Tue, Jun 28 2016
Fotografías exposición: Pep Herrero i La Capella/BCN Producció'16.
Como parte del equipo tutorial de BCN Producció 2016 (junto al comisario David Armengol y la artista Mireia Sallarès) acompañamos a los artistas Pau Magrané/PLOM (Espai Cub, abril–junio) y Antoni Hervàs (Sala Gran, septiembre–noviembre), y la comisaria Joana Hurtado Matheu (Sala Gran, 2 marzo 2016–30 abril 2017) a lo largo de este año en la preparación y producción de sus respectivas exposiciones. La exposición "Demo" de Pau Magrané finalizó hace unos días en La Capella (c/ Hospital 56).
"Demo" (27 abril–12 junio 2016) compartió programación con la exposición "Background Immunity" de Ricardo Trigo, tutorizada por Armengol. "Demo" fue un concierto audiovisual en el que la reapropiación de sonidos y la visión escultórica juegan un papel fundamental. El concierto definió el Espai Cub de 3x3m como escenario-instrumento sonoro, una caja de resonancia que acoge distintas proyecciones y objetos activados por PLOM (alter ego de Magrané) durante su inauguración, pero que se mantuvieron durante toda la exposición invitando al público a interactuar con ellos.
Fotografías publicación: Folch.
Podéis adquirir la publicación "Demo" [ISBN 978-84-985087-8-9 en catalán, castellano e inglés, 5 Euros] publicada por el Ajuntament de Barcelona y The Flames con motivo de la exposición, en La Capella y online a través de la web de Folch studio, diseñadores de la publicación y de la imagen gráfica del ciclo.
El 11 de julio 2016 a las 19h, los artistas y tutores presentarán la publicaciones resultantes del proyecto en la librería Múltiplos (c/ Joaquim Costa 30), que incluyen una entrevista entre artista-tutor y fotodocumentación de sus exposiciones.
BCN producció es una convocatoria anual dirigida a la comunidad artística de Barcelona (y su área de influencia), para la producción y presentación de tres exposiciones individuales en la Sala Gran de La Capella, tres en el Espai Cub, un proyecto de comisariado y dos proyectos deslocalizados. Es una iniciativa del Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB) del Ajuntament de Barcelona.
CONTENIDO RELACIONADO:
2016, Barcelona, BCN Producció, beca producción, La Capella, Pau Magrané, tutoría
Mon, Jun 20 2016
José Antonio Hernández-Díez’s exhibition No temeré mal alguno (I will fear no evil) – curated by Latitudes – continues at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) until 26 June. Reconstructed for the exhibition, the extraordinary Sagrado Corazón Activo was first shown in September 1991 in a group show titled El Espíritu de los Tiempos
(The Spirit of the Times) in Caracas, Venezuela. It belongs to a body
of work that José termed a ‘New Christian Iconography’ in which the
application of communications and medical technology interlace with
systems of paranormal belief, most prominently Christian theology.
Published as part of MACBA’s Portable Notebook series, Latitudes’s essay
about José’s exhibition explains that “this visceral work deals with a
key point of difference in theologies related with transubstantiation
and ‘real presence’ – the notion that Jesus Christ is actually somehow
present in a fleshy way in the bread and wine of the Eucharist versus
being a symbolic or a metaphorical presence. Sagrado Corazón Activo seems to inhabit the peculiarly disjointed temporality that is proper to hauntology – a techno-medical vision of a science-gone-mad future within an ancient symbolic past.”
Photo: Inés Balcells for ABC El Mundo.
No temeré mal alguno
(I will fear no evil) focusses on José’s first experimental works with
videography in the late 1980s and early 1990s and such early iconic
vitrine-based works, alongside a new project
made for the occasion. The presence of ghosts and bodily organs in this
phase of Hernández-Díez’s out-of-joint art – videographic spectres,
disembodied voices, preserved creatures, hearts and skin – is only
enhanced by the necromantic aspect of the fact that several of his works
were remade, as if brought back to life, for the exhibition.
#HernándezDíez
Related content:
2016, Barcelona, cover story, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, MACBA
Wed, Apr 20 2016
Nicholas Mangan, ‘Ancient Lights’ (2015). Installation views, Chisenhale Gallery, 2015. Co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London and Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist; Labor Mexico; Sutton Gallery, Melbourne; and Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland. Photo: Andy Keate.
We have just wrapped up an interview with Melbourne-based artist Nicholas Mangan to be published by Sternberg Press as the catalogue of his forthcoming solo exhibition ‘Limits to Growth’, co-produced by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne (opening July 20) and Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brisbane (where it will be on view from October 29), it will later travel to Kunst-Werke Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin (summer 2017).
The five-part interview weaves together a discussion of his recent works ‘Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World’ (2009), ‘A World Undone’ (2012), ‘Progress in Action’ (2013), ‘Ancient Lights’ (2015) and his newest piece ‘Limits to Growth’ (2016), to be premiered at Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA). Part of an ongoing dialogue with Mangan, it developed from a public conversation event at Chisenhale Gallery, London on 7 July 2015.
‘Limits to Growth’ references a 1972 report commissioned by the Club of Rome that analysed a computer simulation of the Earth and human systems: the consequences of exponential economic and population growth given finite resource supplies. The overlapping themes and flows of energies in the five of Mangan’s projects discussed in the interview might be read as an echo of the modelling and systems dynamics used by the simulation to try and better understand the limits of the world’s ecosystems.
Mangan is presenting ‘Ancient Lights’ (2015) at his Mexico City gallery LABOR on April 22, a work co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery in London and Artspace in Sydney.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Latitudes conversation with Nicholas Mangan on 7 July 2015 at Chisenhale Gallery, London;
- Cover Story, July 2015: Nicholas Mangan’s ‘Ancient Lights’;
- Locating Ancient Lights signs around London with Nicholas Mangan;
- Max Andrews, Feature on Nicholas Mangan, 'Landscape Artist', Frieze, Issue 172, Summer 2015;
- Mariana Cánepa Luna, 'What Lies Underneath', interview with Nicholas Mangan, Mousse Magazine #47, February–March 2015.
2016, catalogue, editorial, interview, Melbourne, Nicholas Mangan, Publication
Mon, Apr 11 2016
Exhibition announcement sent via email.
Departing from the religious and technological references included in Hernández-Díez's exhibition, the cross appears like a distorted televisual aparition.
The design was later applied on the large glass vitrine that frames the entrance to the Convent dels Àngels, respecting the presence of two video pieces also on display in this space: 'La caja' (1991) and 'Vas pa'l cielo y vas llorando' (1992), videoprojections that remain lit until midnight.
(Above) Draft design and (following) tests on the windows, vinyls being applied and final look of the entrance to the exhibition space at Plaça dels Àngels.
(Above) Façade by day and façade by night (below, photo by Miquel Coll, MACBA).
Finally, a smaller vinyl is also applied at c/ dels Àngels, easily viewed when visitors come from c/ Elisabets.
Related Content:
- The story behind José Antonio Hernández-Díez's 'Saint Guinefort' (1991) 29 March 2016
- Public programmes related to the exhibition 'José Antonio Hernández-Díez. I Will Fear No Evil' at MACBA 18 March 2016
- José Antonio Hernández-Díez, 'I will fear no evil’, Convent dels Àngels, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, 18 March–26 June 2016.
- Photodocumentation of the exhibition.
- Exhibition essay on José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Quaderns Portàtils #32, free-to-read pdf (Spanish & English) and epub (Spanish).
- Storify archive of tweets, instagram posts, reviews.
- Exhibition of Hernández-Díez at the New Museum, New York in 2003.
- Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
2016, design, graphic communication, invitation, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, latitudes, MACBA, making of, Solo show
Tue, Mar 29 2016
Pages with the story behind Plaça dels Àngels.
When giving a presentation or tour of an exhibition or project we have worked on, we are often asked how the project emerged – if there was a particular trigger or point of origin. In the case of José Antonio Hernández-Díez’s exhibition currently on view at MACBA (until June 26, 2016), our approach was a familiar one to us – we started by both delving in-depth in researching the artists previous works while at the same time looking into the history of the venue where the exhibition was going to take place.
We are very fond of a book that has been in our library for many years – 'Histories and legends of Barcelona' by Joan Amades (Edicions 62). This two-volume tome gathers some of the myths behind Barcelona place names and includes the tales behind both familiar and obscure buildings, st
reets and monuments in the city. The story that
most captivated us
concerned the chapel of the Convent dels Àngels, and
it is recounted in the essay we
wrote to accompany the exhibition
(published as the
Quaderns Portàtils #32 – pdfs available in
Spanish and
English and epub in Spanish only)
. It goes as follows:
(...) "Outside the doorway of the deconsecrated sixteenth-century church that formed part of Barcelona’s Convent dels Àngels there once stood the stone figure of a dog, standing upright on its hind legs. Two separate legends account for its existence, as recorded by ethnologist and folklorist Joan Amades in the 1950s. A boorish man would routinely interrupt the services and torment the church congregation, it is said. He was punished by being turned into a dog. The other version states that the canine figure commemorates the thwarting of a robbery. The church once displayed an image of Saint Roch, the patron saint of dogs, accompanied by a hound. It is said that the prospective thieves were frightened away as the image miraculously began to bark. (The supernatural mythology of the chapel does not cease there – in 1627 an image of Christ began to sweat blood profusely.)
Sculpture of a dog once stood in front of La Capella dels Àngels, the church of the Convent dels Àngels.
Parallel to this, we started looking at Hernández-Díez’s earliest works and investigating his pieces in MACBA’s collection. We found that the museum had his 1991 work San Guinefort on long-term loan in their collection, but it had never been exhibited. As narrated in our essay:
(...) "that
José Antonio Hernández-Díez (Caracas, Venezuela, 1964) had already
been dealing with Catholic belief and superstition in his art – and
moreover, specifically addressing canine veneration – is much more than
an uncanny coincidence for his exhibition at MACBA’s Convent dels Àngels
in 2016."
The legend behind Saint Guinefort is one of the more obscure intersections of Catholic
history and folk tradition:
(...) "Writing around 1260, the Inquisitor and
Dominican friar Étienne de Bourbon related his investigation into the veneration of Saint Guinefort in the Dombes region of France. He
discovered that this supposed Saint was, in fact, a dog. The account he
disclosed was that a knight and his wife had one day left their
greyhound Guinefort to guard their baby. When they returned to the
castle they found the cradle empty and Guinefort covered in blood.
Assuming it had murdered the baby, the knight hastily killed the dog,
only later realising his error. Guinefort had in fact fought off a snake
in order to save the child, who was found unharmed. Guinefort was
buried unceremoniously in the forest outside the castle walls. Hearing
of the martyred dog, local people began to believe in its power to
protect children and began to bring their sick infants to the grave.
Étienne de Bourbon was horrified to discover the strength of the
superstition that had taken root. Children were being left overnight by
Guinefort’s grave in the belief that he would rid them of spirits, and
several babies had died as a consequence. Defending the orthodoxy of the
church, the friar had the heretical remains of the greyhound dug up and
destroyed, razed the forest and outlawed the canine cult, yet there is
evidence of its persistence into the nineteenth century. The episode is
worth recounting in detail, as previous accounts of it in relation to
Hernández-Díez’s work have been misleading."
Coinciding
with our research period, in August 2014 we happened to be travelling near Lyon, France, and
took the opportunity to visit to the Bois de Saint Guinefort in the
Dombes region, where the story of Saint Guinefort emerged (and where the dog-saint may still be venerated every 22nd August, despite the regional tourism office assuring us the festival day was no longer celebrated).
Somewhere on the road between Villars-les-Dombes and Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne one can, with the help of a tagged flickr photo and GPS, find a sign, as seen below, which briefly narrates these peculiar events from the 13th Century.
Related Content:
- Video of the artist talking about 'San Guinefort' (1991)
- José Antonio Hernández-Díez, 'I will fear no evil’, Convent dels Àngels, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, 18 March–26 June 2016.
- Photodocumentation of the exhibition.
- Exhibition essay on José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Quaderns Portàtils #32, free-to-read pdf (Spanish & English) and epub (Spanish).
- Social media archive of tweets, Instagram, reviews.
- Exhibition of Hernández-Díez at the New Museum, New York in 2003.
- Pdf of the 1991 exhibition catalogue of Hernández-Díez's show at the Sala RG, Caracas.
- Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
- Works of Hernández-Díez at MACBA's collection.
2016, behind the scenes, e-books, Exhibition, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, latitudes, looking back, MACBA, microhistory, Publication, research
Fri, Mar 18 2016
View of José Antonio Hernández-Díez's 'El resplandor de la Santa Conjunción aleja a los demonios" (1991). Installation. Lightbox, sampler, timer, flash, tripod and speakers. Collection Leonora and Jimmy Belilty. Photo: Miquel Coll, MACBA.
The exhibition ‘I will fear no evil’ presents works from the beginning of José Antonio Hernández-Díez’s career in the late 1980s and early nineties – several of which have not been seen since they were first exhibited in 1991 – in dialogue with a new series produced especially for the occasion.
The following series of events have been programmed to accompany the exhibition:
Thursday, 31 March, 7pm:
Visit with the artist and Latitudes. Exclusive to the Amic card. Limited places.
#MACBAAmic
Saturday 2 April, 7pm:
Experience MACBA, The secrets of conservation in ‘I will fear no evil’ by José Antonio Hernández-Díez. Visit with the artist, Latitudes and Lluís Roqué
Museum galleries.
5 €. No booking required. Limited places.
#MACBAesviu
View of Hernández-Díez's exhibition "I will fear no evil". Photo: Miquel Coll, MACBA.
Film programme:
“Shadows and silences or the ghosts that return as if for the first time”. Curated by Andrés Duque.
Meier AuditoriumAdmission: 5 €/session. Free with MACBA Amics card
Limited places
Wednesday 4 May, 7pm
‘Schastye (Happiness)’, Aleksandr Medvedkin, 1935, Russia, 95 min, b/w, silent.
Despite being released in 1935, this is a silent movie. It narrates the hapless misadventures of a peasant unable to reap a good harvest. It takes a courageous act to reconcile himself with himself and other people.
Wednesday 18 May, 7pm
‘Finis Terrae’, Jean Epstein, 1929, France, 80 min, b/w, silent.
Four labourers leave for the island of Bannec to collect the harvest. One loses his hand and the wound becomes infected, so cannot work anymore.
Wednesday 15 June, 7pm
‘He Who Gets Slapped’, Victor Sjöström, 1924, USA, 83 min, b/w, silent.
After many years of research, Paul Beaumont, a scientist and humanist, discovers a revolutionary theory, but his patron (Marc McDermott) seduces his wife (Ruth King) and takes credit for his discoveries. To add insult to injury, he slaps Beaumont before the assembled scientific community, compounding his humiliation. Ashamed, Beaumont flees and takes refuge in a circus, where he becomes a famous clown known as ‘he who gets slapped’. As fate would have it, one night his perfidious patron appears in the audience, having abandoned Beaumont’s wife and intent on marrying the beautiful Consuelo (Norma Shearer).
Wednesday 22 June, 7pm
‘Kurutta Ippēji (A Page of Madness)’, Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926, Japan, 70 min, b/w, silent.
Kurutta Ippēji tells the story of a worker in a psychiatric hospital who begins to feel a strange affection for a patient, who was allegedly committed after murdering her own baby. But he only wants to release her, to escape with her and start a new family. The film went missing for over fifty years and was barely seen after its release. It was the director himself who discovered the negative and a copy in his archive store in 1971.
Saturday 25 June, 7pm:
Nieve Fuga: music around 'I will fear no evil'
Exhibition galleries.
5
€. Free with museum ticket and with MACBA Amics cards. Limited places. The ticket includes free admission to current exhibitions until 9 pm.
#MACBAesviu
View of Hernández-Díez's exhibition "I will fear no evil". Photo: Miquel Coll, MACBA.
Related content:
- José Antonio Hernández-Díez, 'I will fear no evil’, Convent dels Àngels, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 18 March–26 June 2016.
- The story behind José Antonio Hernández-Díez's 'Saint Guinefort' (1991), 29 March 2016
- Cover Story, March 2016: José Antonio Hernández-Díez: The sacred heart of the matter, 3 March 2016
- Photo documentation of the exhibition.
- Exhibition essay on José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Quaderns Portàtils #32, free-to-read pdf (Spanish & English) and epub (Spanish).
- Storify archive of tweets, Instagram posts, reviews.
- Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
2016, event, Film programme, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, MACBA, public programme