Claudia Pagès's video installation “Gerundi Circular” (2021) is on display at the Saló dels Miralls (Mirror Hall) in Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house between 18 February and April 6, 2025. This historic hall features allegorical ceiling paintings and texts celebrating art and music.

The installation was commissioned in 2021 for the exhibition “Panorama 21: Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” (Notes for an Eye Fire), curated by Latitudes and Hiuwai Chu, that took place at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona between October 2021–February 2022. Originally produced by MACBA and ELAMOR, it was incorporated into the Government of Catalonia National Collection of Contemporary Art in 2022, and deposited as a long-term loan to MACBA Collection.

Following Pagès’s solo show “Abajo el puerto suena nino-nino, y yo arriba pipí” at The RYDER in Madrid in June 2022, the 360º video installation was presented at Tabakalera in Donostia, Basque Country (September 2022–January 2023).

Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes wrote the wall text for the “Panorama 21: Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” exhibition, which read:

Claudia Pagès’ mesmerising new video installation revolves around global maritime routes, legal jargon, and the relentless flow of commerce and people that has characterized capitalism in action. Filmed in a seamless 360° loop, the footage blends the rhythmic gestures of three performers and layers of handwritten texts into a series of music-video sequences. 

The panoramic narrative is set around three distinctive and interconnected sites related to the past and present of Barcelona’s commercial port: the ship-shaped business hub of the World Trade Center, the 19th-century customs building, and the harbour breakwater. 

Completing the installation is a cardboard carpet printed with snippets of phrases derived from law manuals in which Pagès mixes up gerunds (a verb form that does not inflect gender or number) and considers bodies as both objects and actants. “Gerundi Circular” bears witness to the logistical intricacies of the city as a seemingly frictionless interface between the open space of the sea and manmade infrastructures, behaviours, and languages.

Acknowledging that some visitors may have been unable to visit the exhibition due to COVID-19 restrictions, significant efforts were made to enhance the online presence of the 2021 exhibition. The website was designed as a repository documenting the exhibition-making process, featuring participant and artwork profiles written by the curators, images of related works, and behind-the-scenes photographs and videos. However, with the launch of MACBA’s new website in 2024, artwork descriptions disappeared, and the connection of the above-mentioned sections with the exhibition for which they were created is no longer available. Part can be found here.

RELATED CONTENT:

• Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ “Gerundi Circular”, 2 Jan 2023
• “Panorama 21” traces, a year on, 21 Oct 2022
• Panorama in Madrid and Córdoba, 14 June 2022

Since Spring 2015 we have been publishing a monthly cover story on our homepage (www.lttds.org) featuring past, present, or forthcoming projects, as well as sharing our research, travel, or texts, featuring artworks, exhibitions, films, or objects related to our curatorial practice. Below are those published throughout 2023 (#90 to #100), which you can read again in this archive. See you in 2024!

The January 2023 monthly Cover Story “Gerundi Circular” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org

“Happy New Year! This month’s Cover Story focusses on Claudia Pagès’s Gerundi Circular (2021), a video installation that was commissioned for the exhibition Panorama 21: Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls (Notes for an Eye Fire), curated by Latitudes and Hiuwai Chu for the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). The work was recently incorporated into the MACBA Collection via a purchase by the Government of Catalonia for the National Collection of Contemporary Art.” Continue reading 

After January 2023 this story will be archived here.

Cover Stories are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes’ homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.

Following on our earlier post on recent exhibitions by participating artists in MACBA’s exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, and coinciding with its first anniversary, we highlight four iterations of works produced or derived from their original presentation in the 2021 exhibition.

Antoni Hervàs presents “Under the firelight, the ash shines like glitter” (2021-2022), a work that grows from its earlier iteration “La Mellers” (2021, see images above), a sculpture-becoming-exhibition entrance commissioned for “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, which now has become an “archive of its own making” in the words of the artist. “Under the firelight...” incorporates new papier-mâché parts allowing Hervàs to continue his research on the Barcelona underground varieté and drag scenes. 

El Palomar is presenting their acclaimed film “Schreber is a Woman” (2020) in Frankfurt, which was originally commissioned for the 11th Berlin Biennale in 2020, and premiered in Spain during MACBA’s “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”. Since it was screened in Barcelona last October, El Palomar has presented the film in New York this past July (at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art) and this month as part of “To be Seen. Queer Life 1900-1950” at the NS-Dokuzentrum München. 

Following on Claudia Pagès solo show “Abajo el puerto suena nino-nino, y yo arriba pipí” at The RYDER in Madrid earlier this past summer, her 360º video installation “Gerundi Circular” (2021) is now on view at Tabakalera in Donostia, Basque Country, until 15th January 2023. The 14-minute film was commissioned for “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” and co-produced with ELAMOR. In 2022 “Gerundi Circular” has joint MACBA Collection through the funds of the National Collection of Contemporary Art of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Still from the video interview with Claudia Pagès about her work “Gerundi Circular” (2021) that can be viewed here (in Spanish with Basque subtitles).

At the end of this long hot summer, Bombon Projects’ participated in Marseille’s Art-O-Rama art fair presenting Rosa Tharrats’ “Akaal / Selene \ Uluru” (2021), specially commissioned for MACBA’s exhibition, in dialogue with paintings by Mari Eastman.

(Above and below) Installation view of “Akaal / Selene \ Uluru” (2021) in the exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 2021–February 2022. Photos: Roberto Ruiz / MACBA.

(Above and below) Installation view of “Akaal / Selene \ Uluru” (2021) in Bombon Projects’ stand in Art-O-Rama, Marseille, August 2022. Photos: © Aurélien Meimaris.

Seven artists are currently exhibiting in Madrid or Córdoba with works produced, presented or derived from their original presentation in the group exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” that took place at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, between October 2021 and February 2022, curated by Hiuwai Chu and Latitudes.

Rosa Tharrats opened her first solo exhibition at Galería Ehrhardt Flórez in Madrid. Titled “Theta Wave” (until July 3, 2022) it presents a new installation made with her signature materials, including recycled textiles and clothes, bioplastics, sponges, nets or stones, and is complemented with a suite of framed drawings and a sculpture made with discarded marble pieces intersected with fabrics. The text accompanying Rosa’s exhibition is written by another Panorama participant, Gabriel Ventura, whose performative action and poem “Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ulls” titled the small book published as the colophon of the exhibition. 

The next show at Galería Ehrhardt Flórez will be a solo by Panorama participant Laia Estruch, coinciding with Apertura Madrid Gallery Weekend that inaugurates the 2022–23 season. 

(Above and three below) Installation view of “Akaal / Selene \ Uluru” (2021) in the exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 2021–February 2022. Photos: Roberto Ruiz / MACBA.

Originally premiered in July 2021 at The Green Parrot, Adrian Schindler’s series of posters “The roles (notes for a film)” (2021–ongoing) is part of his ongoing research tracing Morocco’s colonial past in Spanish society, which culminates in his film trilogy “Tetuan, Tetuán, Tetwan”, whose first part was premièred at MACBA, and has been produced with the support of the Department de Cultura of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Casa de Velázquez and the Centre national des arts plastiques in Paris, with the collaboration of 2deo. 

View of Adrian Schindler’s “The roles (notes for a film)”, 2021–ongoing. Poster series. Dimensions variable. Photo: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.

(Above and three below) Installation view of Adrian Schindler’s “Tetuan, Tetuán, تطوان” in the exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 2021–February 2022. Photos: Roberto Ruiz / MACBA.

Besides the installation “Constellation” (2021–ongoing) Arash Fayez presents “Anecdotes From the Elsewhere” a performance developed alongside “Anecdotes to be forgotten” which was presented in MACBA on December 9, 2021, alongside his works “Apolis” (2014-18/2021) and “Limbo” (2018-2021).

Laia Estruch presents “Mixtape” (2022) and the performance “Improvisation #1” in “Si las palabras hablaran”, Madrid. She recently performed “Ocells perduts V67” in Sotos de la Albolafia, Córdoba, as part of “The Journeying Stream” (3–5 June 2022), a three-day event jointly convened by TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and TBA21–Academy. The Córdoba performance derived from “Ocells perduts” (2021) commissioned for MACBA’s exhibition and produced with the support of PUBLICS, Helsinki.

(Above and two below) View of Laia Estruch’s “Ocells Perduts” (2021) in the exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 2021–February 2022. Photos: Roberto Ruiz / MACBA.

Claudia Pagès just opened the solo show “Abajo el puerto suena nino-nino, y yo arriba pipí” at The RYDER in Madrid, where the centrepiece is the video installation “Gerundio Circular” (2021), a 14-minute, 360º film presented on a circular LED screen which was commissioned for “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” and co-produced with ELAMOR. On view until July 30, 2022.

(Above) View of Claudia Pagès’s “Gerundi Circular” (2021) in the exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 2021–February 2022. Photo: Miquel Coll / MACBA.

(Above and below) View of Claudia Pagès’s “Gerundi Circular” (2021) in the exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 2021–February 2022. Photos: Roberto Ruiz/MACBA.

(Above and seven below) Installation views of Claudia Pagès’s exhibition “Abajo el puerto suena nino-nino, y yo arriba pipí” at The RYDER, Madrid, 9 June–30 July 2022. Photos: Pablo Gomez-Ogando.

Aleix Plademunt’s “Matter”, his most comprehensive solo show to date, is on view until July 24, 2022, at Sala Canal Isabel II as part of PHotoEspaña 2022. As Elena Vozmediano noted in her review, a selection of 18 large prints were originally premiered in MACBA’s exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”.

(Above and below) Installation view of Aleix Plademunt’s “Matter” (2013–2021) in the exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 2021–February 2022. Photo: Aleix Plademunt (above) and Roberto Ruiz (below).

(Above and five below) Installation view of Aleix Plademunt’s “Matter” in the exhibition “Matter” at Sala Canal Isabel II, Madrid, 2022. Photos: Aleix Plademunt.

Besides the 96-page exhibition catalogue (aptly titled “Antimatter”), Aleix has edited the long-anticipated book “Matter” co-published by Ca l’Isidret (the editorial platform he has run since 2011 with Juan Diego Valera and Roger Guaus) and Spector Books. The 640-page volume gathers nine years of work, part of which unfolds in the exhibition, and has included fieldwork in Iceland, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia, Holland, Iran, Japan, Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia. 

Aleix Plademunt (Ed.) “Matter” co-published by Ca l’Isidret and Spector Books, May 2022, ISBN 978-84-121090-6-1. Photos: Aleix Plademunt.

RELATED CONTENT:

• Cover Story, April 2022: Mix & Match: Laia Estruch at PUBLICS, 1 Apr 2022
• Nueva publicación: “Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ulls” (MACBA, 2022), 2 Mar 2022
• Cover Story, March 2022: The passion of Gabriel Ventura, 1 March 2022
• Cobertura en los medios sobre la exposición ‘’Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” en el MACBA, 21 Feb 2022
• Cover Story, February 2022: Rosa Tharrats’ Textile Alchemy, 1 Feb 2022
• Cover Story, January 2022: “Rasmus’ Doubts”, 2 Jan 2022
• Cover Story, December 2021: Between Meier and Meller: Toni and Pau at the Teatre Arnau, 1 Dec 2021
• Programa público de “Apuntes para un incendio de los ojos”, MACBA, hasta el 27 febrero 2022, 15 Nov 2021
• Cover Story, November 2021: Notes for an Eye Fire, 2 Nov 2021
• Opening of the exhibition "Notes for an Eye Fire" at MACBA, 21 Oct 2021
• Latitudes’ "out of office" 2020-21 season, 2 August 2021
• Cover Story–July 2021: a wide view from a fixed point, 2 Jul 2021
• Press Release: Co-curators of the exhibition “Panorama 21: Notes For An Eye Fire”, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 22 October 2021–27 February 2022, 9 Feb 2021