone plate, also from the region – with a combination of his own raised geometric designs and a series of engraved handprints like impressions left in wet concrete. The five handprints are intended to encourage people to touch the form and initiate a direct contact with the materiality of the stone. 'Tectonic Texture' is installed one of the few Ereño marble quarries in the region which has not been completely abandoned and is surrounded by the stagger-cut cliff faces where millennia of excavations have cut down below the forested surface. The sculptural material of which it is comprised originated from the same quarry. The depth of the quarry witnesses the vast displacement of rock that has taken place, and the steady transposition of a section of landscape which itself originated as ocean life approximately 100 million years ago into symbolic and cultural forms – buildings facades, altars and monuments distributed throughout the Basque country and beyond.
Yang’s work is a kind of non-sculpture – perhaps closer to a memorial or a secular shrine – which connects to a highly-specific local labour tradition, through the apparent paradox of a representation of stone that is itself stone. Its form might also suggest that it is a kind of column or pedestal for an invisible form on top of it – an expectant platform articulated through the reorganisation of the excess symbolic value found in the anthropogenic landscape where it stands. The location of the quarry is somewhat hidden within the landscape of the Urdaibai biosphere reserve, and approaching the work in its context evokes a quasi-mystical feeling despite that fact the area bears the scars of modern industry. With 'Tectonic Texture', Yang was particularly interested in this strange collision of industrial exploitation and managed nature inherent in the site, as well as the Urdaibai region’s pride in its ecological fecundity as a new kind of resource with political dimensions."
Haegue Yang, "Tectonic Texture", Cantera de Andrabide, Gautegiz-Arteaga. Views of the marble quarry where Yang's piece is installed.
Oscar Tuazon, "Birds" is on the way up to San Pedro Atxarre from the district of Garteiz and Akorda, Ibarrangelua. It consists of a bench of Marquina stone with a radio system broadcasting live (Radio3) within a remote and highly environmentally-protected area.
Liam Gillick, "Faceted Revision Structure (Es una clase muy pobre de memoria que sólo funciona hacia atrás)", Fábrica de Astra, Gernika-Lumo. The remodelling project of this future production centre is still undergoing, and will be presented with a finissage at the end of the project.
Pieter Vermeersch, "Untitled" in the Polígono Industrial, Gernika-Lumo. As the artist has written, these two paitings "represent a mental landscape as a subjective mirror of my experience in this region."
Renata Lucas, "El Visitante", Calle de Santa Clara, Gernika-Lumo. The project involved the planting of a Sibipiruna (Caesalpinia Peltophoroides), a tree native from the artist's birthplace, Brazil, in close proximity to Gernika's oak tree.
Renata Lucas presenting her work placed in front of Gernika's oak tree.
Lara Almarcegui, "Materiales de la montaña Peña Forua", at the Antiguos Hornos de Cal, Barrio de Atxondoa de Forua. The piece consists in the calculation of the weight of the Peña Forua mountain, an active quarry, and the display of its materials in the wall of an old
lime kiln.
Following an excerpt from the text included in the publication "Sentido y Sostenibilidad – Reading" written by Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes (you can download the full text from Latitudes' writing archive).
"(...) (Almarcegui's) contribution to the series consisted in nothing less than the calculation of the weight of a mountain, and the display in list form of its geological composition. The Atxondo mountain is covered by Cantabrian holm oak and was known to be mostly composed of limestone, with small percentages of clay and sandstone. Once a more detailed geological analysis was concluded, a complex series of calculations took place in collaboration with geographers and speleologists which followed a 3D modelling of the mountain using the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) technique. This calculated physical volume using algorithms and mathematical formula. The final numbers were then broken down into a simple list of each of the materials which comprised the mountain followed by their weights. This list of geological composition is finally displayed within the site itself, on the wall of an old lime kiln in a nearby abandoned quarry, so that the visitor can firstly observe the staggering mountain, navigate its perimeter, before later reading its geological composition expressed in numbers. During the difficult pre-process to the final form of the work, Almarcegui and her collaborators faced two particular challenges. Firstly, the decision as to where Atxondo actually begins and ends. Secondly, the difficulty of calculating volume in a geographical site that has many internal and external chasms and caves.
Almarcegui deliberately chose to focus her contribution in a site of continuous change. The mountain is being eaten away through the actions of an active quarry, Forua, which is dynamited in order to extract limestone, a sedimentary rock mainly used as a building material or as aggregate for the base of roads. Some of the limestone is processed directly on site where it is turned into gravel and then taken to a facility 5 km away near Gernika which processes it into concrete. It is in this process that we can appreciate a destruction and construction cycle as it loops: the mountain becomes limestone which becomes construction material. During her investigations, Almarcegui discovered that the quarry is now exploited less frequently due to the “brick crisis”. The building sector is one of the hardest hit industries in the current Spanish recession, and the raw materials are simply no longer in high demand. The effects of the economy are therefore clearly translatable into the terms of landscape and ecology: the mountain's transformation and the pace of its destruction, goes hand in hand with the growing or bursting bubble of the construction industry."
Almarcegui presenting her project to visitors that joined the public presentation.
View of Lara Almarcegui's site in the old
lime kiln of Atxondoa, Forua - also via photosynth.
Carlos Irijalba, "High Tides", Refuge in Paresi, Busturia. Irijalba's installation in this former Republican school is an investigation of a physical terrain: the result of a geotechnical drilling that Irijalba undertook on the parking lot of the former weapon factory of Astra in Gernika.
View of Mundaka from the Refugio in Paresi, where Carlos Irijalba's work is displayed.
Maider López, "In Situ", Nine different locations around Urdaibai. Below the coordinates in front of Mundaka's Town Hall, designating where to find the yellow tiles the artist has placed which indicate daily movements, crossings, activities that happen in the area.
López (standing on right) placed a yellow tile in the market in Gernika, where Rosario (standing on left) goes daily to sell products from her farmhouse. The rest of the stalls are only joining once a week on Monday mornings.
Another of Maider López points of encounter: this is the only fountain in Gernika with drinkable water and therefore becomes a busy hub for neighbours as they fill their bottles.
The tile marks the journey made by a boat that connects Mundaka with Laida, saving people from having to make the 24km drive.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Newsletter #45 – Summer 2012
Mon, Jul 2 2012
Newsletter #45
http://mad.ly/c60ad2 (in English)
http://mad.ly/32fed2 (en Español)
#OpenCurating, BCN Producció 2012 Research Grant, throughout 2012 + info...
Facilitators of the second Nature Addicts Fund Travelling Academy, 11–15 September, Kassel. Organised within the Maybe Education and Public Programs of dOCUMENTA (13). + info...
'Projects 2005–2012 / Incidents of Travel', in La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, Mexico City, Mexico, 27 September–5 November 2012. + info...
2005–12 Newsletters here.
Tour around Ghent: TRACK, Sint-Jan and "Esta puerta pide clavo" at Galerie Tatjana Pieters
Fri, Jun 22 2012
Described as "a contemporary city conversation" and "a unique art experience in the city of Ghent", TRACK enjoys the participation of around 40 artists that present (more or less) site specific works in/around the Belgium city, organised in several 'clusters' (Tondelier, Tolhuis, Macharius, Centrum, Blandijn and Citadel).
TRACK was initiated by the S.M.A.K. (it is curated by its artistic director, Philippe Van Cauteren and Mirjam Varadinis, curator at Kunsthaus Zürich) with the aim of continuing the tradition of two exhibition projects also organised by S.M.A.K.: the seminal Chambres d’Amis (curated by Jan Hoet in 1986), a show that exhibited art private houses around Ghent, and Over the Edges (2000, curated by Jan Hoet and Giacinto Di Pietrantonio), which took the idea of the corner as a starting point, or as the curators put it "the boundary between interior and exterior, between indoors and outdoors, between private and public".
Nearby Pilvi Takala's work was the video work by Swiss artists Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller, which we sadly missed as TRACK sites are closed on Mondays. Keller & Hemauer talk about 'The Postpetrolistic Internationale' choir piece here.
Their work began back in 2009 in Basel and has had iterations in Rotterdam (Latitudes' project 'Portscapes') and a year later in Aarhus, Denmark, where the piece was part of Hemauer/Keller's solo show "United Alternative Energies" (also curated by Latitudes). 'The Postpetrolistic Internationale' will be part of the group exhibition 'Ballena Negra' in late 2012 in MARCO Vigo, as part of the 10 year anniversary of the Prestige oil spill.
Lara Almarcegui's 700m3 "Concrete Mountain" in the Tondelier cluster.
The artist speaks about her work in this video.
Pascale Marthine-Tayou, "Le défi" (2012).
[from the website] "On 16 August 2009 the Jamaican Usain Bolt took the world record for the
10-metre sprint to an unreal 9.58 seconds. In 2012 Pascale Marthine
Tayou has laid out a single-lane athletics track in the heart of the
Tondelier district. Until the 1960s, this part of Ghent had been full of
working industries. Although most of the factories have since been
demolished or put to new use, one can even now still read the history of
this neighbourhood in its eroded urban skin. Pascale Marthine Tayou’s "Le défi" is a red gravel track that comes to a dead end at a wall. It is
clear how the work is to be read and used, but the consequences are
ambiguous. Le défi will not be recognised as an artwork by most of the
local residents. It is a playful but meditative reflection on the
significance of sport, the acceptance of a challenge and the generation
of social change and emancipation. In this way, Pascale Marthine Tayou
has created ‘an image’ of both the global, Olympic heroism of a world
record and the minor hitches facing every individual."
Teresa Margolles' Mesa y dos bancos (Table and Two Benches), 2012 in the Tondelier cluster.
"For TRACK [Margolles] had a public picnic bench cast in cement. She mixes this neutral substance with the water extracted from cloths that had been used to clean up the blood of victims of the Mexican drug war from the streets."
[from the website] "‘Search and Destroy’ is not only the title of a hit by the 70s nihilistic American punk band The Stooges, but also a military strategy first employed in the Vietnam War. To Garabedian, this phrase refers to the way the history of a place is handled and the way a fracture in the past continues to torment the present."
"The starting point for [his multi-part work] ‘Spectres’ is the murder of Patrice Lumumba a few
months after his election victory in the Congo in 1960. For TRACK,
Augustijnen sought in vain for the tree against which Lumumba was shot.
It had probably been chopped down to make charcoal. In the Citadel Park,
Augustijnen sets up an installation in which this charcoal – an
indispensable source of income but also a symbolic remnant of the tree –
is transported by bicycle, a ‘typically’ Congolese means of conveyance.
Augustijnen deliberately located this installation near the ‘Moorken’.
This small black sculpture on top of artificial rocks in the Citadel
Park dates from 1888 and is a reminder of the time when the Congo was
still Leopold II’s private pleasure garden. The ‘Moorken’ portrays the
Congolese boy Sakala, whom the pioneer Lieven Van de Velde brought back
to Belgium in 1884."
'Esta puerta pide clavo' (2 June–19 August 2012), is a group show curated by Rivet (Manuela Moscoso & Sarah Demeuse) with the participation of: Philippe van Snick, Lorea Alfaro, Rey Akdogan, June Crespo, Rubén Grilo, David Jablonowski, Lisa Oppenheim, Kiko Pérez, Asaha Schechter, Daniel Steegman-Magrané and Batia Suter.
[From the press release]
"Based on an idiom that literally translates as 'This door asks for a nail,' Esta puerta pide clavo not only highlights an economy of means that informed the making of the selected works but also emphasizes the equipment-like agency of matter over and above hermeneutics. One strand of "Esta puerta pide clavo" veers towards abstraction, possibly echoing a common language of design as well as artistic actions from the 20th-century."
[From the press release]
"Based on an idiom that literally translates as 'This door asks for a nail,' Esta puerta pide clavo not only highlights an economy of means that informed the making of the selected works but also emphasizes the equipment-like agency of matter over and above hermeneutics. One strand of "Esta puerta pide clavo" veers towards abstraction, possibly echoing a common language of design as well as artistic actions from the 20th-century."
(...) "David Jablonowski's sculptures [photo above and below] awkwardly materialize and juxtapose processes of scanning with generic computer visualization, digitized archival imagery as well as what look like casts spat out by 3-D printers."
"Equally focused on intermediary material components and backgrounds in the process of photography, Lisa Oppenheim's unique photograms resemble digitally designed patterns while being the repositories of a darkroom interpretation of Victorian flower arrangements."
"The other strand insists on specificity of materials and imagery. June Crespo's precise scans provide the source material for layered sculptures that force the object-image into three-dimensionality and volume."
Lambda print on PVC, metal rivets, plastic and spray, textile. 100x70cm.
"Philippe van
Snick's Kleurmachine, though made in the 1970s, foreshadows a similar
language of generic abstraction. (...) Van Snick's photography simultaneously fuses object and processed
image, similarly collapsing two- and three-dimensionality."
Catedral of Sint–Jan in the center of Ghent.
Jan Hoet and Hans Martens curated Sint–Jan (until 29 July 2012), an exhibition running paralel to TRACK,
in which 51 artists present their work around spirituality and religion
at the Saint-Bavo's Cathedral in the center of Ghent. The artist list
includes Kris Martin, Navid Nuur, Michaël Boremans, Abdel Abdessemed,
Berlinde De Bruyckere, Bruce Nauman, David Adamo, Luciano Fabro, Mandla
Reuter, Marlene Dumas, Wim Delvoye…
Mandla Reuter (on the wall, a Rubens).
David Adamo in one of the side chapels.
Adel Abdessemed (in the crypt)
Luciano Fabro (in the crypt)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
'Sad Eis' by Sarah Ortmeyer in Meessen de Clercq and "Force Justify (Part 2)" by Lucy Skaer at Tulips & Roses, Brussels
Thu, Jun 21 2012
'Sad Eis' (Sad Ice), Sarah Ortmeyer's first solo show in Meessen de Clercq (1 June–14 July 2012) is "an exhibition on ritualized happiness" as described in the exhibition guide.
During the opening night, the artist treated guests to liquorice, fennel and wasabi ice cream as well as cocktails made of Riesling wine with lavender ice cream.
View of 'LASSO LADEN' - An abandoned ice cream parlor.
Eighteen silver, black and wooden ice cream parlor stools, one silver chair and two golden locks.
View of the installation 'SAD EIS' - Monolithic ice cream displays that look like sad, chubby teenagers.
Five ice cream cones painted in Signal White, Silk Grey, Traffic Grey A,
Traffic Grey B, Dusty Grey, Telegrey 4 and Platinum Grey.
147 x 60 x 60 cm each cone.
Five ice cream cones painted in Signal White, Silk Grey, Traffic Grey A,
Traffic Grey B, Dusty Grey, Telegrey 4 and Platinum Grey.
147 x 60 x 60 cm each cone.
View of the installation of MILLI VANILLI
Formally virginally white towels covered in sweet sauce.
Organic ice cream on towel: Vanilla, Strawberry, Rasperry, Currant, Pistacchio and Mango.
MARRY ME ME - Wedding cake stands as bland and grey as an anti-rainbow.
Wedding cake stands of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 storages.
Dimensions variable.
Wedding cake stands of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 storages.
Dimensions variable.
BOW BOUQUET - A bouquet composed of cones and exotic silk, a reminiscent of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s pajama wedding.
Flowers: Purple and rosé orchids
Cones: Cono Fiore, Cono Pralinex Cocco, Cono Pralinex Bianco Grande,
Cono Pralinex Nero Grande, Big Fun, Maxi Cone and Trottole.
circa 170 x 100 cm.
Flowers: Purple and rosé orchids
Cones: Cono Fiore, Cono Pralinex Cocco, Cono Pralinex Bianco Grande,
Cono Pralinex Nero Grande, Big Fun, Maxi Cone and Trottole.
circa 170 x 100 cm.
LA FIN - An ice cream parlor left behind with four bar tables and one tabletop.
One tabletop and four ice cream parlor bar tables.
Dimensions variable.
One tabletop and four ice cream parlor bar tables.
Dimensions variable.
KISS KUSS - A room filled with aniconic carpets and tender, empty kisses.
Carpets of different colours: grey, anthracite, beige, eggshell white.
Dimensions variable.
Carpets of different colours: grey, anthracite, beige, eggshell white.
Dimensions variable.
In the Wunderkammer space: 'PETER WEISS' - A white, damp, fresh and heartbreakingly canny laundry room.
Thirty-one washed towels.
Thirty-one washed towels.
Ortmeyer was one of the five artists that participated in Latitudes' exhibition 'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes & des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne' that took place between February and April 2011, also at Meessen de Clercq.
Abdijstraat 2A / Rue de l'Abbaye
B-1000 Brussels
BELGIUM
Lucy Skaer's solo show 'Force Justify (Part 2)' (24 May–16 June 2012) at Tulips & Roses:
[From the press sheet]
The ship of fools is an archetype based on the Narrenschiff by Sebastian Brandt, a medieval book in which a ship full of fools set sai to a fools utopia Narragonia.
Starting from a woodcut illustration from the book, I have made a work that inhabits and performs the allegory. (...) First the image was carved in to the floor of the K21 museum in Düsseldorf, and a large print was made from it. The floor was then lifted and moved, rearranged and reprinted in a scrambled form. The original ballast from the Düsseldorf ship was transformed from its shape as copies of Brancusi's Newborn sculptures to instead match the tile shapes from the floor of Tulips & Roses.
This "second part of 'Force Justify' the tile pattern was again replicated in a series of woven sails, rigged up in the space giving a thwarted ability to move forward. This absurdist sense of agency is typical of the project, a series of misuses of objects and ideas to make immediately appealing stop gaps."
The ship of fools is an archetype based on the Narrenschiff by Sebastian Brandt, a medieval book in which a ship full of fools set sai to a fools utopia Narragonia.
Starting from a woodcut illustration from the book, I have made a work that inhabits and performs the allegory. (...) First the image was carved in to the floor of the K21 museum in Düsseldorf, and a large print was made from it. The floor was then lifted and moved, rearranged and reprinted in a scrambled form. The original ballast from the Düsseldorf ship was transformed from its shape as copies of Brancusi's Newborn sculptures to instead match the tile shapes from the floor of Tulips & Roses.
This "second part of 'Force Justify' the tile pattern was again replicated in a series of woven sails, rigged up in the space giving a thwarted ability to move forward. This absurdist sense of agency is typical of the project, a series of misuses of objects and ideas to make immediately appealing stop gaps."
The Good Ship Blank and Ballast (Force Justified), 2010-2012
Woven fabric, Re-cast Aluminium (Dimensions variable)
Woven fabric, Re-cast Aluminium (Dimensions variable)
(...) The sculptures were made out of 98 aluminium copies of Brancusi's Newborn
sculpture. These copies were melted down and recast to fit the ornament
of the gallery's floor. The notion of 'ballast' implies something that
is shaped entirely by its function - simply being dumb weight - without
any necessity of representational qualities.
Liquidity in the Mind of the Fool, 2012
Glass, Enamel on copper, Tin, Bronze, Fossils, Shells, Coins, Books (Dimensions variable).
Glass, Enamel on copper, Tin, Bronze, Fossils, Shells, Coins, Books (Dimensions variable).
"Liquidity in the Mind of the Fool contains small Brancusi's Newborn
sculptures now tumbled and submerged in melted glass or enveloped in
Tin. Visible through a melted red glass panel is the original image of
the woodcut, now transformed in to a specially printed secure bank note.
One of the sculptures is made up of badly minted coins, which present a
balance between material and symbolic, with the validating stamp
sliding from the face of the metal disc."
See images of Skaer's 'Force Justify (Part 1)', also at Tulips & Roses.
19, rue de la Clé
1000 – Brussels
1000 – Brussels
BELGIUM
Images 1–9: Courtesy of Sarah Ortmeyer and Meessen de Clercq.
Images 10–13: Courtesy of Lucy Skaer and Tulips & Roses, Brussels.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
"El triángulo y el ruido" de Diego Santomé en el Colexio de Fonseca, Santiago de Compostela
Wed, Jun 20 2012
La exposición individual 'El Triángulo y el ruido' de Diego Santomé (Vigo, 1966) se articula en dos espacios del Colexio de Fonseca: la Capilla y la Sala del Artesonado. En la capilla gótica del XVII, un monumental 'Triángulo' negro de más de 7 metros de altura busca "el equilibrio mediante la tensión figura-fondo, contraponiendo el objeto en primer plano con su fondo, su contrario." (Texto curatorial de la guía.)
La sala opuesta, la del Artesonado acoge "Ruido", una pieza sonora en la que se escuchan "discursos pronunciados por personajes relevantes de la vida política gallega en el Parlamento de Galicia durante su ubicación en este lugar, el Salón artesonado del Colegio de Fonseca, sede parlamentaria entre 1982 y 1989. Los discursos, que suenan simultáneamente, han sido seleccionados y editados por el artista a partir del archivo sonoro del Parlamento." (descripción cartela de la exposición).
Foto y video de "Ruido" (2012). Altavoces, reproductor y sonido. 20 min. Cortesía del artista y Galería Parra & Romero, Madrid.
Poster/folleto de la exposición.
Santomé también participa en la exposición "Gravity and Disgrace", en el CGAC de Santiago de Compostela, una exposición colectiva comisariada por Miguel von Hafe Pérez.
'El Triángulo y el ruido' (6–30 Junio 2012) ha sido comisariada por los alumnos de la V edición del Máster en Arte, Museoloxía e Crítica Contemporáneas de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.
'El Triángulo y el ruido' (6–30 Junio 2012) ha sido comisariada por los alumnos de la V edición del Máster en Arte, Museoloxía e Crítica Contemporáneas de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.
Rúa do Franco
15702 Santiago de Compostela
Fotos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Fotos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
2 June 2012: Book launch and exploration of former Amikejo
Mon, Jun 18 2012
On June 2, after having visited Manifesta 9, we took the route towards the Belgian city of Kelmis-La Calamine, nearby the German and Dutch border, where we planned to launch the 'Amikejo' publication (Mousse Publishing, 2012) later that day.
Entrance to Kelmis-La Calamine. Trying to match today with the archive material included in the publication.
"The International Office for Travelling Merchants (‘Senpaga Internacia Oficejo por Komerco-Vojagxistoj’) was located in the Bergerhoff Hotel." (Hotel Bergerhoff was located on Luikerstraat, formerly Hasardstraat, in the place which today accommodates the ‘Select’ Café in Kelmis.)" in Ryszard Żelichowski, "Neutral Moresnet and Amikejo – The Forgotten Children of the Congress of Vienna", one of the texts in 'Amikejo' (Mousse Publishing, 2012. Edited by Latitudes).
"There were as many as 135 registered Esperantists in a population then numbering four thousand. The Esperantists enjoyed the right to have two free Esperanto lessons in a primary school on Kerkstraat, which was a present to the city from the Vieille Montagne mining company. [Mr Charles] Schriever gave four lessons of Esperanto a week for children in his house on Kapelstraat, where there was a book shop with literature in Esperanto. The house also functioned as an office for the local Esperanto group and the venue for its meetings. The Esperantists’ guest houses were marked with a green star on their facades and the caption ‘Esperanta Gasttablo’; some of them survive to this day.
What is now Park Hotel in Kelmis, built in 1843, was once the Vieille Montagne Director’s villa. Situated in a beautiful private park and with a huge ball-room, it was presented to the Esperantists by Charles Timmerhaus, the penultimate Director of the company, in 1907." in Ryszard Żelichowski, "Neutral Moresnet and Amikejo – The Forgotten Children of the Congress of Vienna", one of the texts in 'Amikejo' (Mousse Publishing, 2012. Edited by Latitudes).
Finding our way around Kelmis-La Calamine.
Welcome to Kelmis–La Calamine.
Façade of the Geuldalmuseum, Göhltalmuseum or Musée de la Vallée de la Gueule (how confusing) on Maxst. 9, Kelmis/Neu-Moresnet, Belgium. Info here. A copy of the publication 'Amikejo' (Mousse Publishing, 2012. Edited by Latitudes) was donated to the museum's archive on our visit.
Detail of the topological map of the area. In red the Drielandenpunt, towards Aachen, where we'd be going after visiting the museum.
Map of the triangular-shapped territory of Neutral Moresnet (Amikejo) in yellow and green.
First floor: Introduction to Neutral Moresnet, the first Esperanto state. Those who spoke Esperanto wore a green star (verda stelo). In the picture avid Esperantists Dr. Wilhelm Molly and french professor Gustave Roy, who in 1908 founded the first esperanto state (Amikejo, place of friendship in Esperanto) in Neutral-Moresnet. Summary of its history here.
Wonderful panels explaining the history of Amikejo, its streets,
founders, borders, flag, postcards, maps, stamps, coins, certificates, letters, lyrics of the anthem, coat of arms...
One of the original border markers.
Views of Kelmis–La Calamine and its surroundings.
Flora and fauna of the mining area.
Driving towards Vaals and the Drielandenpunt and going under the viaduct.
Arrived. "The Vaalserberg is also the location of the tripoint between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and its summit is therefore referred to as Drielandenpunt ("Three-Country Point") in Dutch, or Dreiländereck ("Three-Country Corner") in German, or Trois Frontières ("Three Borders") in French." (from Wikipedia).
A small mention of Neutral Moresnet (1815–1919, which in 1908 changed its name to Amikejo). Between this period, the location was a quadripoint, bordering also Neutral Moresnet. See progress of the borders here.
Vaalserberg ("Mount Vaals") is 322.7 metres hill and the highest point in the European part of the Netherlands. It used to be like this.
Visitors reading about the drienlandenpunt's history and geographical situation.
Tower from where one can observe Germany, The
Netherlands and Belgium from on high.
The 'Amikejo' book resting on the Drielandenpunt (the apex of the triangle-shaped borders of what was Amikejo). The green lines mark the borders of Germany (whole top), The
Netherlands (triangle to the left) and Belgium (to the right).
All images: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
Manifesta 9, "The Deep of the Modern", Genk, Belgium, 2 June – 30 September 2012 in pictures and seen by the critics
Tue, Jun 12 2012
Façade of the Waterschei industrial complex of the former coal mine in Genk where Manifesta 9 takes place.
Extra materials:
In her prologue Manifesta founding director Hedwig Fijen, defines the difference and the strength of the current incarnation of the European biennial: "'The Deep of the Modern'" is the first Manifesta biennial to intentionally leave behind its strictly contemporary origins as the basis of its exhibition model. As an uncompromising European contemporary art event, Manifesta 9 distances itself from the much-hyped model of showcasing only the latest artistic production by emerging talent, typical of these mega-shows. Instead it embarks on a critical attemps to foster interdisciplinary and intergenerational dialogue between the history of the site and the sometimes overlooked memories of the mining communities."
The introduction of an art historical perspective into the project has been a way to appeal to a more diverse audience, as Cuauhtémoc Medina, Chief Curator of Manifesta 9, has noted in his introductory essay: "our hope is that the long historical perspective will attact a local audience in a region that has not customarily been a consumer of contemporary art, along with a number of scholars and the descendants of the miners that built the region."
Art Agenda's review by writer and Co-Director of Tulips & Roses gallery in Brussels, Jonas Žakaitis provides the backstory:
"Genk is a town built for the sole purpose of getting the black stuff out of the ground. Early in the last century, after geologist André Dumont discovered significant amounts of coal lurking in the area, something like 60,000 people moved in from various parts of the world to work in and around the pits, building several large-scale mining complexes with the town's modest amenities sprinkled around them. When heavy industry glaciers started moving out of Western Europe in the 1980s, Genk was left with a large useless hole right in the gut. The remaining fraction of the Waterschei mine (23,000 sq. m of it) is an involuntary witness to this process of de-industrialization, a derelict but beautiful and proud building. After Manifesta 9, or so it tells me in the press pack, it "will be redeveloped as part of a master plan to create Thor park (is this name a jolly wink to the Germanic god of thunder, I wonder), a business and science complex focusing on innovation and knowledge."
Stairs connecting the first and second floor of the Waterschei.
Kate Sutton's Artforum.com review also framed the loaded context: "Chief curator Cuauhtémoc Medina, together with co-curators Katerina Gregos and Dawn Ades, selected the Belgian province of Limburg, “a mini European Union” also known as “Euregio-Meuse-Rhine.” The region has spent much of this century heavily dependent on coal production, but, with the last mine closing in 1992, Limburg is now eager to transition to new technology. Once a kind of Emerald City for coal miners, the garden city of Genk provides the ideal venue with its massive, Art Deco–style André Dumont mine."
Top floor of the Waterschei building.
As Javier Hontoria noted in his El Cultural review, Medina wanted to concentrate everything in the Waterschei, "favoring the concept of "exhibition" versus the "festival", and consequently emphasizing the metaphor of the vertical versus the horizontal to the light of new economic systems." (...) "The idea of strata" – he continues – "so tied to the world of mining, backbones the sense of the exhibition, which, under the title "The Deep of the Modern", unfolds in a concise and accurate way throughout the three levels of the building."
As explained in the press kit, 'The Deep of the Modern' begins with '17 Tons' "an exploration of the cultural
production that has been powered by the energy of memory that courses
through the diverse heirs of coal mining in the Campine region of
Limburg, as well as several other regions in Europe".
Models of the Underground from the 1950s, 3D representations used to teach 14–17 year old boys mining techniques and location of the coal layers.
Works by Manuel Durán (an 82 yeard old self-taught artist and former miner for 19 years) who has been making "Miners' heads" sculptures since the 1950s out of potato pulp, coal, salt and paint.
Lara Almarcegui, "Wasteland (Genk), 2004–16. More than 1 hectare of wasteland in public space." For the project, Almarcegui identified a neglected plot of land and scouted, surveyed and described the land. "Through negotiations iwth the City of Genk, Almarcegui arranged to protect the terrain from development for ten years (...). For Manifesta 9, the City of Genk agreed to extend the work for an additional two years and is currently in the planning stages of protecting it in perpetuity." (text by Steven Op de Beeck included in Manifesta 9 manual "The Deep of the Modern – A subcyclopaedia", Silvana Editoriale). Latitudes' visited the site back in 2007 (see blog here).
Continuing on the second floor we encounter 'The Age of Coal': "An art historical exhibition comprising
artworks from 1800 to the early 21st century about the history of art
production aesthetically related to the industrial era" (...) "organized into several thematic
sections with artworks in which coal played an important role. Coal as
the main fuel of industry, as a major factor of environmental change, as
a fossil with significant consequences in the field of natural science,
as the main referent of certain forms of working class culture and as a
material symbolic of the experience of modern life".
One of the three works by Marcel Broodthaers, "Trois tas de charbon", 1966-67.
David Hammons, "Chasing the Blue Train" (1989) "focuses on the powerpul metaphor of the railroads that have tgransformed the landscape and socity of the US since the 19th Century." (text by Mieke Mels in Manifesta's "The Deep of the Modern – A subcyclopaedia", Silvana Editoriale).
Richard Long's 26 meter long black "Bolivian Coal Line" carpet from 1992.
Rossella Biscotti, "Title One: The Taks of the Community", 2012. Biscotti also contributed with "A Conductor", 2012: On December 2009, the Unit 2 of the Ignalina Nuclear Poer Plant in Lithuania closed, consequently materials from the site were put up for auction. Biscotti acquired lead which have now been reused in Belgium into the new electrical wires to supply electricity for the show. She also acquired lead, which is the basis for her floor sculptures in the spectacular Sint-Barbara's hall.
Antonio Vega Macotela (below) Study of Exhaustion — The Equivalent of Silver (2011), "a
(failed) venture to export a “boleo” of coca leaves from Bolivian
silver mines represented by a boleo-shaped piece of silver, roughly the
amount of silver one miner gets out in a day" (Jonas Žakaitis in Art Agenda); and Rossella Biscotti (above).
Finally on the top floor, we find the section 'Poetics of Restructuring', with "contributions from 39 contemporary artists, focusing on aesthetic responses to the worldwide “economic restructuring” of the productive system in the early 21st century".
"This
archetypal kind of socio-econo-political development from
industrialization to de-industrialization to post-industrial
capitalism—and the corresponding forms of production, geographies, and
distributions of resources—is what Manifesta's contemporary art section,
mostly on the third floor of the building, is about." (Jonas Žakaitis in Art Agenda)
Manifesta educational materials and leaflets: "developed by the Manifesta 9 Education
& Mediation department. There are 3 different 3x3 Newspapers for 3 age groups (12-, 12+ and 18+), so make sure you have
the right one for you."
Ante Timmermans' "Make a Molehill out of a Mountain (of Work)" (2012).
View of the landscape from Ante Timmermans' space and the remaining Waterschei building (not in use).
Goldin + Senneby's "The decapitation of Money", 2010. From the exhibition newspaper: "Goldin + Senneby and team test the hypothesis that Headless Ltd. (a mysterious offshore company registrered in the Bahamas) is a reincarnation of the secret society "Acéphale", founded by Georges Bataille and friends in 1936."
Emre Hüner, "A little Larger Than the Entire Universe", 2012.
Duncan Campbell's "Make It New John", 2009, 50' video. Depicting the "history of the DMC-12, the extravagant, futuristic automobile created by American engineer and entrepeneur John Delorean (1925-2005). Campbell documents the strange attempt to use its production as a tool of social engineering. Relying heavily on archival footage, and incoporating a few staged scenes that introduce a political and biographical allegory, Campbell attempts to construct a panoramic view of the polar extremes that have characterized the social life of this icon of consumerism." (text by Cuauhtémoc Medina in in Manifesta's "The Deep of the Modern – A subcyclopaedia", Silvana Editoriale)
Back to Žakaitis analysis: (...)
The weird part though is that all of these things, displayed in a
generic and anemic way, are fenced from Mijndepot Waterschei, a full-blown and fully functioning museum assembled by former miners themselves back in 2004. Be sure to go there
if you visit this Manifesta, and check out hundreds of mining tools,
helmets, saint statues, a small train, and a 1:1 scale model of a coal
shaft: great stuff that can get you really sooty.
Miners museum in the Waterschei's first floor.
Nicoline van Harskamp, "Yours in Solidarity", 2009–12. Video, audio and archive material.
Praneet Soi's slideshow "Kumartuli Printer, Notes on Labor Part 1", 2010, which "parsed out the gestures of a printer's hands as he interacts with an ancient pedal-operated press in Calcutta. As the operator feeds paper into his anachronistic machine, it spits out grainy, high contrast images of his own hands, immersed in labor" (text by Cuauhtémoc Medina in in Manifesta's "The Deep of the Modern – A subcyclopaedia", Silvana Editoriale).
Maarten Vanden Eynde, "Plastic Reef", 2008–12: a collection of melted down plastic trash collected while swirling in the Pacific Ocean. For more info see his comprehensive website.
As for the publication "The Deep of the Modern – A subcyclopaedia" (Edited by Silvana Editoriale), the curator writes that it has been "designed to suggest the complexity of meaning involved in the whole project as well as the richness of the individual elements themselves. (...) We have chosen to publish a book that breaks from the mould of conventional exhibition catalogues. We evoke the form of the encyclopaedia as a means of organising a whole made up of multiple unities (...). This Subcyclopaedia will thus serve as a record of the research process behind the biennial. (...) Our neologism is meant to suggest a comparison between the use of this reference book and the exhumation of modernity's underworld in the heritage, culture and history of coal mining.".
Despite this intention of "breaking the mould", the 320-page book does include the traditional institutional forewords (to be precise, four) and an introductory curatorial essay by Medina. Many other texts are disseminated throughout the publication, which is organised in alphabetical order A to Z, mixing concepts (starting with "Accumulation", ending with "Underground as Hell"), with artist texts by a network of over 30 writers, and essays by Gregos ("Poetics of Restructuring: On the question of production in the contemporary section of Manifesta 9") and Ades ("The Age of Coal: An Underground History of the Modern"), amongst other long form texts (by Medina himself, Svetlana Boym, as well as misfit entries such as "The Legacy of Manifesta" by Hedwig Fijen).
Manifesta 9 curator Cuauhtémoc Medina (purple shirt) giving a tour during the opening weekend.
These and more photos (93 total) on Latitudes' flickr.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
dOCUMENTA (13) in pictures & as seen by the critics, 9 June–16 September 2012
Tue, Jun 12 2012
View of Kassel's Friedrichsplatz.
The New York Times' review by Robert Smith sets the tone: "Ms. Christov-Bakargiev has assembled an immense, unruly organism of a show. It is alternately inspiring — almost visionary — and insufferable, innovative and predictable, meticulous and sentimentally precious. I would not have missed this seething, shape-shifting extravaganza for the world, and I’d rather not see its like again, at least not on this dwarfing, imperious, self-canceling scale."
Filipa Ramos' review on Art Agenda "Postcard from Kassel", begins unraveling the Kunsthalle Fridericianum where we started our tour.
(...) the total bareness of the first rooms of the canonical core, the Kunsthalle Fridericianum, is broken by the display of Kai Althoff’s letter to Christov-Bakargiev explaining his decision not to take part in the exhibition (“life” was more important)—although a work of Althoff’s is, despite this, still featured in the Rotunda [not in the catalogue].
Kay Altoff's letter on display in a vitrine occupies the first empty room of the Fridericianum only accompanied by Ryan Gander's light breeze titled "I Need Some Meaning I can Memorise [The Invisible Pull], 2012. More images of Altoff's letter here via Contemporary Art Daily.
(...) "Before getting there, Ryan Gander’s breeze, I Need Some Meaning I Can Memorise (The Invisible Pull) (2012)—a light wind that caresses one’s skin and hair—and Ceal Floyer’s audio piece, a melodious promise, repeated to exhaustion, of “So I’ll just keep on… till I get it right” (‘Til I Get It Right, 2005), hail the most attentive spectators.
The Guardian's critic Adrian Searle, also highlighted one of wonderful treats in the Fridericianum, the "(...) 400 beautiful, modest postcard-sized paintings of different varieties of apple, by Bavarian pastor and artist Korbinian Aigner. Imprisoned for his anti-Nazi sermons, Aigner worked as a gardener in Dachau and Sachsenhausen, where he cultivated several new varieties, one for each year of his internment. There's pathos here, among these rows of painted apples." [3D view of the room here]
Korbinian Aigner's 372 gouache and pencil drawings of "Apples" made between 1912-60s.
(...) The rest of the proved somewhat uneven in tone: lurching from Goshka Macuga’s large-scale digitally-printed black and white tapestry of a tableaux at a dOCUMENTA-related event in Kabul (featuring an oversized cobra front and centre), to the delicate and haunting hand-woven tapestries of Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970), who reproduced violent scenes of wars and conflicts in a medium that few in the 1930s and 40s would have thought to use to do so. [Here a great set of detailed photographs of Ryggen's work here via Contemporary Art Daily and a 3D view here]
Goshka Macuga's tapestry "Of what is, that it is; of what is not, that is not 1", 2012. 5.2 x 17,4m.
"Both of these works – Lange continues – focusing on weaving dovetailed nicely (if not a bit obviously) with one of the venue’s highlights: Mario García Torres’s installation, which documented his search for the One Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, a lodging house run by and resided in by Alighiero Boetti from 1971 until 1977, where Boetti worked to produce his famous series of tapestries made by Afghan weavers (which were supposed to appear in documenta 5, but never did)." [3D view of this piece here]
Mario García Torres at the Fridericianum's first floor.
(...) In the Fridericianum’s cramped Rotunda space, the exhibition displayed the kinds of curatorial flourishes that often seem to accompany a certain kind of anthropological curating that capriciously mixes anthropological artefacts and found objects with artworks. This kind of museological, cabinet-of-curiosities approach, having already been a trope of contemporary artists for a while now, seems especially dated in the hands of a curator. In this darkened space crammed with spot-lit vitrines, I had trouble making the connections between Giorgio Morandi’s paintings, displayed along with actual objects from his studio, and the neighbouring vitrines containing ‘Bactrian Princesses’ – a series of small sculptures of seated women created in the late 3rd and early 2nd century BC in what is now modern-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan. While these artworks and artefacts are no doubt fascinating, there is no apparent justification for their inclusion together, other than their need to be housed in vitrines, and the fact they probably couldn’t have been procured for any contemporary art exhibition other than this one.
Rotunda in the Fridericianum: the brain. As written in the Guidebook: "an associative space of research where a number of artworks, objects and documents are brought together in lieu of a concept".
Filipa Ramos rightly observed the "(...) large amount of micro-museums, from Pedro Reyes’s Museum of Hypothetical Lifetimes (2011), an ode to human nature and social structure, to Kader Attia’s The Repair from Occident to Extra-Occidental Cultures (2012)—a horrifying yet astonishing research project on the impact and effects of francophone colonialism; to Michael Rakowitz’s cabinets of destroyed or lost books, and many, many others."
Kader Attia's "The Repair", 2012. Slideshow projection and artefacts from Africa.
Attia’s 'Repair From Occident to Extra-Occidental Cultures', "[is ] a daunting installation that reflects on art, colonialism and body scarification in Africa but draws its main force from a set of large carved-wood busts depicting the horrific face wounds suffered by European soldiers in World War I. Gripping yet also illustrational, the piece exemplifies several archive-like works here. It also reflects the continuing hegemony of late-late Conceptualism — now extravagantly materialized and labour-intensive — over the international exhibition circuit." (Roberta Smith in The New York Times). [3D view of this room here].
Mariana Castillo Deball's "Uncomfortable Objects. Finding Oneself Outside", 2012.
Many more pictures of this wonderful work here, by Contemporary Art Daily. Otherwise a 3D view here.
Christy Lange continued to the Ottoneum, which in her opinion "(...) yielded some predictable ‘eco-related’ contributions scattered among the natural history museum displays of taxidermied animals and animal skeletons. (...) it’s worth the trip upstairs to see Mark Dion’s specially commissioned installation. Here he designed an elaborate wooden display case to house the Ottoneum’s unique ‘Schildbach Xylotheque’ – a ‘wood library’ made in 1771–79 of several hundred books carved out of different species of trees. The books are actually boxes that house dioramas inside. Dion’s installation and Schildbach’s library is a felicitous match made in nerd heaven." [360º panoramic view here]
Mark Dion, recuperates Carl Schildbach's 18th Century 'Schildbach Xylotheque' (a wood library) with a new hexagonal display chamber.
"Nearby in the Neue Galerie, several visitors were fawning in unabashed awe and wonder over Geoffrey Farmer’s impressive installation, which evokes that same sort instantaneous reaction that Christian Marclay’s The Clock recently did, perhaps because of its sheer scale, meticulous detail and the obvious time and manual labour it took to create it." [See panoramic view here]
Geoffrey Farmer's "Leaves of Grass", with thousands of pictures cut from five decades of Life magazine, in the Neue Galerie.
Adriana Lara's "Purpose", 2012, also at the Neue Galerie, accompanied by sculptures by Brazilian Maria Martins.
Rossella Biscotti, The Trial, 2010-12, in the Neue Gallerie. Concrete sculptures made from casts from the architectural features of the courtroom where members of the extra-parliamentary left-wing Autonomia Operaia (including Antonio Negri and other intellectuals), were accused of being ideologically and morally responsible for Italian terrorism in the 1970s.
(...) On a side street near the Rathaus, in a dark hall in a backyard of a house, was Tino Sehgal’s installation, in which, as it only became clear once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, are about 20 young men and women in a circle chanting, singing, marching, and slouching against the wall. At a certain point, still in the dark, they start conversing about ‘income’ and ‘output’ and ‘satisfaction’ – I guess the point at which it starts to feel like a Tino Sehgal performance? But the performance still captivates for two main reasons: though it takes place in darkness, it unexpectedly becomes about our vision, or the limits thereof, more than any of our other senses. And because it still has that skilful Sehgal twist, which all his best piece have, by which you, the audience member, suddenly and unexpectedly find yourself centre stage, playing the somewhat sheepish performer. 
Adrian Searle also favourited Sehgal's "(...) magnificent performance piece behind a decaying Huguenot house. Performers stamp and sing, whisper, holler and dance. They go through little routines as I stumble between them. Sehgal's exhilarating 'This Variation' is among the best things in Documenta, as is choreographer Jérôme Bel's Disabled Theatre, a confrontational performance made in collaboration with actors with learning difficulties. Both Bel's and Sehgal's work concern presence and presentness, what it means to be a spectator." [In depth text on Sehgal's 'This variation' art-dance-music piece also by Adrian Searle here].
Façade of Kunsthalle Fridericianum.
Dan Fox, Senior Editor of frieze magazine, analisis went on describing the "punch-drunk with politically hectoring or ‘we are the world’ approaches to large-scale exhibition making that would make even Bono seem modest in his outlook, I expected more of the same, yet dOCUMENTA (13) is an exhibition of subtlety and imagination, if somewhat over-optimistic in its attempts to get audiences to engage with other areas of intellectual activity, such as quantum physicists (as could be found in the Fridericianum, next to Mario García Torres’ work about Alighiero Boetti’s One Hotel in Kabul)." Fox ends his report reflecting on this year's title: "(...) However, one crucial question remains. Does the overlaboured spelling ‘dOCUMENTA (13)’ herald a return of the early 1990s exhibition title? ‘Site/[in–]Sight’, ‘(in–)TERRA–gating Gender’…"
Sam Thorne's overview of Karlsaue's park: "Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev offered artists a prefab house to work with. Responses range from Pedro Reyes’s ‘sanatorium’ (offering art-themed counselling) and Raimundas Malašauskas and Marcos Lutyens’s hypnosis sessions to mini solo presentations, by artists including Rosemarie Trockel and Joan Jonas. Elsewhere, there are various takes on public sculpture, from gimmicky pieces like Massimo Bartolini’s wave pool and Anri Sala’s perspectivally-skewed clock [Latitudes' note: it seems to us that many failed to understand that the clock was 'frontly' visible from one of the telescopes (the Refraktor Linsenteleskop, 1976) placed on the top floor of the Orangerie] to a characteristically elegant collection of works by Carol Bove."
Pedro Reyes, Sanatorium, at Karlsaue Park, (as described in D13's website) "an ongoing performative project that involves eight types of therapy sessions offered to visitors of dOCUMENTA (13) “to treat urban ills.” The content and procedures for these sessions are prepared by the artist and carried out by art students who are trained by Reyes as therapists, analysts, and tutors to the visitors."
Anri Sala, Clocked Perspective, 2012, at the far end of the Hirschgraben, one of the two canals in the Karlsaue park. More images here via Contemporary Art Daily.
Carol Bove's tableau of elements in the Flora garden of the Karlsaue Park.
Thorne continues "Highlights for me included Pierre Huyghe’s beehive-headed (Maillol?) sculpture, installed in a swampy copse and invigilated by a pink-legged dog, in earshot of an immersive, atavistic sound piece by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. [See 3D view here] More difficult to locate is a shaded house crammed full of new and old work by the Brazilian septuagenarian Anna Maria Maiolino – though it’s well worth finding."
Pierre Huyghe's "Untilled. Live things and inanimate things, made and not made" (2011–12) photographed during the opening week. An entropic gesamtkunstwerk of plants, bees, concrete, mud, plants, tree branches, bacteria, dogs, construction materials... 3D view of the piece here
Huyghe's piece photographed 100 days after during the last week of documenta (13).
Jerry Saltz on Huyghe's work: "If anything here will put you in a mind to give up on definitions, though, it’s Pierre Huyghe’s craterlike ruins patrolled by two dogs at the far end of the park. (...) This is a place of no-narrative, an incubation chamber of new orders."
Anna Maria Maiolino, "Here & there" (2012) different coloured modeled clay cover the rooms of the former gardener's house in Karlsaue park.
Brian Jungen's "Dog Run", 2012, a play zone only permitted for dogs and their owners at Karlsaue park. [3D view here]
Also at the Karlsaue park, behind the Orangerie was one of the contributions by US artist-activists collective Critical Art Ensemble's helicopter rides, a work titled “A Public Misery Project: A Temporary Message to Global Economic Inequality”, which as described by Rachel Corbett from artnet involves:
(...) erecting a crane-sized bar graph depicting wealth disparity in America, with every 1cm representing $100 and, when it got too tall, using a helicopter to soar 225 meters up in the sky to represent, hyperbolically, the top 1%. (...) On opening day, a red carpet stretched along the grass leading the 50 people who had bought tickets for a flight. The 99%, meanwhile, could pay a coin of their choice in any currency for a lottery ticket and the chance to win a ride. Between 10 am and 8 pm, the Critical Art Ensemble planned to give about 300 rides.
Jerry Saltz wasn't at all convinced about their contribution, and labelled the work 'immoral': (...) "viewers ride in a helicopter to heights corresponding to their net worth. The work is supposedly about wealth accumulation and is an anti-market gesture. Surely it cost more to stage for a day than many museums and galleries can spend or generate in a year, or than most artists earn in a lifetime."
Jerry Saltz wasn't at all convinced about their contribution, and labelled the work 'immoral': (...) "viewers ride in a helicopter to heights corresponding to their net worth. The work is supposedly about wealth accumulation and is an anti-market gesture. Surely it cost more to stage for a day than many museums and galleries can spend or generate in a year, or than most artists earn in a lifetime."
Critical Art Ensemble's “A Public Misery Project: A Temporary Message to Global Economic Inequality”.
Natascha Sadr Haghighian's "Greening the rubble of Kassel: construction work on the war debris heaped up along the Karsaue for the Federal Horticulture Show". Picture of the staircase that connects Schöne Aussicht with the Karlsaue park via an 'alternative' route on a slope. "Onomatopoeic animal sounds in different languages emanate from the bushes and trees as the visitor descends to the park. The web-based trail d(13)pfad.de is a collaboration with Pola Sieverding and accompanies the physical trail. It contains materials connecting to the rubble, the plants, the animals, the people and the languages Natascha and Pola encountered on the trail." (from D13's web)
Jimmie Durham's "The History of Europe" (2011) in a (hot) greenhouse at Karlsaue park.
Additional images here by Contemporary Art Daily.
Additional images here by Contemporary Art Daily.
Maria Loboda's moving forest of potted cypress trees "The Work is Dedicated to an Emperor" (2012). The army of trees is being moved through the landscape during the exhibition period following different military positions, progressively conquering the Orangerie.
Jörg Heiser's reviewed Kassel's off-the-main-site venues on frieze blog, starting with a 'heads up' around their number and distance:
Given that there are 30 documenta sites in Kassel – one of which, the vast Karlsaue park, features 53 projects alone – you might be tempted to skip these off-the-main-sites ones. Especially if you also planned to take a few weeks off and devote a lot of time and money to also visit the official documenta events scheduled to take place in Egypt, Afghanistan, and rural Canada. (There seems to be a logic of overbidding in place: not only more, but evermore remote and difficult sites; in 2002, there were documenta ‘platforms’ in Lagos or the Caribbean; in 2007, ElBulli restaurant in Spain was declared a site; so how could the director of the next documenta in 2017 top that – Antarctica? Waziristan? Chernobyl? The moon?)
(...) A few houses down the street is an elegantly modest presentation by Francis Alÿs of postcard-size paintings juxtaposing fragmented scenes from Kabul with abstract colour studies reminiscent of television test screens, testifying to doubts about the possibilities of ‘appropriately’ representing a war-torn nation but the need to still do so (while a simple note pinned to a board read, line after line, ’1943, I think about Morandi painting on top of a hill surrounded by fascism, I think about Picabia finding inspiration in soft porn magazines on the Côte d’Azur… I think about Leni Riefenstahl filming Tiefland with extras from concentration camps… I think about Blinky Palermo born in the rubbles of Leipzig…’).
Francis Alÿs in a former bakery in Obere Karlsstr. 4
Heiser also highlights Tacita Dean, whose "film project involving a cameraman commissioned to film in various locations in Kabul didn’t come through because the footage turned out to be flawed, but Dean made the best of it by realizing a whole set of large-scale chalk on blackboard ‘murals’ filling most walls in a former tax office space [in Spohrstr.7] dominated by a beautiful brass-railed staircase and balustrade."
Adrian Searle went on describing Dean's blackboard drawings: "(...) some are near-empty, just turbid blackness; others are filled with moiling rapids and rushing rivers. There are sunlit mountaintops, dusty avalanches, chalky wipe-outs. The six panels are a sort of storyboard, an evocation of an elsewhere. Dean's drawings are, I think, about time: geological time, the flash of a life, a passing thought."
Tacita Dean, Fatigues (2012). Blackboard-drawings in a former tax office.
More detailed photos via Contemporary Art Daily.
More detailed photos via Contemporary Art Daily.
Back to Heiser's words – he made his way to the vaults of a bunker underneath Kassel's vineyard terrace: "(...) Here, Allora & Calzadilla’s film Raptor’s Rapture (2012) was congenially placed: its point of departure is the unearthing, in 2009 in a cave in Southern Germany, of a flute that was carved 35000 years ago from a griffon vulture’s bone. The artists asked a flautist to try playing the flute in a studio setting confronting her with the presence of a living griffon vulture. The animal reacted rather stoically to the flautist’s systematic probing of different techniques of blowing, suggesting a time capsule being opened for the first time (the equivalent of archaeologists in the distant future retrieving data from an ancient computer hard drive). Given that the griffon vulture itself is a highly endangered species, the staging of the animal listening to an eery tune whistled on a bone of its one species nevertheless had an intentionally perverse and tautological undertone, emphasized by the slow and painstakingly precise camera work."
Christodoulos Panayiotou' "Independence Street", 2012: electricity poles and cables removed from Odos Anexartisias street in Limassol, Cyprus. "The Sea", 2012: ceramic tiles from Cyprus lined up in the exhibition space using water from the Mediterranean Sea. [3D view of this room here.]
And then concludes with a long description of his experience when seeing Jérome Bêl’s 'Disabled Theatre' (2012) performance piece which "carried all the way through 90 minutes of uneasy, preconception-probing estrangement and empathy."
The curtain opens and a stoically calm ‘instructor’ seated at the side of the stage, operating a simple p.a. system and also doubling as a translator from German into English, announces that the actors of the piece have been asked by Bel to first appear, one at a time, on stage to stand still for about a minute. The eleven protagonists do so, and after a short while it becomes clear that the title of the piece is to be taken literally: a majority of them appear to be handicapped given the physical attributes of Down Syndrome. This creates obvious unease on the part of a self-assumingly ‘intelligent’ audience in terms of staring at a supposedly ‘handicapped’ person in such a way as if subjected to enforced voyeurism. But this was only the first of five stages that gradually unravelled that very unease, however never giving in to simple comic relief, cynicism, or sentimentality. The second part again announced and explained in simple terms just as the following ones, involved a microphone stand being put up at the same spot at the centre of the stage, this time involving the protagonists giving their name, age, and profession. As for profession, all of them said “actor” – which is indeed the case, since they are members of the Zurich-based theatre group HORA. The third part involved the question of them being asked what their disability was – and they simply stated it on a spectrum from learning disability to the different terminologies of ‘Down Syndrome’, ‘Trisomy 21’, or, as one protagonist said of herself in a proud retort to medicinal as well as derogative terminology, ‘I’m a fucking mongoloid’.
The fourth and fifth part followed essentially the classic logic of climax and denouement: the fourth involved seven of the actors doing short dance performances according to their individual musical choreographical choices. (...). ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba is a song that moves me even if it is played in a Muzak version in a hotel lobby; here the same performer who had described herself as ‘mongoloid’ danced to it with Heavy Metal dedication – the applause was roaring, and mixed feelings gave way to a momentary rush of shared enthusiasm. But the fifth and last act involved the simple question put to the performers what they thought of Bel’s piece: some simply said ‘great’ or ‘good’, while others went into detail and told little stories. One of them quoted his mother saying she thought it was a freakshow but that she liked it anyway. Another said his sister cried in the car, saying he had been put on display like in a circus. This was not just a tired exercise of deconstructive self-reflection (as is so often the case with contemporary work) but a gradual shift from the authoritative, absent voice of Bel (...) to the autonomous voices of the protagonists themselves, who elegantly frustrate precisely the freak show tendency by taking the opportunity to voice their observations or, simply, performing their very own dance.
There is a number of artists who could learn a lesson or two from Jérôme Bel’s piece, in terms of how it doesn’t shy away from difficult confrontations and yet steers clear of simplistic demonstrations of ‘taboo-breaking’ or – equally annoying – moralist complacency. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.
When describing the effect of seeing this piece, New York Magazine Jerry Saltz wrote he "was shaken to the core by the formal and emotional pathos in Jérôme Bel’s “dance” involving people with Down syndrome who simply stood onstage, danced for two minutes, then spoke about their perceptions of us watching them. A fourth wall shattered here into a fifth dimension."
When describing the effect of seeing this piece, New York Magazine Jerry Saltz wrote he "was shaken to the core by the formal and emotional pathos in Jérôme Bel’s “dance” involving people with Down syndrome who simply stood onstage, danced for two minutes, then spoke about their perceptions of us watching them. A fourth wall shattered here into a fifth dimension."
Paul Chan's "Wht is Wht? Why the Why?", 2012, at Friedrichstrasse 28.
Afghanistan was certainly present in many of participating artists' projects. In her review 'Kabul in Kassel, Kassel in Kabul', Emily Nathan from Artnet Magazine unpacks the lingering question of “Why Afghanistan?”:
"In answer to the question, [Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev] drew a parallel between Documenta’s original founding in 1955 amidst the rubble of World War II, and Afghanistan’s current state of reconstruction, such as it is. By inserting contemporary art from the west into the mix, she said, she wanted to create a bridge between Kabul’s vibrant international past and her own present -- “to act as if the situation was not what it is, as if the barriers, the conflict, the occupation in Kabul did not exist...continuing the daily life required by and inevitable while living in a militarized zone.”
While this act of “radical imagination” is well-intentioned, it is nonetheless problematic, and the issues it brings up about art’s instrumentalization in places of violence and injustice were the subject for the panel, which featured the likes of Chus Martinez, Giuseppe Penone, Mario Garcia Torres, Francis Alÿs, Adrian Villar Rojas and a handful of young Afghan artists who participated in the seminars. In a gesture of cultural exchange, the work they created during the workshops is on view in Kassel’s various exhibition venues for Documenta, and will also be part of a final presentation in Kabul that opens this month.
Adrián Villar Rojas field of sculptures around Kassel's Weinberg terrassen.
Francis Alÿs small-sized paintings exhibited in a former bakery in Obere Karlsstr. 4.
(...) Most speakers followed suit, describing how grateful they were for the resources Documenta had provided and what they had learned. But one Afghan student spoke directly. “In the past few years,” he said, “Afghanistan has been entirely shaped by an infrastructure of ‘development.’ Documenta had no such pre-conceived program in mind for us; it made no claims for success or reconstruction. I found that liberating.”
Michael Rakowitz, an artist who led a stone-carving seminar in Bamiyan near the site of the stone Buddhas destroyed in 2001, was equally frank. “To ask how art might be enlisted in the service of rebuilding the culture of a devastated land and people,” he said, is “an incredibly problematic gesture, and that is what makes it good and important.” He sourced his decision to participate in the program to the realization that not participating would be a submission to his own sense of guilt, “which is related to political correctness,” which he sees as a sort of reverse-racism. [3D tour of his contribution here]
Michael Rakowitz space in the ground floor of the Fridericianum.
More detailed images here via Contemporary Art Daily.
Detail of Rakowitz's installation.
More detailed images here via Contemporary Art Daily.
(...) Indeed, the idea of context is one of the more salient issues in Bakargiev’s exchange program, since the works were made in Afghanistan during a particular period but have been displaced to Kassel for the exhibition. How can their significance be translated?
Another Afghan artist involved with the “Archive Practicum” project (...) took the mic. (...)“It’s hard, if not impossible,” he said, “to stay out of the mess of politics and war when involved in the cultural realm; one is translated onto and into the other. But what I discovered through these seminars,” the artist said -- lapsing into the kind of vague academic jargon that is all too popular on the international art circuit -- “is that it’s not about finding the ‘appropriate’ translation for an idea or a context, but rather problematizing the translation process and making space for its contradictions and limitations.”
Another Afghan artist involved with the “Archive Practicum” project (...) took the mic. (...)“It’s hard, if not impossible,” he said, “to stay out of the mess of politics and war when involved in the cultural realm; one is translated onto and into the other. But what I discovered through these seminars,” the artist said -- lapsing into the kind of vague academic jargon that is all too popular on the international art circuit -- “is that it’s not about finding the ‘appropriate’ translation for an idea or a context, but rather problematizing the translation process and making space for its contradictions and limitations.”
“For me,” [Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev] concluded, “the image of Morandi sitting in his studio painting vases, one after the other, with Fascism all around him -- that is what art can do.”
Back to Filipa Ramos' remarks on the Hauptbahnhof:
"Into the north wing of the train station, one happens upon an installation in a house by Haris Epaminonda and Daniel Gustav Cramer offering up an equally inebriating experience through arrangements of images, texts, letters, and found objects, mostly from domestic contexts, combined with multiple projections in a chiaroscuro labyrinth of rooms. This is surely one of Epaminonda’s most complex projects up until now, and it presents itself as one of the many museum-like configurations to be seen in Kassel."
Haris Epaminonda & Daniel Gustav Kramer in the two floors and attic of a former office building behind Kassel's Hauptbahnhof.
More Hauptbahnhof highlights, and back to Dan Fox's words:
(...) A three-channel film by Clemens von Wedemeyer (Muster (Rushes), 2012) was a sophisticated and beautifully directed look at how historical meaning is established and grows across generations; its first chapter looks at Nazi atrocities committed in an old building in Kassel, then looks at a group of young actors attempting to make radical work in that venue, followed by a group of teenagers being taken on a tour of the grounds as an audio guide tells them of the horrors that had occurred there. Also of note was Javier Téllez’s film Artaud’s Cave (2012), elaborately installed in an imitation cave-cum-Aztec temple, and made in collaboration with residents of a psychiatric hospital in Mexico City; a film that excavated Antonin Artaud’s experiences in Mexico. [Great 3D view of the cave entrance here]
Still from Javier Téllez's "Artaud's Cave", 2012.
And still some more highlights:
More detailed images of her two-part presentation here via Contemporary Art Daily.
A great 360º panoramic view here.
A great 360º panoramic view here.
Haegue Yang's motorised Venetian blinds in Kassel's former central station.
A lot more detailed images here by Contemporary Art Daily.
A lot more detailed images here by Contemporary Art Daily.
And off-site, at the Ständehaus:
Dora Garcia's weekly TV show 'Klau Mich' (die Kalu Mich Show) studio.
Fully comprehensive website here (with videos, agenda, blog...).
Fully comprehensive website here (with videos, agenda, blog...).
Xabier Salaberria (although not listed as D13 participant) design for the Absolute bar at the foyer of the Ständehaus. [Panoramic view here]
One final observation from Quinn Latimer's review on Art Agenda:
"(...) despite the attention fostered by both Christov-Bakargiev herself and her critics on her vaunted interest in the nonhuman world, what I found most startling about Documenta 13 was how entirely human it was, and how engaged with the world that we (joyfully, sorrowfully, weirdly) inhabit. If that sounds lamely human-centric and passé, so be it. It’s a deeply intelligent, stringent, surprising, and entirely committed (yes, that word again) showing of the potentiality of private lives accorded the most public of stages."
And, more final statements by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev when interviewed by Rotterdam artists Bik Van der Pol: (...) "In order for democracy to move forward, we have to constitute the subject as a subject and give up any pretension of ownership and exclusivity that we might have about subjectivity. It is about empowering, and the right to determine the environment in which we all live."
More photo reports via Contemporary Art Daily and Flash Art online and Universes in Universe and preview videos via Vernissage TV and below our slideshow with over 200 pictures:
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Conferencia "El contrato curatorial: analogías y casos de estudio". Jueves 14 Junio a las 20h, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela
Tue, Jun 12 2012
'The Last..." los diez números semanales que conforman el catálogo final de la exposición "The Last Newspaper" (New Museum, 2010).
Foto: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
| ES |
"El contrato curatorial: analogías y casos de estudio" analiza modelos extraídos de personajes de la cultura popular así como la terminología legal que pueden ayudarnos a definir algunos de los códigos éticos y profesionales que se establecen entre artistas y comisarios. A través del proyecto editorial 'The Last Newspaper' realizado por Latitudes en el New Museum en el 2010, se especulará sobre dicha relación y sobre como ésta dialoga con el público como participante del proceso curatorial.
"El contrato curatorial: analogías y casos de estudio" analiza modelos extraídos de personajes de la cultura popular así como la terminología legal que pueden ayudarnos a definir algunos de los códigos éticos y profesionales que se establecen entre artistas y comisarios. A través del proyecto editorial 'The Last Newspaper' realizado por Latitudes en el New Museum en el 2010, se especulará sobre dicha relación y sobre como ésta dialoga con el público como participante del proceso curatorial.
Conferencia organizada en colaboración con el Máster en Arte, Museología y Crítica Contemporáneas, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, donde Latitudes será profesor invitado el viernes 15 Junio, y donde discutirá algunos de sus proyectos incluídos No Soul for Sale (en X Initiative y en Tate Modern), Portscapes, Campus y Amikejo.
CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea)
CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea)
Rúa Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
T: 981 546619
| UK |
The lecture "The curatorial contract: analogies and case studies" draws from popular culture and legal terminology to help define some of the ethical and professional codes at work between artists and curators. Through the editorial project 'The Last Newspaper' developed by Latitudes at the New Museum in 2010, the presentation will speculate on this relationship and how it dialogues with the public-as-participant.
Conference organised in collaboration with the Máster en Arte, Museología y Crítica Contemporáneas where on June 15, Latitudes will be visiting lecturers and discuss a range of their projects including No Soul for Sale (at X Initiative and at Tate Modern), Portscapes, Campus and Amikejo.
CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea)
Rúa Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
T: 981 546619
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.
15704 Santiago de Compostela
T: 981 546619
Commissioner Gordon calls Batman: the institutional alliance with those operating outside the law.
| UK |
The lecture "The curatorial contract: analogies and case studies" draws from popular culture and legal terminology to help define some of the ethical and professional codes at work between artists and curators. Through the editorial project 'The Last Newspaper' developed by Latitudes at the New Museum in 2010, the presentation will speculate on this relationship and how it dialogues with the public-as-participant.
Conference organised in collaboration with the Máster en Arte, Museología y Crítica Contemporáneas where on June 15, Latitudes will be visiting lecturers and discuss a range of their projects including No Soul for Sale (at X Initiative and at Tate Modern), Portscapes, Campus and Amikejo.
CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea)
Rúa Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
T: 981 546619
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.
#OpenCurating Research Project awarded the 'BCN Producció 2012' grant
Mon, Jun 11 2012
| UK |
Building on concerns explored by Latitudes during “The Last Newspaper” project (New Museum, 2010), and drawing on the emerging practices of so-called 'Open Journalism' – which seek to better collaborate with and use the ability of anyone to publish and share – #OpenCurating is a research project which will investigate how contemporary art projects can function beyond the traditional format of exhibition-and-catalogue in ways which might be more fully knitted into the web of information which exists in the world today. #OpenCurating is concerned with new forms of interaction between publics – whether online followers or physical visitors – with artworks and their production, display and discursive context.
The project is structured around three elements: a Twitter discussion moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating. Secondly, a series of ten new interviews with curators, artists, journalists and online strategists, each of which will be published as a digital edition, and a final public event in Barcelona.
The project is structured around three elements: a Twitter discussion moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating. Secondly, a series of ten new interviews with curators, artists, journalists and online strategists, each of which will be published as a digital edition, and a final public event in Barcelona.
#OpenCurating has been awarded the first BCN Producció 2012 Research Grant of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.
| ES |
Partiendo de las preocupaciones exploradas por Latitudes durante el proyecto editorial realizado durante “The Last Newspaper” (New Museum, 2010), y basándose en las prácticas emergentes del denominado 'periodismo abierto' ('Open Journalism') – que trata de mejorar la colaboración y utilizar la habilidad de cualquier persona para publicar y compartir – #OpenCurating es un proyecto de investigación que indagará cómo los proyectos de arte contemporáneo estan planteándose más allá del tradicional formato 'exposición y catálogo', analizando las nuevas formas de interacción entre los públicos – sean seguidores online o visitantes físicos – con obras de arte, su producción, exhibición y su contexto discursivo.
El proyecto se estructura a partir de tres elementos: una discusión en Twitter moderada por el hashtag #OpenCurating. En segundo lugar, una serie de diez entrevistas a comisarios, artistas, periodistas y expertos online, cada una de los cuales será publicada en una edición digital y por último, un evento público que tendrá lugar en Barcelona.
| ES |
Partiendo de las preocupaciones exploradas por Latitudes durante el proyecto editorial realizado durante “The Last Newspaper” (New Museum, 2010), y basándose en las prácticas emergentes del denominado 'periodismo abierto' ('Open Journalism') – que trata de mejorar la colaboración y utilizar la habilidad de cualquier persona para publicar y compartir – #OpenCurating es un proyecto de investigación que indagará cómo los proyectos de arte contemporáneo estan planteándose más allá del tradicional formato 'exposición y catálogo', analizando las nuevas formas de interacción entre los públicos – sean seguidores online o visitantes físicos – con obras de arte, su producción, exhibición y su contexto discursivo.
El proyecto se estructura a partir de tres elementos: una discusión en Twitter moderada por el hashtag #OpenCurating. En segundo lugar, una serie de diez entrevistas a comisarios, artistas, periodistas y expertos online, cada una de los cuales será publicada en una edición digital y por último, un evento público que tendrá lugar en Barcelona.
#OpenCurating es ganadora de la primera convocatoria en la categoría de investigación de BCN Producció 2012, que otorga el Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.
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.