“Do you trust things to write human history? To speak on behalf of natural history? Did you ever own a pair of dungarees? When do trivial details become vital? Can a pebble destroy an empire if the emperor chokes at dinner? Would the pebble stand accused? Do you ever feel that the thing we call theory and the thing we call art are moving in different directions? Shouldn’t exhibitions be the place to think about the relationships between human subjects and inanimate objects?…” So began the list of thirty-three questions that confronted visitors to the group exhibition “Coses que les coses diuen” (Things Things Say), curated by Latitudes at Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani (October 2020–January 2021). Alongside a preface by art centre director Joana Hurtado Matheu, a text by participating artist Eulàlia Rovira, and commentaries on each exhibited work, the catalogue accordingly features thirty-three responses. 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.

Designed by Bendita Gloria and with texts in Catalan, Spanish, and English, the publication is available from Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani itself, as well as the Sala Ciutat of the Ajuntament de Barcelona, the Llibreria de la Diputació de Barcelona and Llibreria Laie.

“Things Things Say” was an exhibition with works by Adrià Julià, Annette Kelm, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Sarah Ortmeyer, Eulàlia Rovira, Francesc Serra i Dimas, Stuart Whipps, Haegue Yang, as well as meaningful things from the Friends of Fabra i Coats archive. Check out Latitudes’ other publications here.