LONGITUDES

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

Max Andrews’ Manifesta 15 highlights in frieze

The Three Chimneys in Sant Adrià del Besòs. Photo © Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana / Arnau Rovira.

Max Andrews from Latitudes (a frieze Contributing Writer) and Angel Lambo (Associate Editor of frieze) shared six highlights of Manifesta 15 for frieze.com 

The 2024 edition of the roving biennial spans 12 cities in and around the Barcelona Metropolitan area, making it one of the most ambitious in scale and reach. However, while its extensive geographical footprint is impressive, questions remain about whether the quality of the exhibitions lives up to its ambitious scope. A hotly debated topic during the opening days was whether the venues’ varying sizes complemented or engulfed the works on display, as is the example of the Tres Xemeneies (Three Chimneys), the colossal former thermal power station by the Besòs river. With over 90 participants and a wide array of interventions, events, and talks, an additional challenge lies in ensuring a cohesive experience across all locations.

Read more


RELATED CONTENT:

  • Other writing on Latitudes’ website.
  • Reviews, opinions, profiles and interviews published in frieze magazine. 
  • 20th and concluding dispatch of “Incidents (of Travel)” from Barcelona, Spain, 26 Oct 2022
  • Compositions 2015, five city-wide commissions conceived for the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend, various locations, Barcelona, 1–4 October 2015 
  • Compositions 2016, five city-wide commissions conceived for the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend, various locations, Barcelona, 29 September–2 October 2016
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Latitudes’ “out of office” 2023-24 season

 

Work by David Shrigley.

Time to put work-related activities on ice. Below is an account of some of the projects, texts, trips, exhibition preparations, talks, and research conducted by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes this past season. 

Check earlier OUT OF THE OFFICE posts from 2008–92009–102010–112011–122012–132013–142014–152015–162016–172017–182018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 and 2022–23. All photos are by Latitudes unless otherwise noted in the photo caption. For further notes, inspirations, and more, check out our Instagrams, here and here. See you in September!


23 August–3 September 2023: The second part of “The Pilgrim” research residency took us to Dublin, Sligo (including an excursion to Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery), Askeaton (with day trips to Foynes Flying Boat & Maritime Museum, the Rock of Cashel, Holycross Abbey, Philip Quinn’s stone-carving workshop, and the Ardnacrusha Power Station), and Limerick to attend the opening events of EVA International. See photos here.

As part of our thinking around relics, pilgrimage, and twinning, the team of Askeaton Contemporary Arts (ACA) asked Michael Holly to put together a video in part inspired by The Pilgrim. Tour guide maestro Anthony Sheehy not only appears giving his account of the Pilgrim’s story in the former Franciscan Friary, but also plays a song on his harmonica. It was through one of Anthony’s tours back in 2018 – he has led tours of the Friary and the Castle for 56 years! – that Latitudes first learned about the Barcelona pilgrim who is buried in Askeaton’s friary. 

Train from Dublin to Sligo.

Our host Ruth Clinton (right) playing the violin at Mc Lynn’s Bar, Sligo.

Photo: Eulàlia Rovira

(Left to right) Mariana, tour guide Anthony Sheehy, Eulàlia, and her son Nil and Max in front of Askeaton's former Franciscan Friary. Photo: Aníbal Parada.

Latitudes, filmmaker Michael Holly and Michelle Horrigan of ACA discussing locations around the Friary. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.

Anthony Sheehy is being filmed. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.

Anthony Sheehy playing his harmonica in the Abbey. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.

Michelle Horrigan of ACA talking to Michael Holly's camera, and (below) Eulàlia Rovira discusses her artistic practice.



September 2023: Montse Badia writes about Gallery Climate Coalition and GCC Spain in Bonart magazine #198, September 2023–February 2024 issue. Read in Català, Español, English or in Français.

Photo: María Gracia de Pedro.


27 September 2023: Max travels to Bilbao to cover the exhibition “Picasso escultor. Materia y cuerpo” [Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body] at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, for what will be a two-part Picasso review for frieze magazine. In line with Latitudes’ Environmental Policy to reduce our carbon footprint, and as a 2022 Active Members of the Gallery Climate Coalition, Max took the train to cover this 6h50min journey.


Exhibition curator Carmen Giménez was interviewed during the press tour.

(Above and below) Views of “Picasso escultor. Materia y cuerpo” [Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body] at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao. 




October 2023: The October 2023 issue (#238) of frieze magazine includes a printed version of Max Andrews’ review of Miralda’s exhibition at Bombas Gens Centre d'Art, València, published online on June 29. This turns out to be the last exhibition we'll see in this venue, as a few months later, their programme sadly took a radical change to become (yet another) digital centre programming virtual exhibitions – beginning with an immersive show dedicated to Dalí. 😖



9 October 2023: 6h15min train to Málaga to join the press trip organised by the Museo Picasso to celebrate its 20th anniversary and the exhibition “The Echo of Picasso”. The exhibition will be featured in an upcoming two-part review for frieze magazine by Max Andrews. Both the exhibition and the one seen a few days back in Bilbao, are organised within the framework of the international celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). 

For this trip, Latitudes used its 2022 Strategic Climate Fund (SCFs) of €190 to cover the journey costs to reduce our carbon emissions (a return train journey from Barcelona to Málaga emits 0.01 tCO2e, a return flight – although considerably cheaper – emits 0.21 tCO2e according to GCC’s Carbon Calculator). This made it possible for Mariana to visit the exhibition and other art spaces including Pompidou Málaga and CAC Málaga. 

Following GCC’s revised 2021 SCFs guidelines and adapting to the financial possibilities of our modest freelance operation, financing effective lower-carbon options is a direct way to achieve real and short-term changeGoing forward, instead of tying the calculation of our SCF to our previous emissions, we will follow GCC's 2023 revised recommendation and set aside a percentage of our year's revenue to be allocated to our 2024 needs. 


Sunset over Málaga from the 14th floor of the hotel.

Museo Picasso Málaga from the roof terrace. At the top is the 11th-century Muslim Palace-fortress Alcazaba.

Views from the terrace of Palacio de Buenavista (Museo Picasso Málaga), towards the Iglesia de San Agustín and the Cathedral de la Encarnación de Málaga. 

Sharing the great knowledge of an excited librarian who has worked in the museum for +20 years. 

Browsing publications found these shots of Picasso’s paintings and sculptures being shipped in the 1960s, a much more relaxed era of art handling and insurance protocols.

(Above and below) “The Echo of Picasso” exhibition curated by Éric Troncy had delightful moments such as the above pairing of Louise Bourgeois’ “Woman in a Shape of a Shuttle” (1947–49) and a 1928 ”Couple of the Seaside” by Picasso, and great works such as Francis Bacon's “Portrait of Michel Leiris” by and a Philip Guston drawing. Yet, on the ground floor, the gear changes (for the worse) starting with an overhang display of sculptures and paintings by (all by men) Markus Lüpertz, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Rashid Johnson, Markus Jahmal, Miquel Barceló, Georg Baselitz and the puzzling inclusion of a “Downton Abbey” (2022) family portrait by Genevieve Figgis.



25 October 2023: Launch at Onomatopee, Amsterdam, of the publication “Sketches of Transition. An Atlas on Growth and Decay”, edited by Italian-born, Amsterdam-based artist Michele Bazzoli. The book includes a reprint of Latitudes’ text on Lara Almarcegui’s project “Graves” originally commissioned to accompany Almarcegui's solo exhibition at Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida, curated by Cèlia del Diego and on view between February and June 2021. More here.



Reprint scans courtesy of Michele Bazzoli.


27 October 2023: Max Andrews’ reviewCelebrating Five Decades of the Picasso-Industrial Complex” goes live on frieze website. The review focuses on the two concurrent shows at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Museo Picasso Málaga appraising the artist’s legacy, although taking a troubling tour through an ethical minefield.

“What else is there to know about Pablo Picasso 50 years after his death? Something, evidently. With the support of the French and Spanish governments, the Musée Picasso–Paris and the artist’s grandson and heir, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, are marking the anniversary with a programme of some 50 exhibitions and events worldwide. ‘Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body’ at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and ‘The Echo of Picasso’ at the Museo Picasso Málaga are two of the more prominent exhibitions of this “Picasso Celebration 1973–2023” series. But what exactly is being celebrated?” Continue reading


Read the review here.


11 November 2023: Visual artist Laia Ventayol presented in Palma, Mallorca, a lecture on Eulàlia Rovira’s video “A knot which is not” (2020-21) in the framework of the LXVIII Anglo-Catalan Society Conference at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. Rovira’s video was commissioned for the exhibition “Things Things Say” (October 2020-January 2021 – watch the trailer with the artist as the narrator of the exhibition) at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, and was premièred online once the exhibition ended, and the exhibition spaces were once again empty. 

Read more here (in Spanish).

Photo: @laia_ventayol

20 November 2023: Heath Lowndes, Managing Director and co-founder of Gallery Climate Coalition, gives a short presentation of GCC during his participation in the “II Jornadas de Instituciones Artísticas y Sostenibilidad”, organised by Fundació MACBA in Madrid. During his presentation, Lowndes talked about the (so far) six International Chapters, one of which (GCC Spain) we have the pleasure of being part of. On Heath’s long train journey from London to and back from Madrid, he stopped over in Barcelona where we had the chance to finally meet in person. Fundació MACBA’s Jornadas continued on November 20 in Barcelona.

Photo: @max.andrews

Photo: mlopezambrana

Photo: @galerialuciamendoza


24–28 November 2023: Trip to Madrid to see some shows at Fundación March, Fundación Mapfre, Museo Reina Sofía, La Casa Encendida, Museo Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, CentroCentro, Sala Alcalá 31, Museo Nacional del Prado and TBA21, as well as in commercial galleries such as NoguerasBlanchard, Travesía Cuatro, Galería Ehrhardt Flórez, Elba Benítez, Mira1 and Maisterravalbuena. One of the highlights was attending the preview of the long-awaited solo show of Ibon Aranberri at the Museo Reina Sofía, titled “Vista Parcial” (Partial view) which featured as our December 2023 cover story.

Press presentation of Ibon Aranberri’s exhibition (with microphone).


Aranberri and (back) Bea Herráez (curator of the exhibition with Manuel B. Villel, and director of ARTIUM, Vitoria)

16 January 2024: First general assembly of GCC Spain members and non-members to present the activities carried out by the Committee in 2023 and forthcoming plans for 2024, resolved questions about membership and carbon reporting.


31 January 2024: #TrainToARCOmadrid Instagram campaign is shared between the ARCOmadrid, Gallery Climate Coalition, and GCC Spain, as part of GCC’s ongoing campaign promoting #ClimateConsciousTravel choices. The initiative encourages visitors to address their travel habits, particularly those in Spain and mainland Europe. Changing long-held norms together can have a transformative impact.


16 February 2024: Exhibition preview & publication launch of “Betwixt 2024”, an exhibition and book showcasing the work of 20 emerging artistic practices from Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Sheffield taking place across four sites in central and north London between 17–23 February 2024. One of the participants is the artist, writer, and researcher Crystal BennesLatitudes wrote the text on her latest work “O (Copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)” (2024) for the publication accompanying this Freelands Foundation initiative. 

On 16 March 2024, following the London presentation, Bennes participated in a group show at Talbot Rice Gallery, the public art gallery of the University of Edinburgh, in a survey featuring ten Scotland-based artists from the last two cohorts of the Freelands Artist Programme, the nationwide initiative launched in 2018 that has supported 80 artists across the UK. Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and live performance, Bennes’ new project addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton. 


Betwixt 2024. Courtesy Freelands Foundation.




(Above and two below) Installation view of Crystal Bennes’s “O (copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)”, 2024. Including a bespoke table, conservation boxes, constructed archive, Financial Times pink paint and divination robe – with scheduled performances. Three photos by Sally Jubb, courtesy of the artist and Talbot Rice Gallery.



6 March 2024: Max Andrews writes “What to See During This Year’s ARCOmadrid” for frieze.com. This year there are prominent solo shows and projects dedicated to women – most notably in the Museo CA2M dedicating exhibitions to Ana Gallardo, Asunción Molinos Gordo and Teresa Solar Abboud. Another highlight is Precious Okoyomon's intervention in la Montaña Artificial de El Retiro de Madrid and TBA21’s solo show of Filipino-Canadian artist Stephanie Comilang. And of course, Ibon Aranberri's solo show before it tours to ARTIUM, Vitoria.

6–8 March 2024
: Trip to ARCOmadrid. This year we are proud of Gallery Climate Coalition’s presence at the fair with two walls providing information about the coalition and some infographics on travel to/from Madrid. Additionally, in the ARCOmadrid 2024 Special / “Focus (eco)systems”, the magazine Exibart features an interview with one of GCC Spain's founding members, Carolina Grau, and a dedicated second section on GCC’s activities including highlights on some of its Effective Actions guidelines. 


Walls in pavilions 7 and 9 of ARCOmadrid. 


Article in Exibart magazine (issue #5, March 2024) on Gallery Climate Coalition.


21 March 2024: Starting today and until April 14, the Fundación Díaz-Caneja is screening Jan Dibbets’ film “6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective” (2009). The Fundación is a contemporary art museum in Palencia dedicated to landscape, the environment and rurality.

The production of the 8-minute-long film was the inaugural project of Portscapes, a series of commissions taking place throughout 2009 in and around Maasvlakte 2, the 2,000-hectare expansion of the Port of Rotterdam. The film premiered at the FutureLand information centre of the Port of Rotterdam in June 2009 and during Latitudes’ participation in the New York festival No Soul For Sale – A Festival of Independents (24–28 June 2009). Portscapes was produced by the Port of Rotterdam Authority in collaboration with the sadly now-defunct internationally operating Dutch cultural organisation SKOR | Foundation Art and Public Space (1999–2012).


23 March 2024: Three-hour online session for the third module on “The Curatorial Imagination”, part of the postgraduate diploma on EXHIBITIONS. Curatorship, Design and Spaces, a course organised by EINA Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona, and led by Manuel Cirauqui, director of EINAidea.  


9 April 2024: We are pleased to be on the second cohort of 125 Active Members announced by Gallery Climate Coalition. As part of Latitudes’ ongoing environmental commitment, and as Committee members of GCC Spain, we submitted our individual 2023 carbon footprint calculations to Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) to renew our status for the second year running. We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 “Climate Action”, as well as the Paris Agreement to reduce global carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and as custodians of the Reduce Art Flights website, a campaign devised by artist Gustav Metzger in 2007.

Latitudes’ carbon emissions were 17.4tCo2e (2019), 3.8tCo2e (2022), and 1.5tCo2e (2023). We reduced our emissions by 78% in the first year of the calculations, and over 60% in the second year. The calculation of our carbon footprint considers emissions across various work-related activities: travel (train, air, coach, taxi, car, and ferry), hotel accommodation, and energy consumption (water usage in 2019 and 2022, and gas usage from 2023 onwards). We use the GCC Carbon Calculator (primary calculator) and DEFRA conversion factors to ensure consistent and accurate reporting.

Our 2024 Strategic Climate Fund is €75 (calculated at €50 per tonne emitted in 2023). We set these funds aside to spend on low-carbon purchasing options that would otherwise be unaffordable.




April 2024: Max contributed artwork descriptions and other texts alongside Sofia Lemos, for the publication “Meandering: Art, Ecology, and Metaphysics”, edited by Lemos and copublished by TBA21–Academy and Sternberg Press. The book is part of the namesake art and ecology research programme curated by Lemos at TBA21–Academy “exploring social and environmental justice through the lens of community-oriented practice, presenting a case for the role of artistic research and public programs in revealing our interbeing and shaping new convergences between interdisciplinary and interfaith studies.” 


10 April 2024: Max was commissioned to contribute a text for Secundino Hernández’s catalogue published by This Side Up as part of accompanying his solo exhibition “Problematic Corners”, at Victoria Miro Gallery opening today in London, and on view until 18 May 2024. The gallery is also an Active Member of the Gallery Climate Coalition.

Titled “The Problematic Corners in Question? Or, Fleeing Forward?”, the essay ends “Let’s end with a question? Would it be problematic to conclude that each series of paintings is a way of going beyond your duty as an artist? In other words, are you not keenly aware of wanting to do more than is strictly necessary when something else would still be acceptable? Precisely not cutting corners, then? A method of fuga hacia adelante, fleeing forward? Painting in other words?”


Secundino Hernández's work “Myrtle Beach” (2024), acrylic, vinylic emulsion and dye-transfer print on canvas, 370 x 278cm) in his studio in Madrid.


10 April 2024: Launch of the report Radiography of the Profession of Art Criticism and Curating at the Fundació Miró. The study analyses the professional, economic and social conditions under which Catalunya-based Art Critics and Curators work, and was promoted by the National Council for Culture and Arts (CONCA). The study was supported by an independent expert committee formed by representatives of several organisations and profiles such as ACCA (the Catalan Art Criticism Association, amongst them Mariana of Latitudes who joined as a member last year), the Platform of Catalan Artists (PAAC), and the Association of Cultural Management Professionals of Catalunya (APGCC). 

The report can be downloaded here (pdf, 71 pages, in Catalan), and the recording of the event here (in Catalan).


25–27 April 2024: Trip to Bilbao to visit Jorge Satorre's studio and to continue preparations for his solo exhibition at Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), scheduled for February 2025. We had the chance to see exhibitions by Armando Andrade Tudela at CarrerasMugica, June Crespo and Giovanni Anselmo at the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao, as well as the wonderful rooms of the Museo de Bellas Artes filled with Sergio Prego’s pneumatic sculptures. From there we take an hour-long bus to attend the double opening of Ibon Aranberri and Patricia Dauder at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del País Vasco-Artium Museoa in Vitoria-Gasteiz. Max will review Aranberri’s “Entresaka” for frieze magazine.

Read the review here.

(Above and below) Sergio Prego at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao.


(Above and below) June Crespo’s solo exhibition “Vascular”, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao.


(Above) Armando Andrade Tudela at galería CarrerasMugica, Bilbao.

(Above and below) View of Ibon Aranberri’s Entresaka, ARTIUM Museoa, Vitoria. 


(Above and below) View of Patricia Dauder “Unform”, ARTIUM Museoa, Vitoria. 


1–5 May 2024: +72K steps visiting the 2024 Venice Biennale curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Beyond the art circuit of the biennial and collateral events, we also visited the Palazzo Grassi, Punta della Dogana, Fondazione In Between Art Film, TBA21, Fondazione Prada, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Also, we had time to visit the stunning Palazzo Grimani and a delightful vaporetto ride with a lightning storm on the horizon.

A much-needed Spritz and cicchetti after long art days.

6 May 2024: Mariana concludes her involvement as a member of the 2024 Acquisition Committee of the Col·lecció Nacional d'Art Contemporani of the Government of Catalunya. This year’s acquisition fund rose to €850,000 (from 599.399,51 in 2023). Once the Committee selects the artworks, they undergo review by a qualification board. From there, they proceed through legal departments for draft contracting, finance, and shipping for their final journey to museums around the region. This process spans the entire year. 

A press conference in early 2025 will announce the 2024 acquisitions—including works of contemporary art, photography, cultural artefacts, comics and illustration, postwar art, and the second avant-garde—publicly. Behind this forthcoming announcement are long days reviewing the 434 applications received, followed by 8 online sessions lasting 3 to 4 hours each debating proposals alongside the members of this year’s Committee.



30 May 2024: Private screening of the documentary “Artefacto 71 –¿Qué hace un artista?” (What does an artist do?), directed by Argentinian-born, Mataró-based artist Carlos Essmann. The film synopsis states “One thing is clear: the contemporary artist can dispense with his or her manual skills and give as much or more importance to intellectual work than to the artistic object. So what does an artist do? Artefacto 71 attempts to answer this question by reviewing the activity of a working-class artist like the Catalan Martí Anson, establishing a dialogue between artist and filmmaker as equals.” 

The film includes footage of “Mataró Chauffeur Service” (2010), a project Latitudes with the artist in the context of their participation in the “NO SOUL FOR SALE–A festival of independents” organised in the context of Tate Modern’s 10th-anniversary. In response to the need to travel to London, Martí Anson set up the Mataró Chauffeur Service company in honour of his hometown and drove the curators from Barcelona to London and back. Designing the livery of the single-vehicle fleet, his uniform, and the journey to Tate Modern and back (including the ferry journey from Santander to Portsmouth) all formed a part of the project. The car formed the basis of Latitudes’ temporary office encampment in Tate's Turbine Hall and was parked up for the weekend alongside a picnic scenario of camping chairs, a folding table, and a parasol as well as a slideshow of images of the journey. The car interior became a comfortable space to watch films and “making of” videos produced as part of ‘Portscapes’, the Latitudes-curated commissions series produced for the Port of Rotterdam in the context of Maasvlakte 2: a five-year construction of 2,000 hectares of new land in the North Sea, which extended by 20% the largest seaport and industrial area in Europe. 

Artefacto 71 –¿Qué hace un artista?” was selected to participate in the Official Competition Documentary Section at the 27th Malaga Festival, where it had its world premiere, and won the Biznaga de Plata Ex aequo for Best Director.

Watch a trailer of the doc here.


The artist and the curators on their way to Tate Modern, May 2010.

The car was parked on the bridge of Tate Modern in May 2010. Below is a screening of the commissioned films and making of videos produced for “Portscapes” (2009-10).


(Above and two below) Views of Turbine Hall. Photos: Tom Medwell/NSFS.




3 June 2024: Max Andrews’ first contribution to Artforum magazine is out. It reviews “Refugia”, the first solo exhibition of Rosa Tharrats at Bombon Projects in Barcelona, which opened on March 20. 

Read the review here

View of Rosa Tharrats exhibition “Refugia” at Bombon Projects. 





June 2024: 20 years of Max contributing to frieze magazine! Max’s first review featured an exhibition of Danish artist Jesper Just at Midway Contemporary, written while he was living in Minneapolis as a Curatorial Intern at the Walker Art Center. 

Over the last two decades, Max has published +60 texts covering topics in ecology, institutional thinking, open call fatigue, the history of IVAM – Spain’s First Modern Art Museum – and Barcelona’s cultural politics, amongst others. He has reviewed art events and exhibitions presented in Arlès, Bordeaux, Bregenz, London, Madrid, Málaga, Montpellier, Venice, and Zurich, and profiled the work of Spanish-based artists such as Ibon Aranberri, David Bestué, Lúa Coderch, Dora García, Adrià Julià, Rasmus Nilausen, Miralda, Xavier Ribas, Eulàlia Rovira, Francesc Ruiz, Julia Spínola, and Teresa Solar Abboud, as well as the international practices of Maria Thereza Alves, Duncan Campbell, Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Lucy Skaer, Nicholas Mangan or Bruno Zhu.

Other reviews, opinion columns, profiles, and features are here.



Reviews, opinion columns, profiles, and features here.


4 June 2024: Visited Espinavessa in the Alt Empordà, where Andrew Birk and Sira Pizà run Spiritvessel, with a gorgeous day-long opening of “Llaç” (Ribbon), a new project by Martín Llavaneras. The day was fueled by passion fruit margaritas, tacos de cochinita pibil and, of course, art conversations.

@andrewbirk

27 June 2024: Premiere of “Pass Me, For I Am Strange”, a short film by Askeaton Contemporary Arts’ long-term collaborator Michael Holly, presented during ACA’s yearly festival “Welcome to the Neighbourhood” curated by Michele Horrigan – in which we participated back in 2018.

The film “engages with myths and histories associated with the Franciscan Friary, one of the most extensive sites of its kind in Ireland. Holly’s film listens closely to points of view from characters embedded in the very stonework of the friary, including Fitzgerald, one of its reputed founders; Don Martínez de Mendoza, a repentant Catalonian nobleman who took shelter there, and a now faceless stone carving of Saint Francis. Considering the interpretation of Askeaton’s medieval heritage as an experiment in time and space, Pass Me, For I Am Strange is developed collaboratively through research, dialogue and contributions by and with fellow artists Niamh Moriarty, Ruth Clinton, Carl Doran, Eulàlia Rovira and historian Anthony Sheehy, in association with “The Pilgrim”, a residency programme developed between Askeaton Contemporary Arts and Latitudes, Barcelona.” (Text from Askeaton's website)

Listen to Carl Doran’s audio narration of “The Pilgrim” from an article published in Askeaton-Balysteen Community News, Summer 1984. 

Watch the short film here.

Reading the pilgrim inscription while shooting the film.  




2 July 2024: We received a copy of the latest book by our former RCA tutor, Dr Claire Bishop, titled Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today” (Verso Books, 2024). It includes a photograph we took in 2010 of Wolfgang Tillmans’ work “Truth Study Center” (2005–) while we live-edited a weekly tabloid that ultimately constituted the ten-part catalogue of “The Last Newspaper” (October 2010–January 2011) exhibition at the New Museum. Tillmans’ work shared the floor with our temporary office and is a project he began in 2005 with a show at his London gallery Maureen Paley. 

More on this here.





Looking forward

In the Autumn of 2023, Lisa LeFeuvre, Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, invited Latitudes to contribute to the foundation's Scholarly Text Program, writing on one artwork by Nancy Holt and/or Robert Smithson. The works written about range from landmark earthworks and texts to lesser-known drawings, moving image works, and rarely-seen two-dimensional works. Max decided to write on Robert Smithson’s text “Aerial Art” (Studio International, February—April 1969), and Mariana on Nancy Holt's “Ventilation Systems” (1985–1992). The essays will be published on the Foundation's website in October and November 2024 and include images, a short bibliography, endnotes pointing to the author’s references and an ISBN.

And some further announcements in the autumn!


RELATED CONTENT:


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Marking 20 Years of Max Andrews as a Writer for Frieze Magazine


Reviews, opinion columns, profiles, and features here.

This month marks 20 years of Max Andrews contributing to frieze magazine. Max’s inaugural review in 2004 featured an exhibition of Danish artist Jesper Just at Midway Contemporary, written while working as a Curatorial Fellow at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 

Over the last two decades, Max has written +60 texts exploring topics including ecologyinstitutional thinkingopen call fatigue, the history of IVAM – Spain’s pioneering Modern Art Museum – highlights for ARCOmadrid (2024, 2023, 2022, 2020 editions), or Barcelona's intricate cultural landscape, among others. 

He has reviewed art events and exhibitions in Arlès, Barcelona, Bordeaux, Bregenz, London, Madrid, Málaga, Montpellier, New York, Venice, and Zurich. He has profiled the work of Spanish-based artists such as Ibon Aranberri, David Bestué, Lúa Coderch, Dora García, Adrià Julià, Rasmus Nilausen, Miralda, Xavier Ribas, Eulàlia Rovira, Francesc Ruiz, Julia Spínola, or Teresa Solar Abboud, as well as the international practices of Maria Thereza Alves, Duncan Campbell, Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Lucy Skaer, Nicholas Mangan or Bruno Zhu.

Max’s latest review covers Ibon Aranberri’s survey exhibition “Entresaka” at the ARTIUM Museoa – Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del País Vasco in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country).

Other reviews, opinion columns, profiles, and features here.

Writing published elsewhere here.


→ RELATED CONTENT:

  • Max Andrews' Valencia Feature in frieze magazine, November-December 2019, 2 November 2019
  • Max Andrews reviews in frieze: ‘A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’ (LUMA Foundation, Arlès) and Pere Llobera's ‘Acció’ (Bombon Projects, Barcelona) and ‘Kill Your Darlings’ (Sis Galería, Sabadell), 4 January 2019
  • Mariana Cánepa Luna reviews Frieze week 2018 for art-agenda.com, 15 October 2018
  • MaxAndrews review of Mark Bradford's inaugural exhibition “Masses and Movements” at Hauser Wirth Menorca centres on “the 1507 Waldseemüller world map, the first to depict a landmass in the far reaches of the Atlantic and to name it America.”
  • “Like the derelict buildings that pockmark Lleida’s urban fabric, Bestué’s exhibition summons a terrain that is barely held together, on the verge of becoming undone.” – Max Andrews on David Bestué exhibition at La Panera, Lleida in "The 5 Best Exhibitions in the EU Right Now", 19 May 2021 
  • Max Andrews reviews Eulàlia Rovira's solo show at etHALL where the artist pays homage to the thresholds between life and death in frieze, October 2020
  • frieze review by Max Andrews of Joachim Koester's show at the Blueproject Foundation, Barcelona 
  • October 2004 issue of frieze includes Max Andrews' review of Christopher Knowles show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise 
  • Two texts by Max Andrews in the April 2018 issue of frieze: review of La Panace’s Crash Test (Montpellier) and Lúa Coderch’s solo show at àngels Barcelona  
  • Max Andrews on Alexandre Estrela at Museo Reina Sofia 
  • Exhibition Review of Rasmus Nilausen's show "Read the Image" at Garcia Galeria by Max Andrews in frieze 
  • Review of Lucy Skaer's 2014 solo show Glasgow Tramway by Max Andrews in frieze
  • Profile on Francesc Ruiz’s comic books, identity & homoerotic iconography by Max Andrews in frieze
  • A 2007 profile on Wilfredo Prieto by Max Andrews on frieze
  • A 2012 review by Max Andrews on the film "Arbeit (Work, 2011)" by 2014 Turner Prize winner Duncan Campbell  
  • 2006 review of Ignasi Aballí's retrospective at MACBA by Max Andrews   
  • Review of Julia Montilla’s show Fundació Miró by Max Andrews on frieze 
  • Max Andrews on Pablo Helguera's 2013 ‘Librería Donceles’ at Kent Fine Art in New York in frieze 
  • 2005 review by Max Andrews of Latitudes of Jordan Wolfson's show Kunsthalle Zurich 
  • Max Andrews on the political, social and economic factors of environmentalism in frieze magazine, 2007

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Max Andrews reviews Ibon Aranberri’s exhibition “Entresaka” at ARTIUM Museoa for frieze


(Above and below) View of Ibon Aranberri’s exhibition “Entrasaka” at ARTIUM Museoa. All photos: Latitudes.


Max Andrews reviews Ibon Aranberri’s survey exhibition “Entresaka”, the ARTIUM Museoa – Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del País Vasco in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country) for frieze magazine: 

“The exhibition’s evocative title, ‘Entresaka’ (‘thinning’ in the Basque language), accounts for the show’s apparent evasiveness, evoking the forestry management practice of selectively felling individual trees in order to promote overall woodland health and diversity. The artist’s most representative and extensive projects are duly cut down as if to their stumps in order that more marginal works may be afforded more light.” 

Continue reading “Ibon Aranberri’s Abiding Instincts” here.













The exhibition has been coproduced with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, where it was presented between November 2023 and March 2024 under the title “Vista parcial” (Partial View). It is co-curated by Manuel Borja-Villel and Beatriz Herráez. 

(Above and below) Views of Ibon Aranberri’s exhibition “Vista partial (Partial View)” at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. Photos: Latitudes.









→ RELATED CONTENT:

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Cover Story, April 2024: In Progress–Iratxe Klaas & Klaas van Gorkum

April 2024 cover story on www.lttds.org

The April 2024 monthly Cover Story “In Progress–Iratxe Klaas & Klaas van Gorkum” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org (after April 2024 this story will be archived here).

“On the occasion of their participation in Ten Thousand Suns, the 24th edition of the Biennale of Sydney, April’s Cover Story spotlights Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, and The Margins of the Factory, the solo exhibition of the duo’s work that Latitudes curated in 2014.” → Continue reading 

Cover Stories are published monthly 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, March 2024: Dibbets en Palencia, 4 March 2024
  • Cover Story, February 2024: Climate Conscious Travel to ARCOmadrid, 1 February 2024
  • Cover Story, January 2024: Curating Lab 2014–Curatorial Intensive, 2 Jan 2024 
  • Cover Story, December 2023: Ibon Aranberri, Partial View, 2 Dec 2023 
  • Cover Story, December 2023: Ibon Aranberri, Partial View
  •  Sat, 2 Dec 2023 
  • Cover Story, November 2023: Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, 2 Nov 2023
  • Cover Story, October 2023: A tree felled, a tree cut in 7, 2 October 2023
  • Cover Story, September 2023: The Pilgrim in Ireland, 6 September 2023
  • Cover Story, July–August 2023: Honeymoon in Valencia, 1 July 2023
  • Cover Story, June 2023: Crystal Bennes futures, 1 Jun 2023
  • Cover Story, May 2023: Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty in Barcelona, 1 May 2023
  • Cover Story, April 2023: Jerónimo Hagerman (1967–2023), 1 Apr 2023
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2023 in 11 cover stories

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 practiceBelow are those published throughout 2023 (#90 to #100), which you can read again in this archive. See you in 2024!


Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ “Gerundi Circular”.

Cover Story, February 2023: Soil for Future Art Histories.

Cover Story, March 2023: Art, Climate and New Coalitions.

Cover Story, April 2023: Jerónimo Hagerman (1967–2023).

Cover Story, May 2023: Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty in Barcelona

Cover Story, June 2023: Crystal Bennes futures

Cover Story, July–August 2023: Honeymoon in Valencia.

Cover Story – September 2023: The Pilgrim in Ireland.

Cover Story – October 2023: A tree felled, a tree cut in 7

Cover Story – November 2023: ”Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara” by Daniel Steegmann Mangrané

And to close the year, Cover Story #100 – December 2023: Ibon Aranberri, Partial View


→ RELATED CONTENT:
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Latitudes’ "out of office" 2022–23 season

Sunset on our way to Mallorca aboard the Cecilia Payne ferry, 6 June 2023.


With the summer in full flow, and thoughts turning to holidays, we once more share a series of behind-the-scenes moments and encounters: trips, dinners, kind messages, postal surprises, follow-ups of artists we have worked with, and serendipitous situations that have happened in the background of our more visible curatorial practice seen on our website or in the Longitudes section. Plus some further notes and inspiration beyond our Instagrams – here and here.  

For earlier OUT OF THE OFFICE posts, check out the posts from 
2008–92009–102010–112011–122012–132013–142014–152015–162016–172017–182018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21 and 2021–22. All photos are by Latitudes unless stated otherwise in the photo caption.

Happy summer, apply and reapply sun protection!



September 2022: Between September and November, we mentored Matheus Calderón, winner of the first [ON RESIDENCE] residency, an online curatorial mentorship programme awarded to young Peruvian curators organised by TROPICAL PAPERS, and supported by Artus.

As one of the mentors, we embarked on six bi-monthly conversations focusing on what values are at stake today in our profession. Through sincere dialogue, we discussed the multiple realities of being an independent curator both in Lima and Barcelona, and we accompanied Matheus in shaping his approach to his forthcoming group exhibition project “El rodeo (el velo, la mancha o la grieta)” [working title]. Our conversations progressively became a space to share, pause and reflect during a time of ongoing political and societal tension in Lima in autumn 2022. 

Introductory Zoom with Tropical Papers, Latitudes and Matheus on 31 August 2022.

early September 2022: We submitted the essay “Soil for Future Art Histories”, which was commissioned for the forthcoming catalogue “Futuros Abundantes”, a group exhibition organised by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) at C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba. Subsequent edits and translation rounds in October–November, and publication release in January 2023.

13 September 2022: Received a copy of Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven’s catalogue “By The Sea. Land Art, Performance and Minimal Art” including photos Latitudes provided of Jan Dibbets’s “6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective” (2009).


Page spread of “By The Sea. Land Art, Performance and Minimal Art” with Jan Dibbets’ 2009 project.

19 September 2022: Final episode of “Incidents (of Travel)” with Jorge Satorre. By complete chance, this episode takes place on September 19, 2022, exactly ten years later to the day of the first tour commissioned for the first phase of Incidents (of Travel), a day Latitudes spent with Minerva Cuevas around Mexico City’s city centre on the 27th anniversary of the deadly 1985 earthquake


Visiting the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco with Minerva Cuevas, the first of five “Incidents of Travel” itineraries around Mexico City, 19 September 2012. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

Episode #20 culminates Latitudes’ collaboration with KADIST, producers of 20 fantastic episodes published online between 2016 and 2022 as part of their programme of online projects.

The dispatch went live on October 26, 2022. Read here.

27 September 2022: Published “‘Minor’ Ornithologies. Laia Estruch”, a podcast hosted by Latitudes’ curator, writer (and lifelong birder) Max Andrews for TBA21 on st_ageAccompanying Laia Estruch’s performance project Ocells Perduts V67” (2022) for TBA21 on st_age, the podcast takes flight into the realm of birds, looking at politics and practices that disrupt dominant historical narratives, and exceed scientific and cultural boundaries. It features Alex Holt, a spokesperson for Bird Names for Birds, a movement to decolonise bird names, and zoömusicologist Dr Hollis Taylor, who specialises in birdsong. Through their perspectives, we glimpse new and speculative kinds of human–bird narratives – “minor” ornithologies.

→ Listen here (34' 03'')
→ Transcript here
8 October 2022: 
Within the context of PUBLICS’ annual gathering Today Is Our Tomorrow, Laia Estruch and Irina Mutt led a workshop as part of this year’s programme focusing on the presentness of the voice in its many sonic forms, vocal modes and auditory modalities. This workshop culminated a series of encounters, part of Latitudes’ ongoing Parahosting at PUBLICS, that have taken place over the summer in collaboration with PUBLICS Youth, an education initiative for Helsinki-based 18-21-year-olds.

(📷 ↑↓) PUBLICS Youth with Irina Mutt during their workshop in Lammassaari, 3 August 2022. Photos: Micol Curatolo.


18 October 2022: Organised a casual networking dinner to mingle with local art professionals with a group visiting from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland. Organised by the Mondriaan Fund, the Orientation Trip 2022 took them this time to Portugal and Spain.

Foto: Haco de Ridder.

21 October 2022: Post looking back at the first anniversary of MACBA exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, highlighting works by Antoni Hervàs, El Palomar, Claudia Pagès and Rosa Tharrats, four artists that participated in Panorama and whose shows in Frankfurt, Donostia and Marseille present work produced or derived from their MACBA presentation. 

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

Antoni Hervàs, “Under the firelight, the ash shines like glitter”, 2021-2022, installation view Frankfurter Kunstverein 2022, Photo: Norbert Miguletz, ©Frankfurter Kunstverein, Courtesy: the artist.

El Palomar, Schreber is a Woman, 2020, installation view Frankfurter Kunstverein 2022, Photo: Norbert Miguletz, ©Frankfurter Kunstverein, Courtesy: the artists.

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

26 October 2022: New and concluding dispatch of Incidents (of Travel) led by Jorge Satorre in Barcelona, narrated by Latitudes, creators and editors of the project since 2012. This is the 20th episode published by Kadist as part of their online programme since 2016 and also marks the 10th anniversary of the project.

Below are some photos that, for one reason or another, didn't make it to the final selection of 31 images.



Small bus del barri [neighbourhood bus] route # 111 around Vallvidrera.

Analysing footprints.

(Above and below) From the Curator’s Commentary: “(...) We’re here to see what is, after the Collserola Stone, the only other known megalith in Barcelona: the Pedralbes Menhir. The builders of the monastery in the fourteenth century respected the powers of this standing stone to such a degree that they not only preserved it but constructed a gateway in the perimeter wall around it. The bulk of the stone lurks below the paved surface like a lithic iceberg, its obstinate presence in a doorway from the middle ages a kind of rude protuberance of prehistory and geologic time into a continuous present.”



Jorge admires the Egyptian-inspired pantheon of the cotton industrialists Batlló family.


28 October 2022: A surprise message from Tara McDowell sharing that after 2 years, Nino Kvrivishvili and her were finally able to meet in person in Tbilisi, Georgia! Together they followed their itinerary around the city’s former silk industry commissioned for the Incidents (of Travel) series (episode 12). Due to the pandemic, Tara’s plans to travel from Melbourne to Tbilisi had to be cancelled, so Nino “in an act of radical Georgian hospitality” – as Tara wrote in her curator’s commentary – shared her itinerary with Tara via a WhatsApp call. 

In a wonderful turn of events, during their IRL meeting, Nino opened a small pop-up exhibition at Aleksandre Utmazyan's textile shop, one of the locations that appeared on Nino’s itinerary, an event that counted with the surprise visit of Georgian President, Salomé Zurabishvili.

Curated by Data Chigholashvili, the pop-up exhibition responded to the history of Georgia’s textile industry by interrelating topics of fabric production, changing places, time, and memory, presenting a recent series of paintings that convey a story of fabric production, the country’s formerly active industry. As Chigholashvili explains Nino Kvrivishvili “belongs to the generation who studied textile art while this industry was disappearing and the experience of practical training was becoming impossible. Abstract shapes of the series, in a way a meditation on industrial themes, repeat in this selection presented together with plaster additions inside the shop. Here we also see partially concealed bodies that remind us of images from fashion magazines, as well as hint at stories of many women who were involved in the industry, yet often remained unknown – a topic that Nino has been researching for several years now.”
 
Tara McDowell and Nino KvrivishviliPhoto courtesy of these and three below by Tara McDowell.

View of Nino Kvrivishvili’s pop-up exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17, Tbilisi. 

Curator Data Chigholashvili in Nino Kvrivishvili’s exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17 in Tbilisi.
 
Opening of Nino Kvrivishvili’s exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17 in Tbilisi. Left to right: Nino Kvrivishvili (artist), Salome Zourabichvili (President of Georgia), Aleksandre Utmazyan (the shop owner) and Data Chigholashvili (curator). 


In March 2022, Nino and Data participated in Haus der Kulturen Welt’s programme “They Are There, Sometimes” where Nino presented her Incidents itinerary around Tbilisi (videofrom min. 36:09).

 Nino and Data participated in Haus der Kulturen Welt’s programme “They Are There, Sometimes” where Nino presented her Incidents itinerary around Tbilisi (video from min 36:09).

18 November 2022: Claudia Pagès is awarded Radio Nacional de España’s Premio El Ojo Crítico de Artes Visuales 2022 for “her ability to turn words and language into an artistic tool in every possible form, a vehicle for a political message that is not afraid of confrontation and places the individual and collective body at the centre of her creative practice”. 

As highlighted in this post, in 2021 Claudia presented her video installation “Gerundi Circular” at the Latitudes-curated exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” commissioned for MACBA’s exhibition and produced with the support of ELAMOR

16–19 November 2022: Inching for a trip abroad to see some art, we visited the 16e Biennale d’art contemporain de Lyon, titled “Manifesto of Fragility”, some highlights on Mariana's Instagram via this link.

Those in the curatorial business will understand that besides enjoying the art side, our analytical eyes are peeled, taking mental and photographic notes on how things are practically put together. This goes from looking at how temporary walls are built, how AV equipment is hidden, types of vitrines, how clear signage is, and of course often taking in some curious exhibition labels and poorly displayed art. Here are some random photos that only make sense for research or reference purposes. Going very meta now, behind the behind-the-scenes...







28 November 2022: First online introduction of The Pilgrim” team, a project Latitudes curates in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary Art in Co. Limerick, southwest Ireland, and involving Barcelona-based artist Eulàlia Rovira, and Sligo-and-Leitrim-based Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty. To be continued...



29 November 2022: DART Festival awardees announced: Premio Laie DART 2022 a la Mejor Dirección (Laie DART 2022 Award to the Best Direction): “J’ai retrouvé Christian B.” (France, 2020) directed by Alain Fleischer. The documentary is an intimate portrait tracing the relationship between two contemporary creators, the artist Christian Boltanski and the filmmaker Alain Fleischer, who shared a friendship that lasted half a century. 

Premio Laie DART 2022 de la Crítica (Laie DART 2022 Critics Award): “The Melt Goes On Forever: The Art and Times of David Hammons” (EEUU, 2021). Directed by cultural journalist Judd Tully and filmmaker Harold Crooks, the documentary focuses on the elusive figure of African-American artist David Hammons, whose artistic practice spans six decades and foregrounds social criticism in the United States.

Screening at Cinemes Girona. Courtesy: DART Festival.




13 December 2022: MACBA presents their 2023 programme, announcing a list of their recent acquisitions, one being Claudia Pagès’s “Gerundi Circular” (2021), a video installation commissioned for Latitudes-curated exhibition “Panorama 21: Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, produced with the support of ELAMOR. The installation joins the museum collection as a long-term loan of the National Collection of Contemporary Art of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Claudia’s work was also featured in our January 2023 cover story.

17 January 2023: Second Zoom of members affiliated with Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) based in Spain. In the following weeks, we organised a gathering during ARCOMadrid to explain GCC’s objectives to potential new members and meet with GCC’s volunteer groups in Berlin and Italy to hear their experiences of building a team. 



1 February 2023: Newsletter out announcing our next research and residency project “The Pilgrim” in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary Art in Co. Limerick, Ireland, and involving the artists Eulàlia Rovira, Ruth Clinton, and Niamh Moriarty. 

→ More details here.

Left to right: Eulàlia Rovira (photo: Aníbal Parada), Ruth Clinton (photo: Colm Keating) and Niamh Moriarty (photo: Cian Flynn).

22–24 February 2023: During ARCOmadrid we are jurors, alongside Markus Reymann (co-director TBA21), and Marta Cardoso, of the first Six Senses Sustainable Art Award given to an artist whose work honours an awareness around sustainability and environmental urgencies. We studied and discussed the work of more than 40 artists whose work is presented at the art fair and unanimously decided to award Zé Carlos Garcia (1973, Aracajú, BR) for his presentation at the stand of Buenos Aires’s gallery PASTO

The jury stated: “We were intrigued to discover the practice of Zé Carlos García and to learn how his enchanting carved and turned wooden sculptures are embedded in such an inventive and resourceful approach to art, environmental responsibility, decolonial practice, and land restoration. The wood he uses comes from a small tract of a forest he oversees in Brazil where non-native trees such as pines and eucalyptus were once planted by Swiss settler colonists to give the landscape a more European feel. Over the centuries these thirsty species have had a detrimental effect on the indigenous ecosystem and Zé has been removing the invasive species over the last decade, repurposing the resultant wood as a resource for his art practice, while bringing back native trees to the Mata Atlántica.”


Zé Carlos Garcia holding the sign announcing his award (above) and the award (below). Photos ARCOmadrid 2023.


Zé Carlos Garcia. Photo: Max Andrews.

The catalogue “Futuros Abundantes / Abundant Futures”, accompanying the homonymous exhibition in Córdoba, was also launched during ARCOmadrid. The 336-page book includes Latitudes’ newly commissioned essay “Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro” [Soil for Future Art Histories] – read an abstract here (in Spanish). 

(Above and below) Launch of Futuros Abundantes in ArtsLibris during ARCOmadrid 2023. Photos: IFEMA / ARCOmadrid.


Futuros abundantes / Abundant Futures” catalogue, copublished by TBA21 and Turner, 2023. Photos: Enrico Fiorese.

After a few work sessions over Zoom, we attended the first IRL Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) gathering on February 22nd. This inaugurates the soft launch of the new formation of GCC Spain, a new national working group aligned with GCC’s core environmental targets and commitments

GCC is an international membership non-for-profit organisation with over 800 members from 40 countries, providing environmental sustainability guidelines for the art sector, whose primary targets are to facilitate a reduction of the visual art sector’s greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 50% by 2030 (in line with the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming to below 1.5°C) and promote zero-waste practices. More info. 

GCC Spain is a newly formed semi-autonomous volunteer team (joining working groups in Berlin, Italy, Los Angeles, London, and Taiwan) that works to develop a dedicated platform of environmental resources for Spanish-based art organisations and professionals.

Informative gathering about GCC Spain at ARCOmadrid on @galleryclimatecoalition. Photo: Max Andrews.

@acercacomunicacion's Instagram Story.

March 2023: As part of Latitudes’ ongoing environmental commitment, and as new members of the Gallery Climate Coalition, we publish the first edition of our Environmental Responsibility Statement on our website (extended version here) and submit individual calculations of our Carbon Footprint from 2019 (our baseline from which reductions will be made) and 2022 to the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC). Below is a simple graphic showing the comparison of the two years. Latitudes’ carbon emissions were 17.4tCo2e in 2019 and 3.8tCo2e in 2022. 

Our 2023 Strategic Climate Fund is €190. This is calculated by multiplying our 2022 carbon footprint (3.8tCo2e emissionsby €50 per tonne. We set these funds aside to spend on low-carbon purchasing options that would otherwise be unaffordable.


beginning of May 2023: Checking out the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona (aka Casa de l'Ardiaca), the Cathedral and its cloister, MACBA, and more with The Pilgrim” guest resident artists Niamh Moriarty and Ruth Clinton. Aptly, as their work has often been related to the Transatlantic relations between Ireland and the United States, their stay coincides with a visit of the Obamas (and Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks) to Barcelona to catch the beginning of Bruce Springsteen's tour.

Throughout the Spring, Latitudes researched documentation in the city archives with the hopes of finding evidence of Askeaton's Pilgrim, browsing certificates of docking in the Port of Barcelona, licences of the board of health, details of boat captain promotion, health patents, and plague-free certificates. With little to no factual data on Askeaton’s Pilgrim – besides his name (Don Martínez de Mendoza), his date of death (Askeaton, 1784), that he was a Barcelona merchant from the mid-18th Century who had a flagship called Isabella, and a daughter called Beatrice (¿Beatriz / Beatriu?) – we weren't able to find further evidence of his existence.





Giving Ruth and Niamh a “phantom tour” of the Panorama exhibition a year and a half after its closing. Here Eulàlia explains her work “La perla”.

6 May 2023: After a few initial days in Barcelona, The Pilgrim” guest resident artists Niamh Moriarty and Ruth Clinton present their work around relics, rubbings, and translation, alongside “The Pilgrim” co-curators Askeaton Contemporary Arts (ACA) (Michele Horrigan and Sean Lynch) at Eulàlia Rovira’s studio. What began as a vermut+talk event extended into pizzas for lunch, afternoon beers, and rolled into dinner.

→ Social Networks archived here.





10 May 2023: Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes qualified to be in the first cohort of Active Members of the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC). To achieve this status we demonstrated that we have implemented environmental sustainability best practices in line with GCC’s guidelines.

→ More info
→ Environmental Policy Statement here.

16–18 May 2023: Work trip to València to visit Antoni Miralda’s exhibition “Miralda. Honeymoon: Unclassified” at Bombas Gens, curated by its artistic director Sandra Guimarães. The show centres on his “Honeymoon Project” (1986-1992), a series of intercontinental ceremonial actions around the romance and subsequent marriage between two historical monuments: that of Christopher Columbus, in the port of Barcelona, and the Statue of Liberty, in New York Bay. Max of Latitudes will review it for frieze’s October issue (online in June). 

(Above) The “Zapato Góndola” (1990–2023) was exhibited in Bombas Gens’ patio. It has been remade in fibreglass in València, taking advantage of its fallas craft expertise. The heel now is removable becoming a gondola, and it's lighter than the original one made of wood. 

The exhibition mostly comprised of letters and ephemera gathered throughout the 40 years of the making of the project, from its presentation in the 1990 Spanish Pavilion to the many drafted letters, invitations, posters and drawings of potential ideas for floats, parades and even a prenup.




Also took the opportunity to visit Bombas Gens’s solo show of Carlos Bunga and the collection reading by El último grito, as well as IVAM’s shows dedicated to Lebanese artist Aref El Rayess, Danish Asger Jorn, and the design collective La Nave. At Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània (CCCC) we met Diego Díaz and Clara Boj who showed us Permea teaching spaces, the first MA Programme in Experimental Mediation and
 Education through Art and guided us through CCCC’s shows. We also visit the commercial galleries House of Chappaz, Galería Set Espai d'Art, Galería Luis Adelantado, Tuesday to Friday, and Galería Jorge López. We had an overdue catch-up over noodles with old-time artist friend Fermín Jiménez Landa, and finally met the curators Julia Castelló and Ali A. Maderuelo in the flesh, who on June 8th opened “[DOSMILVINT-I-U] [DOSMILVINT-I-TRES] = 1 encuentro” at IVAM, the culmination of a two-year programme comprising workshops, conferences, performances, mediations with artists Diego Navarro and Darío Alva, Claudia Dyboski, Marina González Guerreiro, Álvaro Porras, and M Reme Silvestre. In 2021 Latitudes nominated them for the 11th Edition of the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi per l’Arte – EnterPrize but this was the first time meet in person! 

early June 2023: Submitted a profile text on America-born Scotland-based artist, researcher, writer, and educator Crystal Bennes’ new project to be exhibited at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, in February 2024. The text will be included in the forthcoming publication “Betwixt 2024”, the next iteration of publications of the Freelands Artist ProgrammeInvolving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and performance, Bennes’ new project addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton. 

Design study for a Jacquard weaving titled “pecunia non olete” (2023) featured on Latitudes’ homepage as the June 2023 cover story. Courtesy Crystal Bennes.

6–8 June 2023: Trip to Mallorca as guests of Art Palma Contemporani’s event Art Summer Palma. Honouring our environmental commitment, we travelled to the island and back by ferry as foot passengers. As the ferry dropped us in Alcúdia, we visited the nearby Pollença (galería Maior, Coster Art i Natura), and then took the bus to the Palma, paying a visit to Es Baluard before joining the official programme visiting the galleries Pep Llabrés, Xavier Fiol, Kewenig, M77, Aba Art Lab, Fran Reus, Baró, Pelaires, PGallery, L21 Home and L21 by foot.


(Above and three below) Views of Pollença from Coster Art in Natura, the artist-led initiative by pollensí Amador Magraner (third photo down) that began in 2022.


Works by Susana Solano and Eva Lootz (above and below).


Ludovica Carbotta ceramic oven in progress.

Amador showing us one of his sculptures “Germinacions” which began in the 1990s.

View of the collection reading curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio at Es Baluard.

Wonderful Maria Lai 1981 action “Legare Collegare” registered in video and photography on view at Es Baluard, Palma, and some more works in the M77 gallery, a new space in Palma of the Milan-based gallery.

Solo exhibition by Adrià Maryordomo (portrayed) at Galeria Fran Reus, Palma. 



12 June 2023: The National Council for Culture and Arts (CONCA) plenary agreed to carry out a survey of Catalunya-based Art Critics and Curators, a tool to analyse the state of our profession from the economic, cultural, professional, and social points of view. An expert committee formed by representatives of ACCA, the Catalan Art Critics Association (amongst them Mariana of Latitudes, who recently became an ACCA member), the Platform of Catalan Artists (PAAC), and the Association of Cultural Management Professionals of Catalunya (APGCC) gathered at Palau Moja to share their feedback to create the most comprehensive possible survey, the results of which are aimed to be completed at the end of 2023.

Photo: Miquel-Àngel Codes Luna / ACCA.

19 June 2023: Zoom launch of GCC Spain, the Spanish chapter of the Gallery Climate Coalition. The event was an opportunity to introduce the London-based founders to Spanish professionals and explain the current and future challenges the Spanish volunteer team is taking on. 

→ Watch the video here (40 min.)
→ Read the press release (in Spanish)



27 June 2023: Attending Joan Morey’s performance “POSTMORTEM. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu” (2006–2007) at Fundació Palau as part of the Poesia + festival. Performed by Sònia López, the piece was the first of a cycle of performances presented as part of Morey’s solo show curated by Latitudes at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona in 2018

A better photo of the 2018 performance below.

Joan Morey, “POSTMORTEM. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu” (2006-2007). Performance reenactment as part of the exhibition “COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine”, Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona - Fabra i Coats (2018). Photo: Noemi Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.

28 June 2023: Visit TERSA, the publicly-owned company that manages Barcelona's Metropolitan Area waste management, transforming residues into energy by incineration (this waste-to-energy plant generated 142.013 MWh of electricity in 2022). We go around the Integrated Waste Management Plant (PIVR) at Sant Adrià del Besòs, which includes the Waste-to-Energy Plant and the Mechanical-Biological Treatment Plant, managed by Ecoparc del Mediterrani. This location processes what citizens throw into the grey containers – the remaining waste that cannot be reused or recycled (not paper, glass, plastic, or organic matter), whose process generates twice what's needed to supply the electricity grid of the city. The visit was organised as part of the public programme of the exhibition “Ciutat de sorra” [City of sand] by David Bestué at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani.







29 June 2023: Max Andrews’ review of Antoni Miralda’s exhibition at Bombas Gens (València) is published online on frieze.com (on print in the October 2023 issue).

“A giant high-heeled shoe with Venetian gondola trimmings stands in the courtyard of Bombas Gens Centre d’Art like a monument to fairy-tale slippers. Yet, this is a true-to-size stiletto, made to fit a 93-metre-tall debutante who stands in New York’s harbour: the Statue of Liberty. Created in 1990 by Antoni Miralda as a wedding gift for Liberty’s proposed symbolic marriage to another monument of similar vintage, the Columbus Monument in Barcelona, the original shoe was taken down the Grand Canal before forming the centrepiece of the artist’s Spanish Pavilion at that year’s Venice Biennale. This replica, fabricated by a Valencian fallero craftsman, is destined for the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid.” 

→ Continue reading here.



July 2023: Further schedule and reading prep for our end-of-August research trip to Dublin, Sligo, Askeaton, and Limerick, the second part of The Pilgrim residency exchange


RELATED CONTENT:



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Cover Story, July–August 2023: Honeymoon in Valencia

    July–August 2023 cover story on www.lttds.org


The July–August 2023 monthly Cover Story “Honeymoon in Valencia” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org

“In April this year, the streets of Valencia witnessed a remarkable sight: a colossal high-heeled shoe, adorned in the fashion of a Venetian gondola, paraded its way to the Bombas Gens Centre d’Art. 

→ Continue reading (after August 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.


→ RELATED CONTENTS

  • More writing by Max Andrews in frieze
  • Archive of Monthly Cover Stories 
  • Cover Story, June 2023: Crystal Bennes futures, 1 Jun 2023
  • Cover Story, May 2023: Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty in Barcelona, 1 May 2023
  • Cover Story, April 2023: Jerónimo Hagerman (1967–2023), 1 Apr 2023
  • Cover Story, March 2023: Art, Climate and New Coalitions, 1 March 2023
  • Cover Story, February 2023: Soil for Future Art Histories, 2 Feb 2023
  • Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ ‘Gerundi Circular’, 2 Jan 2023
  • Cover Story, December 2022: “The Melt Goes On Forever. David Hammons and DART Festival, 1 December 2022
  • Cover Story, November 2022: Jorge Satorre’s Barcelona, 1 Nov 2022
  • Cover Story, October 2022: Stray Ornithologies—Laia Estruch, 3 Oct 2022
  • Cover Story, September 2022: The means of print production: Erick Beltrán and lumbung press, 1 September 2022
  • Cover Story, July–August 2022:  Incidents (of Travel) from Seoul, 1 July 2022
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Latitudes’ "out of office" 2021–22 season

Frozen facemask, Helsinki, March 2022.

As the summer break creeps up on us with a weary smile in the already sweltering heat-and-humidity of Barcelona, it’s once again time for our annual looking-back post wrapping up the last twelve months of Latitudes’ activities, a period of time which includes the most extensive exhibition we’ve made to date in Spain: MACBA’s “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire”. 

In thinking of how to pen this little introduction to a compilation that’s an ending of sorts, our thoughts turned back to a request we received in February from Shimmer, the exhibition space in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The artist Jo-ey Tang was creating a new version of a project which would comprise an endless loop of the favourite endings of films suggested by friends of Shimmer. Our contributions: Mariana chose Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988) and Max, the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski (1998).

In the ending of Cinema Paradiso, Salvatore watches a final bittersweet gift from Alfredo: a reel with all the romantic scenes that had been censored from the cinema. Looking back brings happy nostalgia and a chance to make peace with the past.

And to paraphrase the Coens’ Stranger... well, that about does her, wraps her all up. Things seem to have worked out pretty good. Parts, anyway. Aw, look at me, I’m ramblin’ again. Well, I hope you folks enjoyed yourselves. Catch ya later on down the trail...

This end-of-the-season post is the fourteenth in the “out of the office” series published every end of July to mark the beginning of our holidays (or the desire of having one). Check earlier posts from 2008–92009–102010–112011–122012–132013–142014–152015–162016–172017–182018–19, 2019–20 and 2020–21 seasons. All photos are by Latitudes unless stated otherwise in the photo caption.

x

The September 2021 issue of frieze magazine includes a review of David Bestué's exhibition at Centre d'art La Panera, published online last May.

via @marcnavarro facebook. 

31 August 2021: Reaching the final preparation stages of MACBA’s “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire” exhibition opening on October 21st. Last year’s post detailed much of the leg work involved throughout the past year. Here we're mocking up the placement of Rasmus Nilausen’s largest paintings, for which Fusteria Aram is manufacturing individual custom-made supports.

Above photo by Hiuwai Chu. Below are co-curator Hiuwai Chu and Rasmus Nilausen under Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled (Perfect Lovers)” (1987–1990). 


3 September 2021: Visiting Antoni Hervàs at La Escocesa to check the progress of his work “La Meier” (2021) to be will shortly be premièred in MACBA's “Notes for an Eye Fire”.



13 September 2021: Boules of oak (Quercus canariensis), cedar (Cedrus sp.) and pine (Pinus pinea) arrive at TMDC in La Verneda, the material for a new iteration of Nyamnyam and Pedro Pineda’s project ‘A quatre potes’ (2014–ongoing) that will be presented in MACBA's exhibition “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire”.

As the exhibition wall text pointed out, the project is “founded on the principle that in order to share a meal or have a discussion you first have to build a table to sit at. Leading up to and during the exhibition, a group of people with diverse roles within the MACBA are participating in a series of co-design and collaborative making workshops that began with the purchase of several tree trunks from a sustainable forestry initiative in the nearby Montnegre massif.”

During the next week, the trees would be “transformed into planks and laths at the shared machine shop TMDC, this locally sourced wood is being adapted in the gallery by the museum workers into a range of tables, benches, and other structures. This furniture acts as a mediator between natural and human resources, creating different social settings throughout the course of the exhibition and becoming the scenography and motive for a series of discussions around practices of collectivity and cultures of sustainability within and beyond the institutional walls.”
 

Photo: TMDC


16 September 2021: Meeting at Bendita Gloria’s studio to go through the contents of the publication accompanying the group exhibition “Things Things Say” that concluded last January at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona.


22 September 2021: Conversation with Jorge Satorre as part of the series “Dialogues with artists from the Contemporary Art Collection” and within the framework of “El tiempo en las cosas”, an exhibition curated by Tatiana Cuevas at the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico.

Due to work and time differences, the talk was recorded a few days earlier. The conversation revolved around the production process of "The Erratic. Measuring Compensation", a work included in Satorre's exhibition and commissioned by Latitudes as one of the ten projects produced throughout 2009 in the public space of the Port of Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

‘The Erratic’ is also featured as the September 2021 Cover Story on our homepage.



27 September–19 October 2021: Three weeks installing the first edition of MACBA’s Panorama triennial, “a new series of transdisciplinary projects that reflects the museum’s desire to deepen its collaboration and dialogue with local artists and cultural agents”. The inaugural project of Panorama is the group exhibition “Notes for an Eye Fire” which occupies MACBA's top floor. During this first install week, efforts centred on shipping, registering, and installing Rasmus Nilausen’s “Theatre of Doubts” (2021) at one end of the museum and Stella Rahola Matutes’ “Fig Juice” (2020) at the other end, while walls were being painted, final sound checks were done and artworks were finally arriving at the museum.

Stella Rahola Matutes and Alex Castro (Conservator, MACBA) photo-documenting Stella's work before installation.


Xavi (install crew of Coolturart) installed one of Stella's glass figures.

Stella Rahola Matutes and Xavi (install crew of Coolturart) carefully installed Stella’s “Fig Juice”.

Lluis Roqué (Conservator at MACBA) documented Rasmus Nilausen’s paintings.

Rasmus Nilausen’s paintings (walls) and Stella Rahola Matutes glass pieces and chains (tables) are analysed and registered by the conservation team before installation.

While Rasmus's wooden supports are being assembled, the improvised office at the museum landing is busy checking the “final-final-final” version of the wall labels, intro text and the leaflet.

First of Rasmus Nilausen’s large paintings (1 of 49) is finally up, supervised by Eva Font (left, space coordinator of the exhibition, MACBA), Alex Castro and Lluís Roqué (centre, Conservators, MACBA), ARAM staff (the carpenters that produced the wood supports) and the install crew of Coolturart.

Nilausen's “Wax Cabinet” (2021, 300 x 205 x 6cm, oil on linen) being moved and hung (below).



Ongoing metamorphosis in the largest exhibition space on the second floor.

Last sound checks with Pablo Miranda and Laia Estruch.

R. Marcos Mota of El Palomar doing a mock-up of the archival material to be presented in vitrines.

Meanwhile, nyamnyam and Pedro Pineda’s tree is sent to Lleida to be fireproofed.


To end the first week, Antoni Hervàs’s “La Meiers” (above) arrives at the museum from La Escocesa, as well as Claudia Pagès’s silkscreened and fireproofed cardboard from Capellades (two below), alongside the structure manufactured by Tallers Soteras to hold the LED panels shipped from Shenzhen that forms her new commissioned video installation “Gerundi Circular” (2021) – soundtrack here.



Week 2 begins with the exciting placement of Antoni Hervàs’s “La Meiers” becoming the entrance to the exhibition.


Meanwhile, Arash Fayez’s wall is almost fully painted in the nearby gallery...

...and Claudia Pagès starts installing the LEDs around the circular metal structure.

Claudia amidst the cable maze.

Coolturart team fixing the circular screen to the ceiling.

First sound and image test of El Palomar’s “Schreber is a Woman” with R. Marcos Mota. The amazing soundtrack that accompanies the video can be listened to here, on Spotify or you can also purchase the 12'' vinyl edition.

Drawing of the structures that hold Laia Estruch’s “Ocells Perduts” net structure drawn by the museum architecture department, placed below by RMG Redes.


Vinyl placed in Plaça dels Àngels promoting MACBA’s programme this trimester includes two sketches by Laia Estruch of her “Ocells perduts” piece.

Habemus Ruta de Autor newspaper!

Parallel to all the activities going on, Hervàs continues customising “La Meiers” to fit what will become the entrance to the exhibition.

Eulàlia Rovira’s replica of Richard Meier’s signature column arrives at the museum. Since we have all the hands and machinery ready, it soon goes up.

Eulàlia shares instructions on how to assemble the yellow supports.



Laia Estruch’s large red net slowly goes up and takes shape.

Photo: Hiuwai Chu

Making a selection of Eulàlia Rovira’s new photo collages.

Hervàs in progress.

Technical difficulties. Please bear with us.

Laia is finally able to go up the net and do her first and only rehearsal. High expectations from artists colleagues, curators and staff observing below.

Final calculations before hanging Arash Fayez’s 310 papers documenting his migrant “limbo” status in the US and Europe.


Meanwhile, in the Teatre Molino in Paral·lel, Antoni Hervàs’ begins “La Meller”, the second part of his contribution to Panorama 21: a 27-metre mural in which Hervàs and his collaborator Pau Magrané unfold a chronicle of the neighbourhood's beloved theatres and venues, both past and present, resulting in "a frieze-carousel" where authors, actors and actresses such as Violeta la Burra, Escamillo, Johnson, Pierrot, Ángel Pavlovsky, float timelessly intertwined by boas.

(Above and below) Pau Magrané and Antoni Hervàs working on the graffiti. Photo: Eva Carasol.

Tecnodimensión testing Laia Estruch’s wind sock before mounting it on the wall.

Adrian Schindler goes through the ephemera that will be displayed as part of his installation.

Installing Rosa Tharrats’s work in the atrium/corridor space.

Placing the newspaper spread by Ruta de Autor to check heights.


Entrance / Exit of the exhibition in progress.

Marria Pratts’s “Sento una música dintre del cap (I Hear Music Inside My Head (Transformation of a Blurry Thought)), 2021.


Antoni Hervàs’ “La Meiers” is almost there.

Installing Rosa Tharrats’s work in the atrium/corridor space.


Iñaki of nyamnyam and Pedro Pineda placing the fireproofed wood boules (detail below)


Max Andrews, Hiuwai Chu and Aleix Plademunt checking the measurements between the 18 images.



Important message from Antoni Hervàs: “Do not paint in white!! (please) You were right, thank you. NO!” :-)

As the day ends we leave the museum and take a gander at the lighting colours on Rosa Tharrats’s installation as the days get shorter.

Entrance vinyl is in place and final cleaning.


29 September 2021: Launching the 16th dispatch of “Incidents (of Travel)” from Beirut, Lebanon: incidents.kadist.org/beirut

In the 16th dispatch, curator Marie-Nour Héchaimé navigates Beirut with artist-filmmaker Panos Aprahamian a year after the August 2020 explosion, when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored for six years without safekeeping in the port of the Lebanese capital were set on fire and exploded. The blast killed more than 200 deaths, 6,500 wounded, 300,000 displaced, and great destruction in the city. “I say that I am living with ghosts—of people, places, memories, stories”, she reflects. “He answers that Beirut is disintegrating in front of our very eyes.”

Part of the series produced by KADIST and edited by Latitudes since 2016, exploring the chartered itinerary as a format of an artistic encounter between curators and artists.


3 October 2021:
New cover story on Latitudes' homepage featuring the 16th itinerary of Incidents (of Travel), this time around Beirut led by Panos Aprahamian and reported by 
Marie-Nour Héchaime. Since 2016 produced as part of Kadist's online programmes.
21 October 2021: Press conference and evening opening of the exhibition “Panorama 21: Notes for an Eye Fire” at MACBA. We realise this is the first time all the artists and curators are able to meet IRL. 

Final clean-up before the press conference.

Photo: Pedro Pineda.

Participants of “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” (nyannyam and Ana Domínguez are missing) posing for the press. Photo: Hiuwai Chu

(Above and three below) Press conference in MACBA's atrium, 21 October 2021. Photos: Miquel Coll.

(Left to right) Max Andrews (Latitudes), Hiuwai Chu (Head of Exhibitions, MACBA), Elvira Dyangani Ose (Director, MACBA) and Mariana Cánepa Luna (Latitudes) during the press conference, 21 October 2021. Photos: Miquel Coll.



Participating artist Eulàlia Rovira responded to Carolina Rosich's questions for TV3 news. Photo: Hiuwai Chu.

(Above and nine below) Opening of the exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” at MACBA. Photos: Miquel Coll.











18 November 2021: Parlem de...Apunts per apunts visit with “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire co-curators Hiuwai Chu and Latitudes. 


Photo by Hiuwai Chu.


19 November 2021: First change of Nyamnyam and Pedro Pineda’s “A quatre potes” (2014–ongoing), a scenography presented as part of MACBA’s exhibition Notes for an Eye Fire”.




20 November 2021: First of four open rehearsals of “Ocells perduts” [Stray Birds] (2021) by Laia Estruch presented as part of MACBA’s exhibition “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire”.

Above and below photos: Miquel Coll.




25 November 2021: Jury of the 5th edition of DART Festival, alongside the film critic Quim Casas and the journalist Ianko López, and festival team members Enrichetta Cardinale and Silvana Fiorese, to choose the best national and international documentary in the competitive section.



2 December 2021: Parlem de...cabaret, a guided visit led by participating artist Antoni Hervàs as part of MACBA’s exhibition “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire”. The audio was edited and later made available on Latitudes’ Soundcloud.

Audio of Toni’s 1h guided tour on Soundcloud.


Second part of Antoni Hervàs’ itinerary we stopped at the bar Atlanta FC in Rambla del Raval, where Hervàs explained the origins of his proposal for his two-part project for MACBA's exhibition: the 1980s board game “El Chino” (as part of El Raval neighbourhood was formerly known). Hervàs also shared a selection of preparatory drawings that we would later see on the wall he and Pau Magrané graffitied in Paral·lel.



The itinerary ended in front of Teatre Arnau in Paral·lel, where Toni Hervàs and his collaborator Pau Magrané painted the wall that protects the theatre during its restoration. Hervàs’ mural honours the cabaret history of Paral·lel’s nightlife, its cabaret, bars, and actresses.


That evening we are saddened to receive the news Lawrence Weiner passed away. We worked with Lawrence on a four-part project in 2008 presented at the first location of Fundació Suñol, in Barcelona’s Passeig de Gràcia. 


9 December 2021: Parlem de...Anecdotes to be Forgotten, a performative walkthrough by Arash Fayez as part of MACBA’s exhibition “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire.


10 December 2021:
Second configuration of “A Quatre Potes” by nyamnyam and Pedro Pineda, in collaboration with MACBA staff.




14 December 2021: Ràdio Web MACBA publishes a podcast with El Palomar (in Spanish) where they discuss “Schreber is a Woman” (2020) their most recent film produced for the 11th Berlin Biennial and presented for the first time in Spain as part of MACBA’s “Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”. 

16 December 2021: 17th dispatch of Incidents (of Travel) is live! Narration and visuals by curator Inga Lāce and artist Linda Boļšakova, who forage for environmental histories in Riga. The day that takes them from manicured park lawns to a thicket of sea buckthorn bushes near a “post-apocalyptic” sauna, and from a housing project allotment to the laboratories of the National Botanic Garden of Latvia. Produced by KADIST.



17–19 December 2021: After months of uncertain planning, Paul O'Neill, director of PUBLICS, is able to visit Barcelona to meet Laia Estruch and attend the second rehearsal of her work ‘Stray Birds’ (2021), a new commission produced for the exhibition “Notes for and Eye Fire at MACBA, and supported by PUBLICS



January 2022: Visiting MACBA’s exhibition with long-time artist friend Lara Almarcegui based in Rotterdam.


13 January 2022: Hablemos de... Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ullsa sung visit by poet Gabriel Ventura and flamenco cantaor Pere Martínez, reading and singing poems written for the occasion by Gabriel. Pell de gallina!

Gabriel started the itinerary under Antoni Hervàs’s work “La Meiers”, a work commissioned for MACBA’s exhibition, that became the entrance and the exit to the neighbourhood.





17 January 2022: Exactly a year after its closure, we receive a copy of the publication accompanying the exhibition “Things Things Say”, which took place at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona between October 2020 and January 2021. We are elated to finally have it in our hands!


29 January 2022: Double Notes for an Eye Fire’ programme today. “Systematurgy of A quatre potes” (On Four Legs) in the morning and the third open rehearsal of “Ocells perduts” by Laia Estruch in the evening.

A discussion around “A quatre potes”, the project presented in the exhibition by nyamnyam and Pedro Pineda, around forest management, design as an investigative tool, and the limits of the museum with the participation of Lídia Guitart (forest engineer), Curro Claret (industrial designer), Ingrid Guardiola (writer, cultural researcher and Director of Bòlit, Centre d'Art Contemporani), the artists, exhibition curators, and workshop participants. This activity was part of Education from Below, a project with the support of Creative Europe's programme of the European Union Creative Europe.

The setting for the event was rearranged the evening before with workshop participants (MACBA staff that have volunteered in a number of workshops cutting the wood planks, arranging them in the exhibition space, and changing the set-up on a monthly basis) following the principle and the spirit of the project that “in order to have a discussion we need a table”.  

(Above and below) The before and after, seating is ready for tomorrow's open discussion. Photos: Ariadna Rodriguez (nyamnyam).


Above and two photos below: Miquel Coll.



Designer Curro Claret brought in an earthenware cup used in India to drink tea before boarding on a train. Once used the cup is thrown out the window and hence, naturally recycled into the landscape, an “evident example of what circular economy is and should be”. Plastic cups took over but pollution along the tracks was so bad the government encouraged tea makers to go back to earthenware.

Ingrid Guardiola began mentioning Octavi Comeron’s “La Fábrica Transparente” and how institutions’ obsession with transparency, in turn, generates opacity from within those institutions or, as Peter Sloterdijk warned, is an example of cynical transparency. Then moved on to reflect on how institutions could learn from forest’s entropy and efficiency and how exceeding energies could be used within institutions.

Lidia Guitart, a forest engineer from the Associació Propietaris Forestals del Montnegre i el Corredor (from where nyamnyam’s wood was originally purchased) discussed perceptions of forest management in Catalunya in relation to Finland (the leader in paper pulp supplier) and shared some interesting data: 60–70% of Catalunya is forest, yet 80% of that is in private hands.

The 2h session was punctuated by printed cards with words/concepts triggering several subjects related to each of the guests' practices which were then chosen at random to encourage interlinking rather than monothematic presentations.

2 February 2022: Ràdio Web MACBA publishes a podcast with Claudia Pagès (in Spanish) where she discusses “Gerundi Circular” (2021) a new video-installation commissioned for MACBA’s “Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”. The work is presented in her solo show “Abajo el puerto suena nino-nino, y yo arriba pipí” in Madrid’s gallery The Ryder in June 2022.


9 February 2022: Panorama and “Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” graphic designer Ana Domínguez and collaborator Lara Coromina send photos where the small publication closing the exhibition was coming off the press. “Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ulls” is the colophon of the first edition of Panorama and includes a poem by participant Gabriel Ventura that draws up a textual cartography of the exhibition alongside a selection of exhibition views.

Photos above and below by Ana Domínguez.



February 2022: The exhibition catalogue “Things Things Say” is finally online and can be purchased. The show was curated by Latitudes at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani in Barcelona between October 2020 and January 2021. Available from the art centre, the Diputació bookstore and the Ajuntament bookstore (Sala Ciutat) and online via the Diputació bookstore website.

The book includes a preface by art centre director Joana Hurtado Matheu, new texts by Latitudes, a text-based intervention by participating artist Eulàlia Rovira, and texts on each exhibited work also written by Latitudes.

Photos: Latitudes

22–25 February 2022: Trip to Madrid for ARCOmadrid. Max previewed “What to see during this year's ARCOmadrid” for frieze. Worth adding to the list is the joyous retrospective of Bruno Munari at Fundación Juan March, the catalogue currently on our desk. 


27 February 2022: After a four-month run, the exhibition Notes for an Eye Fire’ comes to an end at MACBA. Here is a selection of the most relevant reviews, clips from television and radio programmes that have covered the show, and of course photo documentation.

As a poetic colophon of the exhibition, the publication Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ulls” was released. It includes a new poem in three movements by exhibition participant Gabriel Ventura, and photos of the works in the museum galleries documented by Roberto Ruiz, Eva Carasol, Miquel Coll and Latitudes.

Photos: Gemma Planell.

2 March 2021: Ràdio Web MACBA publishes a podcast with Panorama artist Marc Vives (85'22'' in Spanish) where he discusses his practice and for MACBA’s “Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”. 


10 March 2022: Lecture about our curatorial practice and on the recently concluded MACBA exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” to fourth-year students at the Fine Arts Department of the Universitat de Barcelona. The student Rita Duarte Lli tagged us during our presentation, so we asked if she would mind sharing the mental map she drew during the session, see below.


Mental mapping of the session courtesy of Rita Duarte Lli (@ritinacaipirina ) following the @cursogenius.es technique.

14–18 March 2022: After 2.5 years of conversations and a much-postponed trip to Helsinki, we finally travel to begin our year-long Parahosting at 
PUBLICS with a public presentation of our curatorial practice followed by a performance by Barcelona-based artist Laia Estruch. Conversations with Laia and PUBLICS began in late 2019 and mutated due to the pandemic. However, in 2021 PUBLICS supported Laia’s piece “Ocells Perduts” (Stray Birds) presented as part of MACBA’s exhibition “Panorama 21: Notes for an Eye Fire”.

We donated three more publications (“Passió i cartografia per a un incendi dels ulls” published by MACBA in 2022, Lola Lasurt’s “Joc d'infants” published by La Capella in 2020 and Anna Moreno’s “The Drowned Giant” also published by La Capella in 2017) to PUBLICS Library, joining the first 5kg we donated back in 2019. These will soon be joined by the publication of the exhibition “Things Things Say” published by Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. You can search here

[Note that not all the results are under “Latitudes”, others are under “Max Andrews” or “Mariana Cánepa Luna” as writers]. PUBLICS library is the third location where the whole set of Latitudes’-edited publications sleep, alongside the Library of the MACBA Study Centre, Barcelona, and the Paul D. Fleck Library & Archives, The Banff Centre, Canada.

A selection of Latitudes and Laia Estruch publications available for consultation at PUBLICS.


On March 15, we had the chance to do an adaptation of our itinerant “Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group” workshop (earlier iterations took place in Bari, San Francisco, Birmingham, and Barcelona), this time under the “Professional Skills for Artists” class led by Prof. Suzanne Mooney. We met around fifteen MFA students in the new Sörnäinen campus building of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Uniarts Helsinki. Throughout our 2-hour encounter, issues such as the lack of free-of-charge exhibition spaces for younger artists or affordable studio spaces emerged when reflecting on the weaknesses of Helsinki’s art ecology and how could these needs be “hacked”, improved, and ideally eliminated.



On
March 17, 2022, we did a presentation of our curatorial practice at PUBLICS, followed by Laia Estruch’s “Mix” (2021–ongoing), a solo performance compilation that revisits the diverse voiced sounds, resonances, and articulations she has developed and learned throughout her projects to date. An exercise in sonic recall and muscle memory, “Mix” is a live non-chronological edit that extracts the most ephemeral aspect of her practice – the voice – while exploring it as a kind of organ of the body, and as a tool for sculpting air.

Photos at PUBLICS by Noora Lehtovuori.








30 March 2022: frieze.com publishes Max Andrews’ review of Bruno Zhu’s exhibition “I am not afraid” at Cordova in Barcelona. The frieze summer issue will include a printed version.

31 March 2022: Press trip to Córdoba on the occasion of “Abundant Futures”, the inaugural exhibition Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) organises in C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba, as part of their three-year-long collaboration agreement.


(Above) Ceramic pieces by Asunción Molinos Gordo. (Below) Installation by Ernesto Neto.


(Above) Installation by Daniel Steegman Mangrané.
(Below) "Apagón" (2017) by Allora & Calzadilla, included a performance activated in the opening evening performed a capella by a local choir.


(Above) Installation view with works by Ai Weiwei (left) and Regina de Miguel (right).

1 April 2022: New cover story on Latitudes’ home page on Laia's performance “Mix” and PUBLICS & Latitudes match.
8 April 2022: Curatorial studio Shimmer in Rotterdam (first Paraguests of PUBLICS) inaugurate “More More More Than Than Than Lovers Lovers Lovers More More More Than Than Than Friends Friends Friends” a “looped supercut of film endings, selected by those who Shimmer admires. A compilation of final scenes and musical accompaniments with the closing credits, these endings are experienced repeatedly, back to back.” Max and Mariana of Latitudes each selected a film ending for the occasion (ref. at the beginning of this post).

Shimmer’s Instagram, 9 April 2022.

18 April 2022: 18th dispatch of Incidents (of Travel) is live! Narration and photography by curator Xenia Kalpaktsoglou and artist Pegy Zali from Attica, Greece. Xenia and Pegy conceive an itinerary and a screenplay-like commentary that takes us through the Attica peninsula, from a mysterious inscription sprayed at the site of a railway sabotage that transpired near Piraeus Port in 2010, to the vestiges of an enormous wildfire that consumed the forest around Alepochori in 2021. Produced by KADIST.


23 April 2022: Things Things Say” cover is peaking out amongst the selection of publications sold at the Serveis Editorials de l'Ajuntament de Barcelona book stall in Passeig de Gràcia on the occasion of Sant Jordi 2022.

photo via @bcn_llibres Twitter.

2 May 2022: “Things Things Saybook features in the May Cover Story. The exhibition began with a list of thirty-three questions that confronted visitors, which find their answers in the (mini) catalogue. Ranging from literary quotations and curatorial touchstones to theoretical anecdotes and red herrings, the “answers” wander around the exhibited works, and tack back-and-forth between exceptionally normal things and the extraordinary global narratives of labour, obsolescence, and the industrialisation of nature, that they trigger.


May 2022: Discussing details with Laia Estruch and Helsinki-based writer and curator Irina Mutt for touring Estruch’s “Ocells Perduts (Stray Birds)” (2021–22) to Helsinki. 

Between June and September, Irina will lead a series of three workshops with PUBLICS YOUTH, an education project for Helsinki-based 18-21-year-olds. Based on the idea of a “tour” of Estruch’s “Ocells Perduts (Stray Birds)” from its original museum context to human bodies in Helsinki, the sessions will broach performative practice, translation and transcription, and the non-verbal capacity of the voice.

18 May 2022: Visiting “The Milk of Dreams”, the 2022 edition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Cecilia Alemani. So great to see you again Venezia.


Early June 2022: While visiting Madrid for work-related appointments, we had a chance to peak into Rosa Tharrats’s first solo show at Galería Ehrhardt Flórez before it opened and to visit Aleix Plademunt’s largest solo show to date at Sala Canal Isabel II. Both artists were recently featured in “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire”, and other “Panorama alumni” (Laia Estruch, Adrian Schindler, Arash Fayez and Gabriel Ventura) are also currently or soon exhibiting in Madrid, as featured in this post.

Rosa Tharrats’s first solo show at Galería Ehrhardt Flórez.

View of Aleix Plademunt solo show at Sala Canal Isabel II. Photo: Aleix Plademunt.

11 June 2022: Opening of “Cracking a nut” a solo show by Barcelona-based artist Lúa Coderch on three floors of Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona. [The exhibition had to close two days later due to climate control issues and will reopen on September 13].

Curated by the art centre director Joana Hurtado Matheu, the exhibition includes the work “La declaración del arcoíris” (The Rainbow Statement, 2022), originally commissioned by Latitudes as one of five “Compositions” interventions produced for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend 2016. In its first incarnation, Coderch guided sunlight and a spectrum of colours down into the underground gaming space of the Barcelona Billiards Club with a series of precisely positioned mirrors and prisms as if evoking the mechanics, geometry and artistry involved in billiards.

(Above) “La declaración del arcoiris” (The Rainbow Statement, 2022) at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani.

“La declaración del arcoiris” (2022). Photo courtesy Lúa Coderch. Image Adrià Sunyol Estadella and Alex Weecha.

(Above and two below) Lúa Coderch’s “The Rainbow Statement” (2016) at the Barcelona Billiards Club, part of “Composicions” series of interventions curated by Latitudes for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend 2016. Photos: Roberto Ruiz.



“Entrando en la obra” (Entering the Work, 2018) is screened on the top floor. The 6-minute film is the opening chapter of the videographic essay “Shelter”, a series of films in the form of correspondences Coderch produced between 2015 and 2018. This is “the first letter devoted to the simple gesture o pointing something out for someone else (...) and behind this gesture lies an invitation to enter the picture, to make yourself visible too, together with what is being pointed to.” [as written in the exhibition guide] 

The voice-over features the voice of Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes, which was recorded in March 2017 in a highly DYI mode by improvising a soundproof environment with blankets and carpets in the quietest space in the home on a Sunday morning: the WC.

(Above) Lúa Coderch, (Still) “SHELTER (Entering the work)”, 2015-18. Work produced with the support of Ayuda Fundación BBVA a la Creación en Videoarte 2015. Courtesy Lúa Coderch. Image Adrià Sunyol Estadella. 

20 June 2022: Writer and curator Irina Mutt leads the first of a series of workshops with PUBLICS YOUTH, an education project for Helsinki-based 18-21-year-olds. Based on the idea of an “itinerancy” of Laia Estruch’s “Ocells Perduts (Stray Birds)” from its original museum context [presented in Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire”] to the human bodies of PUBLICS YOUTH’s members in Helsinki, the sessions broached performative practice, translation and transcription, and the non-verbal capacity of the voice.

via @publics Instagram.

23 June 2022: 19th dispatch of Incidents (of Travel) from Seoul is live on incidents.kadist.org! Narration written by curator Sooyoung Leam and itinerary devised and led by artist Yeoreum Jeong from Seoul’s Yongsan district. Photography by Swan Park, produced by KADIST.


21 July 2022: Adrian Schindler and Eulàlia Rovira (“Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire” alumni) guided visit and in conversation with Mexican curator and researcher Paulina Ascensio, as part of their exhibition “The Plague, The Profit” at the non-profit The Green Parrot.


23 July 2022: El Palomar (“Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire” alumni) curates an evening with music productions by trans artists, as part of MACBA’s Lorem Ipsum programme, “connecting the musical and the festive with their potential for empowering possible queer scenes”. The evening includes remixes from the soundtrack of the film “Schreber is a Woman” (2020) presented in MACBA (Spanish première).


Some things to look forward to in the 2022–2023 season: In September we will begin a three-month online mentorship of the first curatorial residency given to a young Peruvian curator organised by TROPICAL PAPERS and submit an essay commissioned for the catalogue of the group exhibition “Futuros Abundantes” organised by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) at C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba. 

More soon, onwards!


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Max Andrews reviews Bruno Zhu’s exhibition “I am not afraid”, Cordova, Barcelona


frieze magazine has published Max Andrews’ review of Bruno Zhu’s exhibition “I am not afraid” presented at Cordova space in Barcelona until May 28, 2022. The frieze summer issue will include a printed version.

“An outsized satin wristwatch hangs in Cordova’s small office. Large blue gingham and orange vinyl stars span the walls, windows, doors, floor and ceiling of the adjacent gallery. Bruno Zhu’s exhibition, ‘I am not afraid’, can be consumed quickly and, as its title assures, apprehended without alarm. Yet, the digestion of its curiouser-and-curiouser blend of scalable and temporal enigmas, and autobiography with fiction, appropriately transpires more gradually.” Continue reading


View of Bruno Zhu’s exhibition “I am not afraid” at Cordova. Photos: Latitudes.




Detail of Bruno Zhu’s “Are you OK?” 2022. Satin, quartz clock movement, batteries, foam and plastic. Dimensions variable.

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