Antoni Hervàs (Barcelona, 1981) estudió Bellas Artes en la Universitat de Barcelona (2006) y realizó un ciclo en grabado y estampación en Escola Llotja. Entre sus recientes exposiciones individuales destacan “Hércules en la luna”, Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, Barcelona (2012); “Kakanoures i kitschades”, galería SIS, Sabadell (2015) y “Agón”, Galería ETHall, Barcelona (2016). Hervàs ha participado en numerosas colectivas entre las cuales se incluyen “Capítulo II. Huidas. La ficción como rigor” dentro del ciclo “El texto: Principios y Salidas”, Fabra i Coats Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2014); “PUNK. Sus rastros en el arte contemporáneo”, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2016) y “Deshaciendo el texto”, La Casa Encendida (2016). Como parte de su práctica artística Hervàs ha dirigido “Fénix” (2013–16), el programa educativo del centro Sant Andreu Contemporani involucrando a diversos artistas de la ciudad en sus varias fases. Además ha realizado numerosos proyectos editoriales autogestionados como “Grapandmopotheper” (2009), “Tributo a Ray Harryhausen”, DeGénero Ediciones (2014) o “La trama” para Mataró Art Contemporani (2015). Asimismo ha comisariado exposiciones periódicas como “Doméstica” junto a Ariadna Parreu (desde 2009) y eventos performáticos como “Mercuri Splash” junto a David Bestué para la Fundació Miró (2015). En el 2010 recibió el Premio INJUVE a la Creación en la categoría de ilustración.

→ Contenidos relacionados:

Compositions presents five artistic interventions in unique sites across the neighbourhoods of the city of Barcelona. Each of the commissioned artists is represented by a gallery participating in the second edition of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend.

Curated by Latitudes for the second time (see 2015 edition), the project further explores Barcelona as a rich fabric of the historic and the contemporary, the unfamiliar and the conspicuous. Resisting an overall theme, and instead developing from the artists’ responses to the specificity of each context—people, as well as places—the five art projects form a temporary thread that links evocative locations and public space, running parallel to the Weekend’s exhibitions in galleries and museums. 

In its second edition, Composiciones will present interventions by Lúa Coderch (Club Billar Barcelona); Regina Giménez (Antigua Fábrica de Can Trinxet, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat); Lola Lasurt (Biblioteca Pública Arús); Robert Llimós (connecting all the participating galleries) and Wilfredo Prieto (Unitat Muntada de la Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona). Their projects will offer moments of intermission, intimacy and bewilderment throughout the weekend, highlighting some lesser-known aspects of the city’s cultural heritage and municipal life.

Interior of the Club Billar Barcelona. Photo: Courtesy Club Billar Barcelona.

Zoom in a map here.

Interior of the Biblioteca Pública Arús.

Thursday 29 September, 6pm: 

Free guided visit by Lola Lasurt and Latitudes at the Biblioteca Pública Arús, Passeig de Sant Joan, 26.

Interior of Can Trinxet factory in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.

Zoom in a map here.

Free guided visit by Regina Giménez and Latitudes at Can Trinxet, c/ Santa Eulàlia 182–212, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

Façade of the Unitat Muntada de la Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona in Parc de la Ciutadella.

Location of the Unitat Muntada in the southeastern part of the Parc de la Ciutadella. Zoom in a map here.

Conceived by Wilfredo Prieto as his project for the Composiciones programme, "Pantalones rotos" (Torn Jeans), 2012, is realised by the horses of the Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona. The action-sculpture takes place at the Mounted Unit’s stables, a historic venue next to the city zoo that is not normally open to the public and whose exercise paddock is overlooked by the twin towers of the Torre Mapfre and Hotel Arts. In his work, Prieto makes reference to an image which appears on the tag of every pair of classic Levi’s denim jeans—two horses trying in vain to break a pair of reinforced trousers. Since their invention in 1873, Levi Strauss & Co.’s famous copper-riveted denim has become synonymous with the working people of the western United States—cowboys, lumberjacks, and railroad workers. Yet in "Pantalones rotos", this symbol of the American frontier myth has been already torn apart with bathos as two harnessed horses each drag one half of a torn pair of jeans. – Latitudes  

Saturday 1 October, 12am:
Free guided visit by Latitudes at the Unitat Muntada de la Guàrdia Urbana. Meeting point: c/ Wellington s/n. (Opposite the tram stop Ciutadella–Vil·la Olímpica)

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The Barcelona Gallery Weekend is an initiative of the de Art Barcelona and is supported by the Ajuntament de Barcelona (ICUB), the Generalitat de Catalunya (ICEC), the Ajuntament de L’Hospitalet de Llobregat and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), as well as by private sponsors and individual patrons. http://www.barcelonagalleryweekend.com/


Related content:

• Composiciones 2015 commissions;
• 2015 social media archive;
• Instagram of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend;
• PRESS RELEASE: Latitudes curates "Composiciones", a series of five artists' commissions for the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend, 1–4 October 2015; 
• NOTA DE PRENSA: Comisariado de "Composiciones", cinco intervenciones artísticas para el primer Barcelona Gallery Weekend, 1–4 Octubre 2015;

El proyecto artístico “El misterio de Caviria” de Antoni Hervàs gira entorno a la leyenda de la expedición de Jasón y los Argonautas en busca del vellocino de oro. No obstante, Hervàs no se interesa únicamente por la narración literaria de la mitología helénica, sino también por la imaginería popular derivada de la homónima película dirigida por Don Chaffey en 1963 que incluyó famosas secuencias de novedosos efectos especiales que permitieron mezclar realidad y animación.

Hervàs traslada toda esa imaginería a su terreno artístico: un dibujo “expandido” que se nutre de las propias vivencias del artista así como de otras disciplinas —la música y la cultura popular, la performance y el deporte, la tradición oral, proyectos editoriales autogestionados— unas dinámicas de trabajo que por extensión, suelen abarcar a una amplia red de colaboradores y de afectos.

La exposición “El misterio de Caviria” se divide en ocho capítulos que toman como punto de origen el pasaje en el que la expedición liderada por Jasón se detiene unos meses en Lemnos, la isla del fuego, al norte del Mar Egeo. Aquí habitan una suerte de amazonas organizadas bajo la ginecocracia de la reina Hipsípila y que ocultan un sangriento suceso. Tomando este fragmento, Hervàs explora la posibilidad transformista y transgénero del dibujo, un medio que le permite cohesionar dos mitologías: los ritos cabirios la Grecia clásica y los personajes de la menguante escena del cabaret barcelonés. 


La exposición culmina una larga investigación a través de la cual Hervàs ha ido solapando intuitivamente leyendas y personajes de ambos mundos, de modo que fantasía, lo camp y la realidad conviven en un mismo tiempo y espacio generando, en palabras del artista, “un complejo espectáculo visual al estilo copla-terror donde se invocan a los dioses del subsuelo y en el que el fuego, la sangre y la ridiculización de lo masculino se convierten en ingredientes esenciales a través de los cuales conocemos una historia local, que es a la vez universal.”

Fauvista en espíritu y alegórico en referencias, el dibujo de Hervàs recurre a colores chillones y combinaciones reververantes. En esta ocasión el característico efectismo de su dibujo se traslada, por primera vez, a gigantes y paupérrimas escenografías teatrales de fácil (des)ensamblaje realizadas con cartón reciclado, cuyas narrativas se han activado (o activarán) puntualmente a lo largo de la exposición mediante perfomances musicales, coreografías, proyecciones cinematográficas y visitas comentadas. La sucesión de escenas une una fabulosa trama de anécdotas y hechos aparentemente menores sacados de los pies de página de la Historia. Bajorrelieves, cortinajes, andamiajes y columnas falsas se ven bañados por una iluminación multicolor que resultan en conscientes y accidentales especulaciones que huyen de lo nostálgico y reivindican la latencia de campos de acción y resistencia aparentemente inconexos: los personajes del folclore catalán, los deportes minoritarios como la gimnasia rítmica masculina o la progresiva desaparición de locales de espectáculo cabaretesco.

El recorrido se inicia por el que sería el final cronológico de la historia, subrayando así su efecto en bucle. Aquí la protagonista es La Loba, versión femenina del famoso hombre lobo interpretado por el actor Paul Naschy [1]. Seguidamente vemos a la máscara, realizada en colaboración con el artesano Lluis Quinrob (Lluis Robles) [2], en la cabeza de la cantante Pilar Carrión quien, en una nueva actuación filmada en el legendario Bar O'Barquinho encarna a la reina Hipsípila y canta la copla “La Loba” plagada de confesiones íntimas y palabras de desamor [3].


Proseguimos por la Sala de las columnas, con alusiones al Barcelona de Noche (carrer de les Tàpies 5) y la Bodega Bohemia (carrer Lancaster con Nou de la Rambla), conocidos establecimientos nocturnos de Ciutat Vella que congregaron a la farándula entre los años 1950 y 1970. En medio de estas ruinas helénicas del templo Kabeirion en Lemnos escuchamos una grabación realizada especialmente para la exposición a Violeta la Burra, una de las más populares “show-woman” del Whisky Twist, otro concurrido local barcelonés de varietés. Por descuidar el culto a Afrodita, la diosa condenó a las mujeres lemnias a despedir un olor espantoso. Sus maridos las rehuyeron y mantuvieron relaciones con cautivas; y para vengarse de este ultraje, las isleñas decidieron matar a todos sus parientes varones.[4] Violeta, en su papel de la vengativa diosa, se pavonea y lanza su conjuro para poder así hacerse con los hombres.

Continuamos por la espectacular escenografía centrada en La Peste, dedicada a la octogenaria vedette travesti Gilda Love, institución de “lugares de ambiente” como la desaparecida Bodega Apolo y el actual “El Desplume”, espectáculo mensual del Antic Teatre organizado por el cineasta Eduardo Gión. Aquí es donde el pasado mayo se la filmó cantando “Yo soy Gilda Love”, proyección que vemos en el lado opuesto de la sala a modo de espejo. Gilda habla de la peste a las que fueron condenadas las Lemnias, hecho que provocó el rechazo de sus maridos y el trágico asesinato.

En la parte frontal del andamiaje vemos La lucha, representada a través de los vestigios documentales de una actividad que tuvo lugar en abril, cuando Hervàs invitó a los “guerreros grecorromanos” del Club de lucha de La Mina a participar en un taller “de cintura para arriba” en el que éstos podían utilizar una máquina de fotocopiar para fijar una imagen que representase los movimientos que realizan durante sus entrenamientos. Estos guerreros contemporáneos enlazan con los argonautas, quienes una vez llegados a Lemnia, y antes de iniciar los festejos, realizaron una tradicional lucha amistosa y cuyo ganador obtuvo un vestido. Fotografías del taller se entremezclan aquí con personajes del cabaret barcelonés. Y de nuevo aparece Hipsípila como maestra de ceremonias de las Kakanoures: la fiesta de renovación que tiene lugar anualmente a finales de junio en Lemnos y a las que Hervàs asistió en 2013: una especie de transposición ritual donde jóvenes hombres encienden fuego a unas coronas. La liturgia de sus cuerpos toma protagonismo, pues se cree que encarnan a sus ancestros: Los Argonautas, quienes según la leyenda se hospedaron en la isla de camino hacia Cólquida. 



La capilla contigua presenta un traje, El trofeo de la lucha. El psicodélico maillot, como si de una brillante piel de serpiente se tratara, se activa en un evento que tendrá lugar el 18 de septiembre en el antiguo local de fiestas Copacabana (actual aparcamiento del Department de Cultura de la Generalitat en La Rambla) cuando Gerard López, el campeón de España masculino senior de gimnasia rítmica, realice una coreografía llevando este traje diseñado para la ocasión por Hervàs. El Copacabana fue el primer local de espectáculos de travestismo en la ciudad condal tras la Guerra Civil. Uno de sus números más populares era cuando la travesti Margarita (ahora encarnada en el premiado gimnasta), disfrazada con un traje de volantes hechos con papel de periódico, invitaba a los espectadores a que le prendieran fuego provocando su danza frenética.[5] Al acercarnos al maillot oímos una sinuosa versión de la danza de los siete velos que Norman Bambi ha compuesto para esta actuación, en la que los movimientos gráciles y seductores del atleta, encubren la poderosa y agresiva disciplina con la que avivará las cenizas del extinto local.


La penúltima escena, en la parte superior e interior del andamiaje, remite a la fiesta — la faceta más lúdica pero necesaria del rito: La ridiculización de lo masculino. Este relieve-collage realizado a partir de imágenes de la revista “Party”, depositada en el archivo del Casal Lambda [6], se centra en unos alegres personajes masculinos y travestidos cuya disposición recuerda a los frisos de la arquitectura templaria griega. Éstos se ensamblan con instantáneas de la Compañía Impacto que en en los años 70 interpretaron “El sueño de Antínoo” [7] en el Antic Teatre [8], y prosigue con una apología a la libertad sexual y de expresión, así como de expiación de la culpa de las mujeres Lemnias.
 
Finalmente, desde la “boca” de la escenografía dedicada a Gilda Love, nos adentramos en un túnel hacia La invocación de los dioses del underground. En una épica escenografía final, se funden escenas de rituales del fuego presenciados por el artista en su viaje a Lemnos, con personajes fantasmagóricos del espectáculo como Madame Arthur – famoso travesti del Paral·lel –, rodeados por proyecciones de una selección de películas realizadas por Pierrot (1942–2011), pionero del fantaterror y del cine experimental. Un apoteósico vórtice final donde, como sucedió con los efectos especiales “stop-motion” realizados por el memorable Ray Harryhausen para la mítica película "Jasón y los argonautas" de inspiración péplum, los Dioses del underground barcelonés parecen finalmente salir del dibujo y tomar cuerpo. 

– Latitudes 

Texto para la hoja de sala de la exposición “El Misterio de Caviria” en la Sala Gran de La Capella, 16 septiembre–13 noviembre 2016. 

As part of Kadist Online Projects, Kadist and Latitudes partnered in a new 'distributed' phase of 'Incidents (of Travel)'. The new phase is developed as an online periodical that publishes regular contributions from curators and artists working around the world. 

Originally conceived by Latitudes as day-long artist-led tours around Mexico City (2012, with dispatches presented as part of an exhibition at Casa del Lago) – followed by Hong Kong (2013, online dispatches via twitter, Instagram, and Soundcloud) and San Francisco (2015, online dispatches via daily Instagram posts) – 'Incidents (of Travel)' explores the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter and an extended conversation between curator/s and artist/s. Online storytelling presents and documents curatorial fieldwork and an offline day conceived by an artist for a curator.


The third 'Incidents (of Travel)' episode comes from Suzhou, China, where the artist and curator Yu Ji met poet Xiao Kaiyu. Their offline day took place in April 2016, when they embarked on a hike on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou.


Each of the 12 photographs in the sequence is augmented by one or more extra assets: a brief commentary, a caption or a soundscape, and is accessed by clicking the words which overlay the images.

The series inaugurated with an itinerary from curator Yesomi Umolu and artist Harold Mendez from Chicago – their tour was photographed by Nabiha Khan. The second dispatch came from Jinja in Uganda, where curator Moses Serubiri invited photographer Mohsen Taha to explore Jinja's Indian architectural legacy and Idi Amin's notorious expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority in 1972.

Forthcoming contributions: Marianna Hovhannisyan (Yerevan), Simon Soon (Kuala Lumpur / Sydney) and Natalia Zuluaga (Pereira / Miami), all fellows who participated in the seminar ‘The Place From Where We Look’ at Kadist Paris in June 2015. 


RELATED CONTENT:

• Kadist and Latitudes present 'Incidents (Of Travel)' online 31 May 2016
• Instagram takeover of Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco (28 August 2015)
• Residency at the Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, 26 August–9 September 2015 (29 August 2015)
• Nadim Abbas' "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" public tour (19 January 2013)
• Ho Sin Tung "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (30 January 2013)
• Yuk King Tan's "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (3 February 2013)
• Samson Young's "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong" tour (7 February 2013)
• Archive of social media posts related to "Incidents of Travel" tours and photo-documentation.
• 13 field recordings from 'Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong'
• Interview between Christina Li and Latitudes on 'Incidents of Travel' for Witte de With's 'Witness to Moderation(s)' blog 7 May 2013
• Inauguración de 'Incidentes de viaje' & 'Proyectos 2005–2012' en La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, México DF, 27 de septiembre 19:30h 25 septiembre 2012

The September issue of Artlink Magazine – a quarterly themed magazine covering contemporary art and ideas from Australia and the Asia-Pacific – includes a conversation we recently made with artist Lucas Ihlein. Ihlein's projects explore subjects as diverse as agriculture, gardening and social ecology, everyday life, avant-garde cinema history, fan culture, urban planning, communication and social relations.

The interview, titled "1:1 scale art and the Yeomans Project in North Queensland", is preceded with an intro contextualising our conversation and how we met:

Lucas Ihlein and Ian Milliss, "The Yeomans Project", field trip. Farmer Peter Clinch demonstrates the keyline irrigation channels at The Oaks Organics, Camden, NSW, 2014. Photo by Caren Florance.

We first met Lucas Ihlein in May 2014 at the recommendation of artist Nicholas Mangan. We had been invited to Melbourne to participate in Gertrude Contemporary’s Visiting Curator Program in partnership with Monash University of Art Design & Architecture, and had taken a few days out to visit the Biennale of Sydney and meet some Sydney-based artists. Nicholas was already familiar with our curatorial interests, stemming from ecology and site-specific practices; indeed, we’ve recently made an extended interview with him for the catalogue of his exhibition "Limits to Growth", so his matchmaking with Lucas was prescient. We talked for hours and have been corresponding ever since, with a view to collaborating further.

We were struck by the breadth and enthusiasm of Lucas’s practice and his voracious approach to the process of learning from the point of view of a novice. Where other people might pain over the policing of the roles of artist, curator or researcher, Lucas happily didn’t spend much time worrying about it. Accordingly, although it was the engagement with social and environmental ecology that initially piqued our interest, we soon realised that his was a collaborative practice that has embraced, for example, the re-enactment of “expanded cinema” works from the 1960s and 1970s (in the form of Teaching and Learning Cinema, run with Louise Curham) as well as a “blogging as art”, an approach that really chimed with our project for The Last Newspaper for which we had edited a weekly newspaper within an exhibition.

Indeed, a key impulse of our approach to the projects we have undertaken as Latitudes around art and ecology, in the broadest sense, has been to resist the narrow restraints of normative environmental-concern ecology, in part following Felix Guattari’s essay "The Three Ecologies" (2000), to encompass social and political relations, human subjectivity as well as historical research. In other words, thinking about a practice that does not necessarily give primacy to exhibition‑making as well as considering what an ecological art project might mean in terms of process and site, and thinking through what acting ecologically might entail in relation to acting curatorially, acting editorially, or acting historically, and so on.

Looking back on our projects in collaboration with the Royal Society of Arts “Arts & Ecology” programme—a public commission for London with artist Tue Greenfort (2005–8), our publication "Land Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook" (Royal Society of Arts/Arts Council England, 2006), and the symposium of “Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change”, 8th Sharjah Biennial (2007)—as well as the exhibition "Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities", Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2008), they now seem to belong to a very specific time when green issues gained wider traction. One might crudely say this began with the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in 2006 and effectively ended, or was overshadowed, by the 2008 financial crisis and its grim legacies.

We begin this interview at a moment when we’re revisiting some of the concerns left in the wake of such projects from the near past while preparing a group exhibition for CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux in 2017 around the carbon cycle and narratives of raw materials. At the time of writing Lucas has just returned from Guangzhou, where he has been exploring the geographical and social dimensions of sea level rise in the Pearl River Delta.

Continue reading... 

Lucas Ihlein is an Australia Council for the Arts Fellow in Emerging and Experimental Arts. He is currently showing alongside Trevor Yeung (Hong Kong) in Sea Pearl White Cloud 海珠白雲 at 4a Centre for Contemporary Asian Art until 24 September 2016. Ihlein’s collaborative project Sugar vs the Reef will culminate in an exhibition at Artspace Mackay, Queensland, in mid-2018. 


 RELATED CONTENT:

• Lucas Ilhein website.
• Archive of texts written by Latitudes.
• Interview with Nicholas Mangan for his forthcoming catalogue ‘Limits to Growth’ 20 April 2016.

Related content:

• Archive of Cover Stories
• Last chance to read the August 2016 Monthly Cover Story "Fermínlandia" 31 August 2016
• Cover Story, July 2016: Through the grapevine – Rasmus Nilausen’s Soups & Symptoms 3 July 2016
• Last days! Cover Story and exhibition of José Antonio Hernández-Díez: techno-pop, death and resurrection (20 June 2016)
• Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (10 May 2016)
• Cover Story, March 2016: José Antonio Hernández-Díez: The sacred heart of the matter (3 March 2016) 
• Cover Story, February 2016: Sarah Ortmeyer, Towering allusions (9 Febrero 2016)

Related content:

• Archive of Cover Stories.
• Cover Story, July 2016: Through the grapevine – Rasmus Nilausen’s Soups & Symptoms 3 July 2016
• Last days! Cover Story and exhibition of José Antonio Hernández-Díez: techno-pop, death and resurrection (20 June 2016)
• Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (10 May 2016)
• Cover Story, March 2016: José Antonio Hernández-Díez: The sacred heart of the matter (3 March 2016) 
• Cover Story, February 2016: Sarah Ortmeyer, Towering allusions (9 Febrero 2016)

The end of the season is approaching and high summer is looming. Following Latitudes tradition we mark the summer break not by presenting a memo of activities per se, but with an "out of office" post (see the 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15 versions) with a series of 'behind the scenes' photos revisiting moments from the year gone by. So here are some glimpses of the past season, starting September 2015 to July 2016. See you in September!

Latitudes 2015–16 season started with a residency at Kadist, San Francisco (26 August–9 September) during which time we had the opportunity to develop several projects. Three artist-led tours with SF-based artists Amy Balkin, Rick & Megan Prelinger and Will Brown were part of our ongoing series 'Incidents of Travel' (see 2012 in Mexico City, 2013 in Hong Kong and most recent 2016 online incarnation). We took over Kadist social media with an Instagram residency and contributed to the online programme 'One Sentence Exhibition'.

Furthermore, on August 29, we convened the second ‘Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group’ at Kadist, a "by-invitation meeting bringing together individuals and expertise from the Bay Area with an active interest in institutional prototyping and emergent usership" initially presented in May 2015 for theInternational Curatorial Retreat in Bari, Italy.

The workshop is "a forum for informal dialogue about megatrends and the future of contemporary art institutions. In the San Francisco iteration, an emphasis was put on cross-pollination between design thinking and curatorial thinking. Participants also discussed, among other things, the notion of the post-disciplinary, and the question of appropriate speeds, scale or periodicities of institutions."

September 8: Our last activity in the Bay Area was a session with first-year participants of the MA Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts (CCA). We briefly introduced our curatorial practice and invited the new students to imagine the governance and daily operations of a range of institutions – a remote residency facility, a commissioning institution, and an annual festival.




November 2015: Latitudes travelled to Donostia's recently opened Tabakalera. We were invited by LaPublika's programme, created by Consonni, to lead a two-day seminar and public lecture around artists working in the public sphere.


On November 15 Latitudes convened the third iteration of the 'Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group', this time in Birmingham's Eastside Projects. This "forum for informal dialogue about megatrends and the future of contemporary art institutions" collectively imagined a ‘What if?’ – a post-apocalyptic scenario in which the entire art ecology of Birmingham had to be regrown from the ground up, an exercise that would help define and identify which are the most urgent organisations, facilities, and tools.


Shortly after, on 18–19 November Latitudes participated in the OMONOIA summit which began the Athens Biennale 2015–2017. For a short report see the Cover Story of December 2015 and this blog entry.

December 2015: Mariana joined Hangar's renewed Board of Trustees as its Secretary, a responsibility she will fulfill for the next three years.

December 4: Participation in the BAR module: Curating the space / Space for curating open public conversation with Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Carles Guerra, Michy Marxuach and BAR module participants. 



January 2016: After an intense jury process in January, we began the year-long mentoring process of three exhibition projects out of the nine selected projects as part of the 2016 season's BCN Producció 2016.



The first project Latitudes mentored was by Pau Magrané/PLOM who turned the Espai Cub, a 3x3x3 metre white cube, into "a sound stage/instrument, an echo chamber hosting different screenings and objects to be played by PLOM at the opening". The two other projects Latitudes is mentoring are by Antoni Hervàs (September 15) and a group exhibition "La dissidència nostàlgica" by curator Joana Hurtado Matheu (December 1). 

From January onwards: Preparations for the five projects produced in the context of the second edition of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend. Studio visits, site visits, project proposals, budget and production planning, taking measurements...


February 2016: Trip to Arles to attend the 'How Institutions Think' symposium at the LUMA Foundation, this time not participating but listening and reporting. Read Max Andrews' report on the frieze blog.


Besides the reportage from the Arles conference, Max also published other reviews in Frieze magazine as one of its team of contributing editors: Xavier Ribas at ProjecteSD (Barcelona); Joachim Koester at BlueProject Foundation (Barcelona); Alexandre Estrela at the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid) and Critic's Guide: Barcelona highlighting some of the interesting shows in the city on frieze website. He has also contributed the text "Soups & Symptoms" for a forthcoming publication of Barcelona-based Danish painter Rasmus Nilausen. 






April: We love snail mail and handwritten notes! We received a note from Rick & Megan Prelinger alongside a copy of their Yearbook 2015. We relished spending time at the Prelinger Library in San Francisco last August as part of our 'Incidents of Travel' series! (Our extended heartfelt thanks to the Kadist team for hosting us!).

 
April 20: Wrapped-up a five-part interview with Melbourne-based artist Nicholas Mangan to be published in 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). The exhibition will travel to KW in Berlin in Summer 2017.


April 27 (until June 12): Exhibition "Demo" of Pau Magrané/PLOM at Espai Cub, La Capella. This is the first of the three projects Latitudes is mentoring throughout 2016  as part of BCN Producció'16 production grant scheme. Video of the project here (Catalan with Spanish subtitles) or here (English).


April 25–May 7: Two-week residency at CAPC Bordeaux to research for a group exhibition that will take place in 2017. One strand of our investigations departs from the CAPC building itself, known as Entrepôt Lainé – a 19th Century warehouse for colonial commodities. We learned from the museum staff that coffee beans are occasionally found atop a pile of papers on an office desk or in the middle of the exhibition galleries. This became the focus of our May Cover Story (archived here).


 

May: Launch of the online project Incidents (of Travel), produced by Kadist Art Foundation. The web marks a new ‘distributed’ phase of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ as an online periodical. The ongoing series will be edited by Latitudes and produced by Kadist.

Originally conceived by Latitudes as day-long artist-led tours commissioned to artists in and around Mexico City (2012) – followed by Hong Kong (2013) and San Francisco (2015) – ‘Incidents’ expands on the format of the curator-meets-artist studio visit to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of an artistic encounter. The first dispatch came from Chicago and featured Yesomi Umolu (Exhibitions Curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago) and artist Harold Mendez, an offline day photographed by Nabiha Khan.

  
June: Launch of the second Incidents (of Travel) dispatch, an encounter between curator Serubiri Moses and photographer Mohsen Taha in Jinja, Uganda, narrated throughout 18 photos by Taha with an introduction, captions, sound and commentary.
 

And finally July. Some are off on holiday but many remain working full speed despite the less frantic inbox. Many surely agree that this is one of the weirdest months in the calendar, a bit like the pre-Christmas rush, but with a whole month of heated intensity. 

4–8 July: Second trip to Bordeaux, more archival appointments and more geology. Led by Bruno Cahuzac (Maître de Conférences, UFR Sciences de la Terre et de la Mer) from the Faculté des Sciences de Bordeaux, we visited the incredible carothèque-lithothèque at the Université de Bordeaux in Talence which houses over 30,000 core samples from the subsoil of the Aquitaine basin.



July 9 and 20: As jurors of this year's award Art Nou/Primera Visió we visited the twenty participating commercial galleries, non-profits, private foundations and museums alongside BCNProducció'16 co-tutors Mireia Sallarès and David Armengol. We unanimously decided to award Gerard Ortín for his solo show at Galería Estrany-de la Mota. Ortín receives 2,000 Euros to produce a new publication. The ceremony took place on July 21 at La Capella. Last year winner Rasmus Nilausen produced the publication "Soups & Symptoms" which includes a text by Max Andrews of Latitudes.


RELATED CONTENT:

• Latitudes' "out of office" 2014–2015 season, 7 August 2015  
• Latitudes 'Out of office' 2013–14, 31 July 2014
• Latitudes' "out of office" photo album, 2012–2013 season, 31 July 2013 
• Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2011–2012, 31 July 2012 
• Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2010–11 season, 1 August 2011  
• Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2009–10 season, 30 July 2010  
• Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2008-9, 30 July 2009

Durante el mes de julio la asociación de galerías Art Barcelona organiza la quinta edición de Art Nou "con la intención de activar la escena de arte emergente local con exposiciones, talleres, charlas, visitas a estudios en espacios de arte de toda la ciudad."

Más de 30 artistas optaron al Premio Art Nou/Primera Visió, que en su edición 2016 ha sido otorgado a Gerard Ortín por su exposición "Vijfhoek" en la galería Estrany-de la Mota. El premio está dotado con 2.000 euros que otorga La Capella para la realización de una publicación. Artistas como Marla Jacarilla, Adrián Melis, Luz Broto y Rasmus Nilausen, han sido los galardonados en las pasadas ediciones.


A continuación el acta (en catalán) que leyó Mireia Sallarès en representación del jurado formado por los tutores de BCN Producció'16 (David Armengol, Mireia Sallarès y Latitudes), al anunciar el premio en la fiesta que se organizó el 21 de julio:
 
"Bona tarda i gràcies per ser aquí, ha arribat el moment més esperat de la vetllada.

Primer de tot dir que els membres del jurat d’aquest premi que som en David Armengol, l’equip de Latitudes (Max Andrews i Mariana Cánepa Luna) i Mireia Sallarès, hem guiat les nostres deliberacions tenint ben present l’objectiu principal d’Art Nou: que és el de descobrir i difondre nous talents artístics per tal de donar un impuls a la creació emergent i a les noves generacions artístiques a la nostra ciutat.

En aquest sentit voldríem dir que la nostra decisió no ha sigut fàcil perquè hi han participat propostes de molt bon nivell; i en especial també degut a la disparitat dels projectes participants (es tracta d’espais de naturalesa molt diversa amb recursos molt diferents, d’exposicions individuals i col·lectives, amb o sense comissariat, on conviuen projectes de diferent tipus: des de galeries a espais independents fins a estructures institucionals). Dit això i tenint en compte que és un premi que es dóna a l’artista (i no tant a l’espai que l’exposa o a l’exposició de la que forma part en cas d’exposició col·lectiva), hem decidit atorgar el premi a Gerard Ortín per l’exposició "Vijfhoek" (Pentàgon) realitzada a la galeria Estrany-de la Mota.

Els motius han sigut la gran qualitat del projecte que considerem fruit d’una investigació seriosa i poètica; on creiem que l’artista ha fet una molt bona traducció al format expositiu d’una experiència que de fet té caràcter performàtic. Es tracta d’una acció que va tenir lloc a Àmsterdam i que comptava amb la participació del públic en una passejada en grup en un indret molt especial. L‘artista s’hi refereix com a ‘walk performances’ que propicien una experiència introspectiva individual a través d’un ritual col·lectiu i que són una forma genuïna d’explorar el paisatge. Ens sembla una obra excel·lent i mostra d’una bona evolució de la seva jove trajectòria, essent aquesta la primera exposició individual de l’artista. Estem convençuts, a més a més, que en Gerard farà també molt bon treball en l’exercici de traduir en forma de publicació la seva obra —gràcies a l’ajut que en específic atorga aquest premi. Així que, Felicitats Gerard, seguirem els teus nous projectes amb interès!

I abans d’acabar, volem també fer dues mencions especials. Primer a l’exposició “Curvar a Miguel es arruinar las baldosas” de Jorge Satorre presentada a la Fundació BlueProject. Jorge és un artista d’origen mexicà molt vinculat a Barcelona que participa amb un projecte excel·lent que té el parc de Collserola com a centre i que ha sigut fruit d’una residencia a la ciutat i ha comptat també amb l’ajut d’espais imprescindibles del nostre context com són Hangar o la nau Estruch de Sabadell. I també, a l’exposició “Els músculs de Zaratrustra” una col·laboració de Marcel Rubio i Victor Balcells que ens ha sorprès molt positivament per la seva força narrativa i per la bona simbiosis de la col·laboració entre un artista visual i un escriptor. I perquè és també una mostra molt maca del bon impuls d’una de les iniciatives independents d’aquesta ciutat com és Passatge Studio al barri del Poblenou on l’artista Bernat Daviu cedeix temporalment el seu estudi com a espai expositiu.

Felicitats doncs al guanyador i gràcies a tots els participants. Confiem que la propera convocatòria anirà perfilant les seves bases; i en aquest sentit farem arribar els nostres suggeriments als organitzadors per tal de que els creadors i creadores sentin aquest premi com un veritable impuls al seu treball. Aquest treball que tan necessita la nostra ciutat." 

– Barcelona, 21 de juliol 2016.

We just returned from a week in Bordeaux, where we continued with meetings and archival research in preparation for the forthcoming Latitudes-curated group show at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux – opening at the end of June 2017 coinciding with the 7th edition of the Agora Biennial of Architecture, Planning and Design centred on landscape. 

The exhibition will present existing artworks (including several from CAPC’s collection) alongside commissioned pieces, as well as documents and objects from Bordeaux’s municipal archives, seeking to problematise the time-span of museums and consider their collections as tangible material history.


Upon arrival, led by Bruno Cahuzac (Maître de conférence), we visited the incredible carothèque-lithothèque at the Université de Bordeaux in Talence which houses over 30,000 core samples from the subsoil of the Aquitaine basin. 
 


We also went back to the Archives Bordeaux Métropole to continue looking for documents related to the trade with the former French colonies of the Antilles (known as "sugar islands"). We also visited the Archives Départamentales / Gironde where we found further evidence of CAPC musée's past as the former warehouse for colonial commodities known as Entrépot Lainé. 

Delving deeper into colonial landscapes and commodities exchange we were glad to revisit the permanent presentation of the Marcel Chatillon Collection at the Musée d'Aquitaine, which includes an incredible selection of over 600 documents and iconographic representations of slave working conditions, as well as portraits, flora and landscapes from the 17th to the 20th Century. 

Some of the Bordeaux's frantic maritime trade is visible in Pierre Lacour's majestic "Vue d'une partie du port et des quais de Bordeaux dits des Chartrons et de Bacalan" (1804–1806) one of the most iconic pieces in the Musée des Beaux-Arts (below).