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