LONGITUDES

Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.

Report: Latitudes' participation in the festival TODAY IS OUR TOMORROW initiated by PUBLICS in Helsinki

Poster announcing the festival in a street in central Helsinki. Photo: Latitudes.

As partner organisation in the transdisciplinary festival ‘Today Is Our Tomorrow’ initiated by PUBLICS, Latitudes' participation consisted in inviting Argentinian-born, Amsterdam-based artist Mercedes Azpilicueta, to perform at Club Kaiku on September 13, 2019.

Façade of Kaiku, Helsinki.

A day earlier, on September 12, 2019, Latitudes and Mercedes maintained an open conversation introducing her artistic practice and, in particular advancing details of both her ‘Yegua-Yeta-Yuta’ performance taking place a day after, as well as her forthcoming solo exhibition at CentroCentro, Madrid, opening October 3, 2019, and her solo presentation as part of Van Abbemuseum's Positions #5’, a series of exhibitions presenting the work of artists working in the Netherlands.

September 12, 2019, 5:30–6:30h: (Above and below) Mercedes, Mariana and Max (Latitudes) in conversation at Club Kaiku. Photo: Jonni Korhonen/PUBLICS.
Photo: Jonni Korhonen/PUBLICS.
Photo: Aman Askarizad/PUBLICS.

Azpilicueta performed ‘Yegua-yeta-yuta’ (2015-ongoing), an evolving solo performance that is part scripted, part improvised. Composed from a litany of hundreds of pejorative, abusive, and vulgar insults directed at women in Argentina, it transforms the everyday language of misogyny and harassment into a kind of tragicomic exorcism. Many of the words derive from the street slang of Buenos Aires, especially Lunfardo, a colloquial and cryptic dialect that first arose among working-class Italian-immigrant and tango communities in Argentina and Uruguay during the late 1800s. For example, yegua literally means a mare – a female horse, a slur for a “difficult” woman. A yeta is a person who brings bad luck, while a yuta is someone corrupt or unscrupulous, and slang for the police. Accompanied by a percussive beat, Azpilicueta reclaims the power to offend, distorting and distending the epithets into something powerful and playful rather than weak and degrading. Azpilicueta performed to the beat of a new soundtrack produced for the occasion in collaboration with Chilean choreographer Rodrigo Sobarzo de Larraechea

See documentation on our photo gallery.

Photo: Aman Askarizad/PUBLICS.

Mercedes Azpilicueta during her performance ‘Yegua-Yeta-Yuta’ (2015-ongoing) for TODAY IS OUR TOMORROW festival, organised by PUBLICS, Helsinki. Photo: Latitudes.
Photo: Jonni Korhonen/PUBLICS.

Photo: Aman Askarizad/PUBLICS.


Photo: Kush Badhwar/PUBLICS.


Photo: Kush Badhwar/PUBLICS.
Photo: Kush Badhwar/PUBLICS.

Photo: Kush Badhwar/PUBLICS.

Photo: Latitudes.


Mercedes Azpilicueta is an Argentinian visual and performance artist based in Amsterdam. Her practice has spanned theatrical mises-en-scènes and video installations, textile sculptures and drawing, sound works and 3D animation. With a particular interest in notions of the vulnerable or collective body, and the primal or dissident voice, her works have drawn inspiration from sources as diverse as Baroque painting, text messaging, medieval tapestries, street slang, and literary fiction, as well as singular figures including the Italian art critic and feminist activist Carla Lonzi (1931–1982), the Argentine-French performance artist Lea Lublin (1929–1999), the French futurist Valentine de Saint-Point (1875–1953), and the Costa Rican-born Mexican ranchera singer Chavela Vargas (1919–2012). A major survey of Azpilicueta’s work to date, ‘Cuerpos Pájaros’ (Body-birds) was recently staged by the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art (November 2018–April 2019 — see Latitudes' Buenos Aires report). On October 3, 2019, she presents ‘Bestiario de Lengüitas’ (Bestiaire of Tonguelets), curated by Virginie Bobin, at CentroCentro, Madrid, an exhibition which will then tour to Museion, Bozen, and CAC Brétigny in 2020. Later in 2019, she will have a solo presentation as part of ‘Positions #5’ at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.


(Above) Mercedes during her performance ‘Oh, Eduarda!’ on April 14, 2019, presented at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires. Photo: Latitudes.

→ RELATED CONTENTS
Stacks Image 39


Partner organisation in ‘Today Is Our Tomorrow’, participation with Mercedes Azpilicueta, PUBLICS – club Kaiku, Helsinki, 12–14 September 2019

Graphic identity of the art festival. Design: julia.studio.


Today Is Our Tomorrow’ is a collaborative, collective, and transdisciplinary festival initiated by Helsinki-based curatorial agency PUBLICS, produced in partnership with local and international organisations, initiatives and institutions. The programme will include a co-commissioned and collaboratively curated programme of temporary public art commissions, live performance, music, dance, theatre, literature and symposia, and will pilot in Club Kaiku complex in Kallio, an underground music venue renowned for hosting an innovative lineup of DJs, and the neighbouring spaces Kieku and Stidilä.

The 2019 edition of ‘Today Is Our Tomorrow’ is curated, commissioned, organised in collaboration with the Finnish partners: Academy of Fine Arts, Baltic Circle, Globe Art Point, IHME Helsinki, Kohta Gallery, Live Art and Performance Studies (LAPS), and Museum of Impossible Forms, and the international partners Index Foundation from Stockholm, osloBIENNALEN from Oslo, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art from Riga, and Latitudes from Barcelona.

The programme looks at ‘other’ versions of the present already being lived in Finland and globally: from Alternative futures to Indigenous-futures, to Afro-futures, to Asian-futures, to Eco-futures, to Bio-futures, to Queer and Feminist futures, and to non-hegemonic futures.

Graphic identity of the art festival.


At the invitation of PUBLICS to participate in the festival, Latitudes has invited Buenos Aires-born, Amsterdam-based artist Mercedes Azpilicueta to present her performance ‘Yegua-yeta-yuta’ at Kieku (ground loor, next to Stidilä) on Friday 13 September, 11–11:30pm. A day earlier, on Thursday 12 September, Latitudes will be in conversation with the artist at 5:30h also at Kieku.

Yegua-yeta-yuta’ (2015-ongoing) is an evolving solo performance by Azpilicueta that is part scripted, part improvised. Composed from a litany of hundreds of pejorative, abusive, and vulgar insults directed at women in Argentina, it transforms the everyday language of misogyny and harassment into a kind of tragicomic exorcism. Many of the words derive from the street slang of Buenos Aires, especially Lunfardo, a colloquial and cryptic dialect that first arose among working-class Italian-immigrant and tango communities in Argentina and Uruguay during the late 1800s. For example, yegua literally means a mare – a female horse, a slur for a “difficult” woman. A yeta is a person who brings bad luck, while a yuta is someone corrupt or unscrupulous, and slang for the police. Accompanied by a percussive beat, Azpilicueta reclaims the power to offend, distorting and distending the epithets into something powerful and playful rather than weak and degrading. Azpilicueta will perform to the beat of a new soundtrack produced for the occasion in collaboration with Chilean choreographer Rodrigo Sobarzo de Larraechea


Mercedes Azpilicueta performing ‘Yegua-yeta-yuta’ during the 2017 CA2M Picnic Sessions, Móstoles (Madrid). Photo: Arantxa Boyero.


Mercedes Azpilicueta is an Argentine visual and performance artist based in Amsterdam. Her practice has spanned theatrical mises-en-scènes and video installations, textile sculptures and drawing, sound works and 3D animation. With a particular interest in notions of the vulnerable or collective body, and the primal or dissident voice, her works have drawn inspiration from sources as diverse as Baroque painting, text messaging, medieval tapestries, street slang, and literary fiction, as well as singular figures including the Italian art critic and feminist activist Carla Lonzi (1931–1982), the Argentine-French performance artist Lea Lublin (1929–1999), the French futurist Valentine de Saint-Point (1875–1953), and the Costa Rican-born Mexican ranchera singer Chavela Vargas (1919–2012). A major survey of Azpilicueta’s work to date, ‘Cuerpos Pájaros’ (Body-birds) was recently staged by the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art (November 2018–April 2019). In October 2019 she will present ‘Bestiario de Lengüitas’ (Bestiaire of Tonguelets), curated by Virginie Bobin, at CentroCentro, Madrid, an exhibition which will then tour to Museion, Bozen, and CAC Brétigny in 2020. Later in 2019, she will have a solo presentation as part of ‘Positions #5’ at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.



(Above) ‘Bestiario de lengüitas’ (2017-ongoing) pieces included in Mercedes Azpilicueta's solo show ‘Cuerpo pájaros’ recently programmed at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires. Photo: Latitudes.

Running parallel during the same week (9–14 September), Latitudes will attend the ‘Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities’, a six-day event organised by Frame Contemporary Art Finland in which artists, curators, researchers, and audiences in the field of contemporary art ‘are invited to rehearse and debate hospitality towards diverse ways of knowing and challenging of dominant knowledges’. Alongside the public programme, Frame will arrange studio visits, one-on-one meetings and networking situations.

(Two Above) Moments from the performance ‘Oh, Eduarda!’ on April 14, 2019, also presented at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires. Photos: Latitudes.


→ RELATED CONTENTS:
Stacks Image 39


Latitudes partner platform for the 2010 Future Generation Art Prize


PinchukArtCentre has invited Latitudes as one of a number of international non-profit arts organisations acting as platform partners, who will support the Prize by communicating with artists and arts professionals in their regions.

The Future Generation Art Prize 2010 is a world-wide art prize of 100,000 USD. It is open to all artists up to the age of 35. The prize is established to discover and provide long-term support for a generation of emerging artists, wherever they may live and work.

The biennial Prize is distinguished by its global dimension; its focus on a young generation of artists; its open and democratic online application process; the long-term commitment of leading artists of our time; a distinguished Board, Jury and Selection Committee; an exhibition of shortlisted artists at the PinchukArtCentre in Kiev, one of the largest and most active new contemporary art institutions in Europe; and an award of 100,000 USD, to be conferred by a respected international jury.

The jurors are: Daniel Birnbaum (Sweden) — Director of the Städelschule Art Academy, Frankfurt am Main; Director of the Venice Biennale 2009 Okwui Enwezor (Nigeria) — Director of Documenta XI; Former Dean of Academic Affairs and Senior Vice President at San Francisco Art Institute Yuko Hasegawa (Japan) — Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT); former Chief Curator of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa Ivo Mesquita (Brazil) — Chief Curator at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Curator of the 2008 São Paolo Biennial, Eckhard Schneider (Germany) — General Director of the PinchukArtCentre Robert Storr (USA) — Dean of the Yale University School of Art; Director of the Venice Biennale 2007 Ai Weiwei (China) — artist.

The application procedure opened on January 18 and will last until April 18, 2010. Twenty shortlisted artists will show their work in an exhibition at the PinchukArtCentre. The jury will select one main Prize winner who will receive a total of 100,000 USD (60,000 USD as a cash award, and 40,000 USD toward the production of new work). An additional 20,000 USD will be allotted to fund artist-in-residency programs for up to five other special prize winners. Images of works by all the shortlisted artists will be posted on the PAC website, and the public will be invited to vote via the Internet for People's Choice Prize.

Partner platforms (evolving list):


Stacks Image 39



Cookies Advice: We use cookies. If you continue browsing, we consider that you accept their use. Aviso de Cookies: Utilizamos cookies. Si continua navegando, consideramos que acepta su uso.