Conferencia sobre “A Knot Which is Not” de Eulàlia Rovira en Palma, Mallorca
Mon, Nov 20 2023
Fotos de @laia_ventayol.
“A knot which is not” [Un nudo que no lo es] (2020–21) fue fruto de una investigación que se inició con la inauguración de la exposición “Cosas que las cosas dicen” (17 de octubre 2020–17 de enero 2021, véase el trailer) comisariada por Latitudes en Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, y que se proyectó en línea una vez clausuró la exposición.
Concebimos la participación de Rovira en la exposición como meta narradora de la misma. Su voz acompañó a los visitantes al inicio de la exposición – Eulàlia fue la voz de la audioguía – y a su cierre – con la presentación del video “A knot which is not”, filmado en la sala expositiva una vez volvía a estar vacía.
“Si bien la línea recta es cómplice del abaratamiento y el estandarización de muchos productos, ¿a dónde nos lleva la curva, o todavía mejor, el nudo? Dando giros a las historias de la propia fábrica textil de la Fabra i Coats y a los objetos que de allí salían, la lengua que nos habla ejercita palabras que las manos parecen haber dejado de reconocer.” – Eulàlia Rovira
(Abajo y arriba) Fragmentos del video “A knot which is not” [Un nudo que no lo es] (2020–21) de Eulàlia Rovira. Cortesía de la artista.
En la conferencia, Ventayol ha compartido imágenes del proceso de investigación que realizó Rovira para la elaboración de la narración de “A Knot Which is Not” (2021), así como sobre la colaboración que Stuart Whipps, otro artista de la exposición que exhibió “The Kipper and the Corpse” (2004–en curso), entabló con Keith Woodfield, quien trabajó en la empresa motora British Leyland en Longbridge (Birmingham) durante +30 años.
Foto cortesía de Laia Ventayol.
CONTENIDOS RELACIONADOS:
- Catálogo de la exposición diseñado por Bendita Gloria
- Guía de la exposición (descargar pdf)
- Videos de la exposición (tráiler disponible en catalán, castellano e inglés)
- Audioguía (disponible en catalán, castellano e inglés)
- The Pilgrim from Askeaton, 12 September 2023
- Cover Story, May 2022: Things Things Say in print, 2 May 2022
- New publication: “Things Things Say” now available, 28 Feb 2022
- Premiere del vídeo “A knot which is not” [Un nus que no ho és] (2020–21) de Eulàlia Rovira, 15 febrero 2021
- Reseñas: Exposición ‘Cosas que las cosas dicen’ en Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 11 January 2021
- Cover Story–January 2021: ‘Things Things Say’: ‘VIP's Union’, 1 January 2021
- Performance “One motif says to the other: I can’t take my eyes off you” by Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler in the exhibition ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’, 17 September 2018
New publication: “Things Things Say” (2021) now available
Mon, Feb 28 2022
Photos: Latitudes
Texts by: Joana Hurtado Matheu, Latitudes and Eulàlia Rovira
Edited and coordinated by: Latitudes and Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani
Publisher: Ajuntament de Barcelona. Institut de Cultura de Barcelona / Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani
Graphic design: Bendita Gloria
Format: 16 x 11cm, hardcover, 180 pages
Language: Catalan with Spanish & English translations
ISBN: 978-84-9156-386-0
Date of Publication: December 2021
Price: 10 Euros
Availability: Llibreria Laie, Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani, Sala Ciutat of the Ajuntament de Barcelona and Diputació de Barcelona bookstore.
The publication of the exhibition ‘Things Things Say’ is finally out! The show was curated by Latitudes at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani between October 2020 and January 2021.
Designed by Bendita Gloria, the volume includes a preface by art centre director Joana Hurtado Matheu, new texts by exhibition curators, a text-based intervention by participating artist Eulàlia Rovira, and texts on each exhibited work.
Latitudes’ text “And Another Thing...” comprises a series of responses to the 33 questions that confronted visitors and took the place of the conventional introductory wall text. The responses variously take the form of quotations, historical references, anecdotes, and theoretical snippets that often do not provide direct answers but instead further expand on the research and imaginary of the exhibition.
(Above and two below) Stills from ‘A Knot Which is Not’ (2020–21) by Eulàlia Rovira. Video, 12'21''. Courtesy of the artist.
Rovira was also invited to produce new work in response to the exhibition. Resulting in the performance for the camera “A Knot Which is Not” (2020–21), the work summarises her research around the narratives and stories emerging from the industrial complex where the show took place, once dedicated to the manufacturing of cotton thread. “A Knot Which is Not” premiered online once the exhibition concluded and the exhibition galleries were empty. And finally, she contributed a text to the publication based on her research leading to the making of the film weaving its spoken words into the printed lines of the physical page.
(Above and below) View of the exhibition “Things Things Say” at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, October 2020–January 2021. Photos: Eva Carasol.
“Coses que les coses diuen” [Things Things Say] accompanies the homonymous exhibition curated by Latitudes that took place at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani between October 2020 and January 2021, presenting works by Adrià Julià, Annette Kelm, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Sarah Ortmeyer, Eulàlia Rovira, Francesc Serra i Dimas, Stuart Whipps, Haegue Yang, as well as meaningful things from the Friends of Fabra i Coats archive.
→ RELATED CONTENT:
- ‘Things Things Say’ in social networks;
- Premiere del vídeo “A knot which is not” [Un nus que no ho és] (2020–21) de Eulàlia Rovira, 15 febrero 2021
- Reseñas: Exposición ‘Cosas que las cosas dicen’ en Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 11 January 2021
- Trailer and photo documentation of the exhibition ‘Things Things Say’, 4 Nov 2020
- 6 de noviembre, 17:45h: Proyección ‘Popcorn’ [Palomita] (90', 2012) de Adrià Julià en el Zumzeig Cinema, 29 Oct 2020
- e-flux – Fall 2020 exhibitions and programs at Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona, 17 October 2020
- Exhibition ‘Things Things Say’, Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona, 17 October 2020–17 January 2021, 9 Oct 2020
Cover Story—November 2020: ‘Things Things Say’: Stuart Whipps’
Sun, Nov 1 2020
“Another car strike. Marvellous, isn’t it? The taxpayers pay ’em millions each year, they get the money, go on strike. It’s called socialism. If they don’t like making cars, why don’t they get themselves another bloody job—designing cathedrals or composing violin concertos. The British Leyland Concerto—in four movements, all of them slow, with a four-hour tea-break in between...”
→ Continue reading
→ After November 2020 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.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
→ After November 2020 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.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
- Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
- Cover Story—October 2020: Incidents (of Travel) Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, 2 Oct 2020
- Cover Story—September 2020: States of emergency—Lola Lasurt’s ‘Children’s Game’, 1 Sept 2020
- Cover Story—August 2020: ‘Màquina possible’: going viral at Can Balaguer, 1 Aug 2020
- Cover Story—July 2020: Nino Kvrivishvili’s silk roads: Incidents (of Travel), Tbilisi, 1 Jul 2020
- Cover Story—June 2020: Mataró Chauffeur Service, since 2010, 1 June 2020
- Cover Story—May 2020: Panama, back through the lens, 4 May 2020
- Cover Story—March-April 2020: The Bolós Cabinet, 3 March 2020
- Cover Story—February 2020: Carioca Incidents, 3 February 2020
- Cover Story—January 2020: Safeguarding Gestures, 2 January 2020
Exhibition ‘Things Things Say’, Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona, 17 October 2020–17 January 2021
Fri, Oct 9 2020
The group show ‘Things Things Say’ (Coses que les coses diuen) and the solo exhibition ‘Tone Tongue Mouth’ (‘to llengua boca’) by Dutch artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh open concurrently at Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona on Saturday 17 October 2020 from 12 pm.
‘Things Things Say’
Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
17 October 2020 – 17 January 2021
Curated by Latitudes
An exhibition with works by Adrià Julià (1974, lives in Barcelona and Bergen), Annette Kelm (1975, lives in Berlin), James N. Kienitz Wilkins (1983, lives in New York), Sarah Ortmeyer (1980, lives in Vienna), Eulàlia Rovira (1985, lives in Barcelona), Francesc Serra i Dimas (1877–1967, Barcelona), Stuart Whipps (1979, lives in Birmingham), Haegue Yang (1971, lives in Berlin and Seoul), as well as meaningful things from the Friends of Fabra i Coats archive.
Do you trust things to write human history? Do things’ lives matter? Can a pebble destroy an empire if the emperor chokes at dinner? Would the pebble stand accused? Do you really think that if you stare at something long enough, it will reveal its secrets? Have you ever wondered why there is a hole in a donut? Did you ever own a pair of dungarees? Does a desire to write about a small car indicate some fear of its inadequacy? Does popcorn hold firm opinions? Is the key key? Are you familiar with the Luddites? Have you heard the expressions “how long is a piece of string?”, or “exceptional typical”?
The exhibition ‘Things Things Say’ springs from the past of Fabra i Coats as an industrial complex once dedicated to the manufacturing of cotton thread. The factory represented the first merger between a Catalan company and a foreign multinational and the first in Spain to offer its workers paid holidays. The exhibition evokes this novel and curious kind of place, a place comprised of many places and people, vastly different scales, temporalities, and values. Things, and spectres of things, that might at first seem exceptionally normal, apparently obsolete, or inert, each bring often-extraordinary stories or offer telling evidence, temporarily becoming new protagonists in the art centre community.
In the setting of the bygone factory, the works in the exhibition introduce a perspective on how the modern world has been shaped through complex and contentious relationships between humans and the web of life. Taking on the popular XVIII century genre of the ‘it-narrative’ in English literature and the approach of ‘object journalism’ against a background of world history and ecology, ‘Things Things Say’ and the exhibition ‘4.543 billion. The Matter of Matter’ (CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2017–18) are imagined as a diptych: two folds with the same hinge that tacks back-and-forth between deep time and microhistory, natural history and the history of capitalism.
Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona
c. Sant Adrià 20
08030 Barcelona
(+34) 932 566 155
[email protected]
https://www.barcelona.cat/fabraicoats/centredart
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturdays, 12 to 8 pm
Sunday and Holidays, 11 to 3 pm
Free guided tours every Saturday at 18 pm and Sundays at 12:30 pm
Limited capacity. Pre-registration at [email protected]
→ RELATED CONTENT:
‘Things Things Say’
Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
17 October 2020 – 17 January 2021
Curated by Latitudes
An exhibition with works by Adrià Julià (1974, lives in Barcelona and Bergen), Annette Kelm (1975, lives in Berlin), James N. Kienitz Wilkins (1983, lives in New York), Sarah Ortmeyer (1980, lives in Vienna), Eulàlia Rovira (1985, lives in Barcelona), Francesc Serra i Dimas (1877–1967, Barcelona), Stuart Whipps (1979, lives in Birmingham), Haegue Yang (1971, lives in Berlin and Seoul), as well as meaningful things from the Friends of Fabra i Coats archive.
Do you trust things to write human history? Do things’ lives matter? Can a pebble destroy an empire if the emperor chokes at dinner? Would the pebble stand accused? Do you really think that if you stare at something long enough, it will reveal its secrets? Have you ever wondered why there is a hole in a donut? Did you ever own a pair of dungarees? Does a desire to write about a small car indicate some fear of its inadequacy? Does popcorn hold firm opinions? Is the key key? Are you familiar with the Luddites? Have you heard the expressions “how long is a piece of string?”, or “exceptional typical”?
The exhibition ‘Things Things Say’ springs from the past of Fabra i Coats as an industrial complex once dedicated to the manufacturing of cotton thread. The factory represented the first merger between a Catalan company and a foreign multinational and the first in Spain to offer its workers paid holidays. The exhibition evokes this novel and curious kind of place, a place comprised of many places and people, vastly different scales, temporalities, and values. Things, and spectres of things, that might at first seem exceptionally normal, apparently obsolete, or inert, each bring often-extraordinary stories or offer telling evidence, temporarily becoming new protagonists in the art centre community.
In the setting of the bygone factory, the works in the exhibition introduce a perspective on how the modern world has been shaped through complex and contentious relationships between humans and the web of life. Taking on the popular XVIII century genre of the ‘it-narrative’ in English literature and the approach of ‘object journalism’ against a background of world history and ecology, ‘Things Things Say’ and the exhibition ‘4.543 billion. The Matter of Matter’ (CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2017–18) are imagined as a diptych: two folds with the same hinge that tacks back-and-forth between deep time and microhistory, natural history and the history of capitalism.
Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona
c. Sant Adrià 20
08030 Barcelona
(+34) 932 566 155
[email protected]
https://www.barcelona.cat/fabraicoats/centredart
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturdays, 12 to 8 pm
Sunday and Holidays, 11 to 3 pm
Free guided tours every Saturday at 18 pm and Sundays at 12:30 pm
Limited capacity. Pre-registration at [email protected]
→ RELATED CONTENT:
- Save the date: 19 September 2018 at 7 pm, opening Joan Morey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring machine, working machine’, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats 3 September 2018
- Photo report: Trip to Berlin Gallery Weekend 2018 and Cologne 9 May 2018
- Works by Stuart Whipps in the exhibition ‘4.543 billion. The matter of matter’, CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2017–18.
- Work by Stuart Whipps at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux
- Work and performance by Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler included in ‘Cream Cheese and Pretty Ribbons!’, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, 2018.
- Latitudes in conversation with Haegue Yang, Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona, 3 May 2017.
- Tote by Haegue Yang for Latitudes' 10º anniversary, 2015.
- Work by Sarah Ortmeyer in the exhibition 'Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes & des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne', Meessen de Clercq, Brussels, 2011.
- Work by Haegue Yang in the exhibition ‘Sequelism Part 3: Possible, Probable, or Preferable Futures’, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2009.
Reviews of the exhibition "4.543 billion. The matter of matter" at the CAPC musée, Bordeaux
Fri, Jan 19 2018As the ‘4.543 billion. The matter of matter’ exhibition concluded on January 7, 2018, at the CAPC musée in Bordeaux, we finished archiving all the social media posts visitors, the museum and ourselves have published – see our Wakelet feed below – since research phase to the exhibition itself, and below share the most relevant print and online reviews.
December 8, 2017: Tom Jeffreys highlighted the exhibition in his "Looking Back: Paris" roundup for frieze magazine – illustrated with two works included in the show by Nicholas Mangan and Alexandra Navratil.
"A little less academic, but no less rigorous, was ‘4,543 milliards’ (4,543 billion), curated by the Barcelona-based Latitudes (co-founded by frieze contributing editor Max Andrews) at CAPC, Bordeaux. Subtitled ‘The matter of matter’, the exhibition provided a material, geological and political response to the building’s former life as a warehouse for colonial commodities and, by extension, the complex entanglement of culture, money, politics and ecological impact. Marble from Trump Tower (Amie Siegel’s "Strata", 2017) was exhibited alongside partially-burnt documents rescued from a fire at the Bordeaux municipal archives and a 1939 mock invitation to the ‘Museum of Standard Oil’, actually MoMA’s new building, issued by the then-publications director, Frances Collins (unsurprisingly fired soon after). Combining archival materials with work by 30 artists, big ideas with specificity and nuance, this was exactly the kind of exhibition I would want to return to again and again. If the selection of the next artistic director the Venice Biennale were a democratic process, I’d be voting for Latitudes."
November 28, 2017: Frank Browning, Paris-based Contributor to the Huffington Post author, and former NPR Correspondent, reviewed the recently opened retrospective of Beatriz González and concluded his article with a short mention:
"Meanwhile, around the corner at CAPC there’s an intriguing assembly of stones, papers, paintings, photographs and projections that unite geo-physics, sculpture, and art history, including the conversion of the building itself from a one-time commodities warehouse into its current life as a museum.
Entitled “The Matter of Matter,” [missing "4.543 billion" years, the age of the Earth, and the first part of the exhibition title] it includes the work of 30 artists, assembled and mounted by a Spanish team, Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna. They call themselves Latitudes [wrongly published with two "T"]; they aim to excavate the world we inhabit daily, be it through the history indigo mining in Mexico and southern France (vital for fine pottery and coloring bluejeans) or oil extraction in Venezuela, gas infused sculptures or open pit diamond mining in southern Africa. All that we do, all that we eat, all that we create derives from one form of excavation or another. Simple truism as it may seem, Latitudes takes us into the intimacies of our relation with this earth and calls us to meditate on our physical and aesthetic relation to the steadily warming round rock that is our home."
September 20, 2017: Emmanuel Labails of RCF Radio did a 9-minute interview with Pedro Jiménez Morras, Head of Press of CAPC, who discussed the premises of the exhibition and some of its works. (Listen between minute 4:39 and 13:36).
August 19, 2017: Bea Espejo's ‘Cambio de tiempo’, on the Spanish national cultural supplement Babelia, in El País newspaper begins:
˝A ese pensamiento geológico del tiempo conduce la exposición 4.543 millones. La cuestión de la materia en el CAPC de Burdeos. La muestra aborda obras de arte, colecciones e historias culturales con relación a procesos ecológicos y la escala geológica del tiempo. En total, más de 35 artistas que dan valor a las discontinuidades, a las derivas y a las ausencias. La muestra almacena el tiempo como una batería almacena la energía. Y lo hace en varias capas de lectura. Una de ellas es el tiempo que lleva Latitudes, la oficina curatorial de Mariana Cánepa Luna y Max Andrews, trabajando en este proyecto, seguramente el más complejo y ambicioso, aunque esta investigación en torno a las complejas relaciones entre la ecología y el arte contemporáneo está en la base de todos sus proyectos desde 2005. Aquí no pueden ser más rotundos. Abordan la cuestión de la materia desde el lado más inmaterial, que es la memoria. Para ello, estudiaron a fondo el contexto de la ciudad bajo un programa de residencias del museo. Hablamos, pues, de un proyecto de investigación, algo que se traduce en cada pequeño gesto que recoge la muestra, y que lo expande todo. De ahí las relaciones de algunas obras con el departamento de zoología de la universidad (Ilana Halperin), el Museo de Bellas Artes (Stuart Whipps, o el préstamo de Alfred Roll), así como los muchos documentos y objetos que se incluyen de los archivos Métropole, de la Gironde y la colección geológica de la UFR Sciences de la Terre et de la Mer, de la Universidad de Burdeos.˝
July 12, 2017: Catherine Darfay's ‘Le CAPC remonte le temps’ on the local newspaper "Sudouest", was the first feature. The article was illustrated with a with an image showing Amy Balkin's ‘Today’s CO2 Spot Price’ (2009) chartering the daily price of carbon dioxide emissions allowances in the world’s largest carbon market —a changing value documented in this blog post.
RELATED CONTENT:
2017, 4543 billion, Alexandra Navratil, amie siegel, Amy Balkin, CAPC Bordeaux, cover story, Frieze, Ilana Halperin, Latitudes-curated, Nicholas Mangan, press coverage, reseña, Reviews, Stuart Whipps, Wakelet
Wakelet collection of the "4.543 billion" exhibition.
December 8, 2017: Tom Jeffreys highlighted the exhibition in his "Looking Back: Paris" roundup for frieze magazine – illustrated with two works included in the show by Nicholas Mangan and Alexandra Navratil.
"A little less academic, but no less rigorous, was ‘4,543 milliards’ (4,543 billion), curated by the Barcelona-based Latitudes (co-founded by frieze contributing editor Max Andrews) at CAPC, Bordeaux. Subtitled ‘The matter of matter’, the exhibition provided a material, geological and political response to the building’s former life as a warehouse for colonial commodities and, by extension, the complex entanglement of culture, money, politics and ecological impact. Marble from Trump Tower (Amie Siegel’s "Strata", 2017) was exhibited alongside partially-burnt documents rescued from a fire at the Bordeaux municipal archives and a 1939 mock invitation to the ‘Museum of Standard Oil’, actually MoMA’s new building, issued by the then-publications director, Frances Collins (unsurprisingly fired soon after). Combining archival materials with work by 30 artists, big ideas with specificity and nuance, this was exactly the kind of exhibition I would want to return to again and again. If the selection of the next artistic director the Venice Biennale were a democratic process, I’d be voting for Latitudes."
"Meanwhile, around the corner at CAPC there’s an intriguing assembly of stones, papers, paintings, photographs and projections that unite geo-physics, sculpture, and art history, including the conversion of the building itself from a one-time commodities warehouse into its current life as a museum.
Entitled “The Matter of Matter,” [missing "4.543 billion" years, the age of the Earth, and the first part of the exhibition title] it includes the work of 30 artists, assembled and mounted by a Spanish team, Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna. They call themselves Latitudes [wrongly published with two "T"]; they aim to excavate the world we inhabit daily, be it through the history indigo mining in Mexico and southern France (vital for fine pottery and coloring bluejeans) or oil extraction in Venezuela, gas infused sculptures or open pit diamond mining in southern Africa. All that we do, all that we eat, all that we create derives from one form of excavation or another. Simple truism as it may seem, Latitudes takes us into the intimacies of our relation with this earth and calls us to meditate on our physical and aesthetic relation to the steadily warming round rock that is our home."
September 20, 2017: Emmanuel Labails of RCF Radio did a 9-minute interview with Pedro Jiménez Morras, Head of Press of CAPC, who discussed the premises of the exhibition and some of its works. (Listen between minute 4:39 and 13:36).
August 19, 2017: Bea Espejo's ‘Cambio de tiempo’, on the Spanish national cultural supplement Babelia, in El País newspaper begins:
˝A ese pensamiento geológico del tiempo conduce la exposición 4.543 millones. La cuestión de la materia en el CAPC de Burdeos. La muestra aborda obras de arte, colecciones e historias culturales con relación a procesos ecológicos y la escala geológica del tiempo. En total, más de 35 artistas que dan valor a las discontinuidades, a las derivas y a las ausencias. La muestra almacena el tiempo como una batería almacena la energía. Y lo hace en varias capas de lectura. Una de ellas es el tiempo que lleva Latitudes, la oficina curatorial de Mariana Cánepa Luna y Max Andrews, trabajando en este proyecto, seguramente el más complejo y ambicioso, aunque esta investigación en torno a las complejas relaciones entre la ecología y el arte contemporáneo está en la base de todos sus proyectos desde 2005. Aquí no pueden ser más rotundos. Abordan la cuestión de la materia desde el lado más inmaterial, que es la memoria. Para ello, estudiaron a fondo el contexto de la ciudad bajo un programa de residencias del museo. Hablamos, pues, de un proyecto de investigación, algo que se traduce en cada pequeño gesto que recoge la muestra, y que lo expande todo. De ahí las relaciones de algunas obras con el departamento de zoología de la universidad (Ilana Halperin), el Museo de Bellas Artes (Stuart Whipps, o el préstamo de Alfred Roll), así como los muchos documentos y objetos que se incluyen de los archivos Métropole, de la Gironde y la colección geológica de la UFR Sciences de la Terre et de la Mer, de la Universidad de Burdeos.˝
July 12, 2017: Catherine Darfay's ‘Le CAPC remonte le temps’ on the local newspaper "Sudouest", was the first feature. The article was illustrated with a with an image showing Amy Balkin's ‘Today’s CO2 Spot Price’ (2009) chartering the daily price of carbon dioxide emissions allowances in the world’s largest carbon market —a changing value documented in this blog post.
RELATED CONTENT:
- “4.543 billion. The Matter of Matter” exhibition
- Archive of social networks posts related to "4.543 billion"
- Photo gallery of the exhibition
- CAPC website (French, English, Spanish) http://www.capc-bordeaux.fr/programme/4543-milliards
- Cover Story—December 2017: "Tabet's Tapline trajectory" 4 December 2017
- Alfred Roll's 1878 "The Old Quarryman" exchanged with Alfred Smith's "The Grave Docks" (1884) in the exhibition "4.543 billion" at the CAPC musée 3 November 2017
- Cover Story—November 2017: "Mining negative monuments: Ângela Ferreira, Stone Free, and The Return of the Earth" 1 November 2017
- 15 November 2017, 4:30–8pm: 'The Return of the Earth. Ecologising art history in the Anthropocene' study day at the CAPC musée, Bordeaux 24 October 201
- Cover Story – July 2017: 4.543 billion 3 July 2017
- Cover Story – May 2017: S is for Shale, or Stuart; W is for Waterfall, or Whipps 1 May 2017
- SAVE THE DATE: 29 June, 19h. Private view of the exhibition "4.543 billion. The matter of matter" at the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux 30 May 2017
- Cover Story – May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux 10 May 2016.
- Second research trip to Bordeaux 16 July 2016
2017 in 12 monthly Cover Stories
Fri, Dec 22 2017Another year has gone by!
Revisit some of Latitudes' past–present–future–ongoing projects through our online archive of Monthly Cover Stories, a chance to focus on an artwork, article, event, film, exhibition, excursion or ongoing train of thoughts.
Cover Story – January 2017: "How open are open calls?", 4 January 2017
Cover Story — February 2017: "The Dutch Assembly, five years on", 1 February 2017
Cover Story – March 2017: "Time travel with Jordan Wolfson", 1 March 2017
Cover Story – April 2017: "Banff Geologic Time", 3 April 2017
Cover Story – May 2017: "S is for Shale or Stuart; W is for Waterfall, or Whipps", 1 May 2017
Cover Story – June 2017: "Moth light—Absent Forms", 1 June 2017
Cover Story – July 2017: "4.543 billion", 3 July 2017
Cover Story – August 2017: "Walden 7; or, life in Sant Just Desvern", 1 August 2017
Cover Story – October 2017: "Geologic Time at Stanley Glacier", 11 October 2017
Cover Story—November 2017: "Mining negative monuments: Ângela Ferreira, Stone Free, and The Return of the Earth", 1 November 2017
Cover Story—December 2017: "Tabet’s Tapline trajectory", 4 December 2017
RELATED CONTENT:
Latitudes' Cover Story archive,
Latitudes' writing archive,
Latitudes' newsletters.
2017, 4543 billion, Anna Moreno, Barcelona Producció, CAPC Bordeaux, Charlotte Moth, cover story, curatorial writing, David Mutiloa, Frieze, Jordan Wolfson, report, Stuart Whipps, The Banff Center
Revisit some of Latitudes' past–present–future–ongoing projects through our online archive of Monthly Cover Stories, a chance to focus on an artwork, article, event, film, exhibition, excursion or ongoing train of thoughts.
Cover Story – January 2017: "How open are open calls?", 4 January 2017
Cover Story – August 2017: "Walden 7; or, life in Sant Just Desvern", 1 August 2017
Cover Story – September 2017: "Dark Disruption. David Mutiloa's 'Synthesis'", 1 September 2017
RELATED CONTENT:
Latitudes' Cover Story archive,
Latitudes' writing archive,
Latitudes' newsletters.
Alfred Roll's 1878 "The Old Quarryman" exchanged with Alfred Smith's "The Grave Docks" (1884) in the exhibition "4.543 billion" at the CAPC musée
Fri, Nov 3 2017 |
| “Le Vieux Carrier” [The Old Quarryman] (1878) by Alfred Roll (Paris, 1846–1919). Collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. |
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| Alfred Smith's (Bordeaux, 1854–Paris, 1936) “Le Quai de la Grave” [The Grave Docks] (1884). Collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. |
We are very grateful to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux for agreeing to these wonderful loans. In turn, and in companion to three artworks from 2012–3 exhibited at the CAPC, Birmingham-based artist Stuart Whipps is presenting a new off-site work entitled "Thin Section: Scottish Shale" (2017) in the galleries of the Musée des Beaux-Arts.
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| (Above and below) Views of Stuart Whipps' "Thin Section: Scottish Shale" (2017) at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. Photo: Latitudes. |
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| Photo: Latitudes. |
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| (Left, floor) Stuart Whipps' "Thin Section: Scottish Shale" (2017) and (right, above) “Le Quai de la Grave” [The Grave Docks] (1884) by Alfred Smith (Bordeaux, 1854–Paris, 1936), painting that will be exchanged on November 6, 2017, with Alfred Roll's “Le Vieux Carrier” [The Old Quarryman] (1878). Photo: Latitudes. |
A 0.5mm thick sliver of Scottish Shale rock (a gas-harbouring rock similar to schist) cut from a sample with a diamond saw is treated as if it were a photographic slide by being displayed on a Reflecta AFM 2000 slide projector, a model that has an in-built display monitor. The luminous minerals contained within the shale rock—quartz, calcite, dolomite, feldspars, mica, pyrite...—appear in 1:1 scale.
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| (Above and below) Views of the exhibition room at the CAPC musée that includes Alfred Roll's portrait. The room includes works by Maria Thereza Alves, Ângela Ferreira, Antoine J. Aalders and Stuart Whipps. Photo: Latitudes/RK. |
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Photo: Latitudes/RK.
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Between 1878 and 1894, Alfred Roll (Paris, 1846–1919) painted a series of Realist works depicting the world of industry, and more pointedly, comprising statements of solidarity with the harsh circumstances of the worker at a time of great social unrest. Representing an elderly quarryman in his smock, “Le Vieux Carrier” [The Old Quarryman] (1878) began this sequence when it was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1879. It is one of the few Roll portraits whose subject remains anonymous, yet the man depicted was undoubtedly a genuine labourer rather than a model—the artist was later known to welcome miners and their families to sit for portraits in his studio. Is it not known where the man would have been working. Yet given Roll’s later depiction of stonemasons on a quayside in Suresnes, near Paris, (“Le Travail, chantier de Suresnes (Seine)”, 1885), one might speculate that “Le Vieux Carrier” represents both the large-scale infrastructural projects taking place around the capital at the time, as well as the increasing reorganization of the French workforce in the extractive industries through retiring older workers and cutting wages.
Roll would go on to spend several months living and working in the coal mines of Charleroi, Belgium, and Anzin, in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of northern France, and he presented the celebrated painting “Grève des mineurs” [Miners’ strike] at the 1880 Salon. Roll seems to have painted from the perspective that exhaustion unfolds through human labour systems as much as through the depletion of raw materials.
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| (Unframed) Alfred Smith's (Bordeaux, 1854–Paris, 1936) “Le Quai de la Grave” [The Grave Docks] (1884). Collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. |
“Le Quai de la Grave” [The Grave Docks] (1884) is one of a number of Bordeaux cityscapes by the painter Alfred Smith (Bordeaux, 1854–Paris, 1936) in which the effects of the weather and the time of the day are treated with great fidelity. A mason appears to be sizing-up a large limestone block that has been brought downriver by boat. Other workers take a rest in the shade of the water tank and the sentry box during what appears to be a scorching hot summer afternoon in Bordeaux. The seasonal movement of migrant stonemasons from central France, especially the Creuse département, was an established and widespread feature of the construction industry by the late eighteenth century. Migrants had travelled by foot for centuries, but with the introduction of railways to central France in the 1850s, this began to change. Paris was the main magnet, but many young men also departed every March to look for work in Lyon, Bordeaux, and other cities.
Until at least the beginning of the twentieth century, construction in France was defined by the cutting, dressing, and placing of stone and the industry would have encompassed a wide range of specialist and physically demanding jobs—from quarrymen to masons, roofers, and pavers. By the time of Smith’s depiction, much of the precision of stone cutting would have been done at the quarry site itself. Finishing, polishing and decoration would have been carried out on site. Building work had started to organize trade unions in the early 1880s and a national building trades’ federation was founded in Bordeaux in 1892.
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‘4.543 billion’ is the contribution of the CAPC musée to the cultural season Paysages Bordeaux 2017.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Archive of social networks related to "4.543 billion"
- Photo gallery of the exhibition
- CAPC website (French, English, Spanish) http://www.capc-bordeaux.fr/programme/4543-milliards
- 15 November 2017, 4:30–8pm: 'The Return of the Earth. Ecologising art history in the Anthropocene' study day at the CAPC musée, Bordeaux 24 October 2017
- Cover Story—November 2017: "Mining negative monuments: Ângela Ferreira, Stone Free, and The Return of the Earth" 1 November 2017
- Cover Story – July 2017: 4.543 billion 3 July 2017
- Cover Story – May 2017: S is for Shale, or Stuart; W is for Waterfall, or Whipps 1 May 2017
- SAVE THE DATE: 29 June, 19h. Private view of the exhibition "4.543 billion. The matter of matter" at the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux 30 May 2017
- Cover Story – May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux 10 May 2016.
- Second research trip to Bordeaux 16 July 2016
Cover Story – May 2017: "S is for Shale, or Stuart; W is for Waterfall, or Whipps"
Mon, May 1 2017
The May 2017 Monthly Cover Story "S is for Shale, or Stuart; W is for Waterfall, or Whipps" is now up on www.lttds.org – after May it will be archived here.
"Today, as for millennia, the mighty River Zambezi is crashing over a series of precipitous basalt gorges—a place the Makololo people described as Mosi-oa-Tunya. The smoke that thunders. Since the 1870s, a Scottish stream has been plunging over a diminutive replica, seen in this month’s video Cover Story, located in the gardens of a mansion that is now a country house hotel (by all accounts with an enviable breakfast) in the village of Polbeth, less than an hour’s drive from Edinburgh." Continue reading
Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage and feature past, present or forthcoming projects, research, writing, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial activities.
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