Tangle of 2012 press and work passes.

 
Haegue Yang, "Tectonic Texture", Cantera de Andrabide, Gautegiz-Arteaga.

 Following an excerpt from the text "Stack of evidence: Haegue Yang" included in the publication "Sentido y Sostenibilidad – Reading" written by Max Andrews' of Latitudes (you can download the full text from Latitudes' writing archive).

"Yang’s project, for Urdaibai – entitled 'Tectonic Texture' – has its beginnings and the bulk of its physical and metaphorical investment in what is perhaps the most traditional of raw materials for artistic decoration and representation: stone. In particular she became interested in the characteristic stones of the Urdaibai region – including grey limestone and Rojo Ereño, which has been quarried in the region since at least Roman times. The latter, also known as Rojo Bilbao, is technically a recrystallised limestone which is a deep meaty red colour with whorls of grey and white which are the fossilised remains of rudists, bivalves which were the major reef builders of the tropical seas of the Cretaceous. Yang proposed a stack in which 80 cm square slabs of Rojo Ereño are alternated with slabs of grey limestone. Additionally, a mason from Urdaibai was commissioned to carve the top surface – a square sandstone plate, also from the region – with a combination of his own raised geometric designs and a series of engraved handprints like impressions left in wet concrete. The five handprints are intended to encourage people to touch the form and initiate a direct contact with the materiality of the stone. 'Tectonic Texture' is installed one of the few Ereño marble quarries in the region which has not been completely abandoned and is surrounded by the stagger-cut cliff faces where millennia of excavations have cut down below the forested surface. The sculptural material of which it is comprised originated from the same quarry. The depth of the quarry witnesses the vast displacement of rock that has taken place, and the steady transposition of a section of landscape which itself originated as ocean life approximately 100 million years ago into symbolic and cultural forms – buildings facades, altars and monuments distributed throughout the Basque country and beyond.

Yang’s work is a kind of non-sculpture – perhaps closer to a memorial or a secular shrine – which connects to a highly-specific local labour tradition, through the apparent paradox of a representation of stone that is itself stone. Its form might also suggest that it is a kind of column or pedestal for an invisible form on top of it – an expectant platform articulated through the reorganisation of the excess symbolic value found in the anthropogenic landscape where it stands. The location of the quarry is somewhat hidden within the landscape of the Urdaibai biosphere reserve, and approaching the work in its context evokes a quasi-mystical feeling despite that fact the area bears the scars of modern industry. With 'Tectonic Texture', Yang was particularly interested in this strange collision of industrial exploitation and managed nature inherent in the site, as well as the Urdaibai region’s pride in its ecological fecundity as a new kind of resource with political dimensions."  

Renata Lucas, "El Visitante", Calle de Santa Clara, Gernika-Lumo. The project involved the planting of a Sibipiruna (Caesalpinia Peltophoroides), a tree native from the artist's birthplace, Brazil, in close proximity to Gernika's oak tree.
 

Pierre Huyghe's "Untilled. Live things and inanimate things, made and not made" (2011–12) photographed during the opening week. An entropic gesamtkunstwerk of plants, bees, concrete, mud, plants, tree branches, bacteria, dogs, construction materials... 3D view of the piece here

 Huyghe's piece photographed 100 days after during the last week of documenta (13). 

Heiser also highlights Tacita Dean, whose "film project involving a camera man commissioned to film in various locations in Kabul didn’t come through because the footage turned out to be flawed, but Dean made the best of it by realizing a whole set of large-scale chalk on blackboard ‘murals’ filling most walls in a former tax office space [in Spohrstr.7] dominated by a beautiful brass-railed stair case and balustrade."

There is a number of artists who could learn a lesson or two from Jérôme Bel’s piece, in terms of how it doesn’t shy away from difficult confrontations and yet steers clear of simplistic demonstrations of ‘taboo-breaking’ or – equally annoying – moralist complacency. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.

When describing the effect of seeing this piece, New York Magazine Jerry Saltz wrote he "was shaken to the core by the formal and emotional pathos in Jérôme Bel’s “dance” involving people with Down syndrome who simply stood onstage, danced for two minutes, then spoke about their perceptions of us watching them. A fourth wall shattered here into a fifth dimension."

Street banner announcing Bonniers Konsthall's 'The Spiral and the Square. Exercises in translatability' guest curated by Jochen Volz and Daniela Castro.

23 August: Opening of Bonniers Konsthall's exhibition with the participation of: Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain; Mauricio Dias & Walter Riedweg; Eugenio Dittborn; Öyvind Fahlström; Cao Guimãraes; Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster; Fredrik Ehlin, Andjeas Ejiksson & Oscar Mangione; Laura Lima; Arto Lindsay; Dora Longo Bahia; Renata Lucas; Raimundas Malašauskas & Marcos Lutyens; Cinthia Marcelle; Rodrigo Matheus; Cildo Meireles; João Modé; Fabio Morais; Rivane Neuenschwander; Natascha Sadr Haghighian; Rirkrit Tiravanija and Haegue Yang.

Above: Two chefs prepare Rivane Neuenschwander's Gastronomic Translations (2005/2011) in temporary tents located outside Bonniers Konsthall: "Gastronomic Translations (2005/2011) has its point of departure in a shopping list that the artist found in Frankfurt. She sent it to two chefs and invited them to prepare a banquet only using the ingredients on the list. On the opening day, Bonniers Konsthall’s visitors can taste the result". [from the Konsthall web].

Rivane Neuenschwander's Gastronomic Translations, 2005-2011, by Team Kungsholmen.

(Entrance) Rirkrit Tiravanija's Untitled 2011 (police police potato grease), 2011, "is a silkscreen-workshop in the entrance of the gallery, where visitors can have a personal and unique t-shirt printed by one of our gallery hosts. The prints are in different languages – but something seems to have gone wrong in the translation." [from the Konsthall web]

Rirkrit Tiravanija's Untitled 2011 (police police potato grease), 2011, in action during the opening evening.

General view of the first exhibition space with (left) Rodrigo Matheus' Nature of Construction (2011) and (right) Haegue Yang's No. 16, Circular Flat – Lotus Robe, 2010. Far back a wooden changing room for Laura Lima's 'Marra' (1996 and 2011) performers.

Haegue Yang, No. 16, Circular Flat – Lotus Robe, 2010: "is a work comprising three light sculptures; simple, white stands in metal, covered in feathers, fabric, cables and other materials." [from the Konsthall web]

Rodrigo Matheus, Nature of Construction (2011): his "works explore representation and perception in art and nature. In Nature of Construction (2011) a metal net is put up between the branches of a tree. This type of net is put up over windows in Brazil in order to stop children from falling out. The Landscape is a kind of diorama in which a landscape painting in the background is contrasted against the authentic, but in an art gallery unnaturally installed, branches and plans in the foreground." [from the Konsthall web]

(above) General view of the second exhibition space where most works were on view: (foreground) Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain's, SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS (2011) "is an adaption of a mysterious Latin palindrome, which can be written in a square and read from all directions. Detanico & Lain have created their own coded alphabet and written the palindrome with concrete slabs on the floor." [from the Konsthall web]. (Background) works by Öyvind Fahlström (left) and Eugenio Dittborn (right).

(above) "Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s Textorama (2011) has its basis in an exhibition she produced for the Hispanic Society of America in 2009-2010. Her exhibition related to the institution’s famous research library. The calligrammatic wall is an exploration and continuation of this library, with excerpts and quotations from canonical as well as unknown works of various languages."

"João Modé's 'Vanish' (2005) incense spirals have a short life cycle. Assembled in clusters, one spiral sets fire to another until only ashes remain." [from the Konsthall web]

Rivane Neuenschwander's "In 'First Love' (2005/2011), viewers can describe their first love to a police artist who creates a “facial composite” – an image that has travelled a long way from the original object of love." [from the Konsthall web]

(Foreground) Stage ready for Arto Lindsay's performance during the opening evening. (Background) "The artist duo Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain’s work is focused on language, and specifically typography. New Roman Times (2011) is a remodelling and reversal of the classic typeface Times New Roman." [from the Konsthall web]

24 August: IASPIS's corridor. Studio visits with Anna Sandgren, Priscila Fernandes, Helen Mirra and Job Ramos.

25 August: Former premises of Moderna Museet, currently hosting The Museum of Architecture.

Moderna Museet's 2004 Rafael Moneo extension with exhibitions on the museum's photography collection and a solo show of Klara Lidén.

25 August: (Below) An amazing discovery: the Biologiska Museet (Biological Museum) in Djurgården, a place that "contains collections of Scandinavian [stuffed!] mammals and birds in their natural habitats. Backgrounds for the dioramas [viewed from two levels] were painted by Bruno Liljefors, and the [1893] building was designed by Agi Lindegren, who used Norwegian medieval stave churches as a model." (from www.visitstockholm.com).

as well as several other galleries opening at the vibrant Hudiksvallsgatan:

Below detail of his work 'Some gestalt forms surveyed, and organized into primary structures, on dates between 2001 – 2011' Site: Loch Ness, Scotland, 2001 - ongoing. Silver gelatin prints, wooden forms, linen lined vitrine.

(Below) Alba S. Enström “Through love and emotions…” opened at the young Crystal